Pomegranate is an excellent plant for home growing. With proper care, it will delight you with a beautiful view and delicious fruits. In addition, this plant is unpretentious and suitable even for beginner gardeners. You will learn about how to grow pomegranate at home and how to care for it from this material.
Choose planting material
It is better to grow fruits from grains in late February or early March. Then the seedlings will appear in 2-3 weeks after sowing. At other times, you will have to wait several months.
To grow pomegranate from the bones of a house, it’s important to pick up viable material. Buy seeds only in specialized stores. And be sure to check the quality of the seeds. They should be white or creamy, hard to the touch and with a smooth surface. Soft and green seeds will not germinate, so refuse to buy such planting material. Choose these varieties:
- Uzbekistan The variety at home reaches 2 meters in height and 1.5 in diameter. Therefore, the variety is suitable for owners of spacious apartments. The pomegranate has spherical, bright red fruits, weighing 120 g. They have a sweet and sour taste and burgundy color of grains.
- Baby The variety reaches 1.5 meters in height. It has yellow-brown fruits with a red blush. They ripen by mid-winter and reach 5–7 cm in diameter. The variety requires artificial pollination.
- Carthage. The tree grows up to a meter in height. It has dark red or orange fruits that differ in taste from ordinary pomegranates. Most often, the variety is grown for decorative purposes.
- Nana. Dwarf hybrid, reaching 70 cm in height. It blooms in the first year after planting with large orange-red buds. Sweet and sour fruits reach 7 cm in diameter.
Is it possible to grow pomegranate at home from fruits purchased in a store or on the market? Of course you can. But keep in mind that most of these fruits are hybrids. And the trees grown from them do not retain the taste of the variety. For growing, choose ripe fruits with a bright red peel with no signs of rot and mechanical damage.
Seed preparation
Before you grow pomegranate at home on the windowsill, it is important to properly prepare the seeds. Peel them thoroughly and rinse well. Note that if at least a little sweet shell remains on the grains, then they will grow moldy. Pour the cleaned seeds with the addition of 2-3 drops of Epina or Zircon. The liquid should cover the seeds in half.
Place the container in a cool place where there are no drafts, and leave it for 12 hours. Make sure that moisture does not evaporate. If this happens, the grains will dry out, their shell will crack, and they will not germinate. Therefore, add water as needed.
How to grow potted pomegranates at home
Plant seeds in universal soil for flowering plants. If you want to make a substrate yourself, then mix peat, fertile soil and sand in equal parts. Before growing pomegranates at home in this soil, be sure to sanitize the mixture. To do this, bake it in the oven or hold it over steam. So you protect the seedlings from pathogenic bacteria that live in the soil. How to plant seeds:
- Pour a layer of drainage onto the bottom of the pot. For these purposes, use expanded clay, broken brick or pebbles.
- Fill the drainage with disinfected soil.
- Dry the grains with a paper towel and deepen them into the substrate by 1-1.5 cm.
- Sprinkle the planting with warm water from the spray gun and cover the pot with polyethylene or glass.
Put the greenhouse in a warm, well-lit place. Keep the room temperature within +25 ° C. Ventilate the greenhouse regularly and keep the soil from drying out. To do this, spray the substrate from the spray with settled warm water.
Seedling Care
Seedlings during planting in winter appear already in the second, third week. When this happens, begin to take cover. First remove the glass for an hour, then two and so on. When the sprouts get stronger, and a pair of real leaves appear on them, dive the seedlings into separate containers, shortening the roots of the plants by a third. For planting, the same soil mixture that you used for seed germination is suitable. Be sure to make good drainage.
When the seedlings form about three pairs of leaves, pinch their top. This stimulates the branching of the tree. Once again, pinch each of the shoots when three branches of leaflets appear on the branches. Then the pomegranate will grow a lush tree.
Culture cultivation
Pomegranate is an unpretentious plant. But in order to achieve rapid growth and fruiting from it, it will be necessary to create comfortable conditions for the tree. To do this, follow these agrotechnical measures:
- regular watering;
- maintaining optimal temperature, humidity and lighting;
- frequent top dressing;
- transfer;
- trimming and forming crowns.
Read more about how to grow pomegranate at home and create comfortable conditions for it, read on.
Temperature
Pomegranate is a thermophilic plant. And for normal growth in the spring and summer, he needs a temperature of + 20 ... + 22 ° C. In the heat, it is advisable to take the pot to the veranda or balcony. If this is not possible, then spray the foliage more often to “cool” the crop. Otherwise, the tree will lose leaves, and this will slow down its development.
During fruit ripening, which occurs in the fall, maintain a temperature of + 14 ... + 16 ° C in the room. From November to March, it is advisable to arrange a tree at rest. To do this, transfer the pot to a room with + 10 ... + 12 ° C.
Lighting
Homemade pomegranate is a very photophilous plant. And for development he needs good lighting. Therefore, install the pot near the east, south or west window. But do not forget to cover the culture from the midday rays of the sun.
Is it possible to grow pomegranate at home on the north side of the room? Such a placement of culture is possible only if you provide the tree with additional lighting with a lamp. Daylight hours for a plant should last at least 12 hours.
Watering
Regular and plentiful irrigation is the basic rule of how to grow pomegranate at home. In spring and summer, water the plant 4–5 times a week so that the soil is barely wet. But make sure that the water does not stagnate in the substrate. When the tree blooms, reduce irrigation, but do not allow the soil to dry out. After the buds are gone, moisten the substrate well. Then next year the tree will give more flowers. In winter, minimize watering and moisten the soil no more than once a month.
For irrigation use only filtered and settled water for at least 24 hours. The temperature of the liquid should be 1–2 ° higher than that of indoor air.
Pomegranate loves high humidity. Therefore, from spring to autumn, regularly spray the leaves of the culture. In hot weather, carry out this procedure 1-2 times a day. In winter, especially if you keep the tree in a cool room, cancel spraying.
Top dressing
An important rule of how to grow pomegranates at home is regular fertilizer application. From the beginning of spring to autumn, feed the tree every 2 weeks. Use complex preparations intended for indoor plants for this. If you grow a crop in order to get fruits, then instead of mineral fertilizers, add organic ones - chicken manure solution or dung liquid. But remember that if you feed the tree with nitrogen, you will not wait for the buds and, accordingly, the fruits.
Transfer
The pomegranate tree grows better in tight containers, because the larger the pot, the more the culture produces barren bell-shaped buds. But you need to transplant the plant. Spend the first event by transshipment one year after planting. Then transplant the pomegranate when its roots completely fill the pot. Better to do it in the spring. Choose a container with a diameter of 2-3 cm larger than the previous one. Do not transplant mature trees, but change the top layer of the substrate annually.
Pruning
To pomegranate fruit better, do not forget to prune the crown. Perform the procedure in February, when the tree begins to form buds. Form a plant with a bush with 3–4 skeletal branches, or in the form of a tree with a low stem, on which 4–5 skeletal shoots are present. In the future, on each of them leave 4–5 processes of the second order. Cut excess branches, choosing weak shoots, and those that grow deep into the crown. Remember that pomegranate bears fruit only on the processes of the current year. Therefore, remove the old shoots. And also do not forget to cut basal shoots.
How to grow pomegranate from cuttings at home
Start the event in the summer when the non-lignified shoots of this year appear on the tree. For cuttings, choose growths of a length of 10 cm. And also for propagation, root shoots can be used. So, how to grow pomegranate from a branch at home:
- Place the cuttings with the lower cut into the solution of the root stimulant, for example, “Kornevina”. Hold the twigs in the liquid for 6 hours.
- Before planting, rinse the shoots under running water and deepen them 2-3 cm into a container filled with a mixture of peat and sand.
- Moisten the soil and cover the plants with polyethylene or cut plastic bottles.
- Put the greenhouse in a bright, warm place.
Regularly moisten the soil to prevent it from drying out. When the cuttings give root, after 6-10 weeks, transplant them into separate containers filled with soil for citrus crops and always with drainage. Or use a mixture of humus, leaf, turf land and sand.
Growing problems
Pomegranate is an unpretentious plant, but with improper care, the tree is naughty. Often, inexperienced flower growers encounter such problems:
- The leaves turn yellow. A similar phenomenon occurs if the culture is hot. Move the tree to a cool room or increase the spraying of leaves with cool water.
- The leaves turn yellow and dark spots appear on them. So the plant reacts to a lack of moisture. To correct the situation, increase watering.
- Pomegranate leaves are falling. If this happens in the fall, then don’t worry. So the plant is preparing for wintering. If leaf fall began in spring or summer, then most likely the tree suffers from heat and insufficient watering.
- Leaves of culture dry up. Insufficient humidity in the room leads to a similar phenomenon. But the leaves also dry out due to violation of the irrigation regime, which led to rotting of the roots. Take a look at the soil, if it smells of mold, then immediately transplant the culture into a new land. Be sure to inspect the roots of the tree and remove the rotten processes. The places of cuts are processed with crushed charcoal.
- Cracked bark, and wounds with spongy swelling appear on the shoots. This leads to branch cancer. At the first signs of the disease, clean the lesions to a healthy tissue and treat the wounds with copper sulfate, and then garden var.
Often, pests are planted on neglected plants: spider mites, scale insects, whiteflies, aphids, mealybugs. To get rid of insects, treat the tree three times with insecticides such as "Aktara" or "Aktellika" with an interval of 5-6 days.
Now you know how to grow pomegranates at home and how to care for the plant. Adhere to these rules and provide the culture with comfortable conditions, and it will thank with its fast growth and tasty fruits.
Exotic momordica
Some stores offer the seeds of Indian pomegranate momordica. This plant is an annual vine. And with the usual pomegranate it is connected only by the name and the presence of red sweet seeds. Otherwise, these cultures are strikingly different. Therefore, if you are offered such a variety, passing it off as a tree, refuse to purchase. If you want to replenish the collection with a new exotic fruit, then feel free to purchase seeds. After all, getting fruits from them is not so difficult.
How to grow indian pomegranate momordica at home? Sow the seeds in containers filled with loose, fertile soil with a neutral reaction. Peat-friendly tablets are suitable. Start the event in late March - early April. Soak the seeds in a honey solution (1 tsp. In a glass). Wrap them in a napkin and lay them in a warm place on damp sawdust. Keep planting material in this state for 10-12 days, not forgetting to regularly moisten the fabric.
Deepen the prepared seeds with an edge 1-1.5 cm. Moisten and slightly compact the soil. Then put the landing in a warm, drafts-free place. Water the soil regularly to prevent it from drying out. At the end of May, transplant seedlings into separate pots, preserving an earthen lump. In the future, provide momordica with regular watering and periodic top dressing, and it will bring tasty and healthy fruits.