Even though she made landfall in Northern Florida, we felt her wrath down here in West Palm Beach.
Some places had a foot of rain, tornadoes, strong winds. This horse radish tree grew just too tall and the strong wind blew it right over. So much for my plan to create shade over the air conditioning units.
My Barbados cherry also suffered badly and lost half its main limb, just so happened it was full of almost ripe cherries.
The fruit festival at Mounts was a blast. It was completely overcast, so we were spared from the furnace, the temperatures made it into the upper 80's, even so, the humidity was off the charts.
There was great food for everyone, even craft beer from a local brewery, Due South, I brew my own so I appreciate craft beer.
The gardens are in the best shape I have seen it. I could spend hours wondering through the rain forest, the little island with waterfalls....
We were late, by then there were just 3 different fruits to taste, but at least I can say I've tasted mamey sapote, white and Magenta dragon fruit. Of the three, Magenta dragon fruit tastes the best. Mamey sapote tastes like a baked sweet potato, not much to my liking.
There were various vendors selling fruit trees for insanely reasonable prices. I snatched this strawberry tree, Muntingia calabura for $15
People ask me, why do you grow coffee plants, are you going to make your own coffee?
Well, I grow them because I can. When you see the pictures below, I am sure you will agree that its one exceptionally beautiful plant.
If you like gardenias, you will love this plant. The leaves are glossy almost looks unreal. It bears hundreds of small white Jasmine like flowers, that also smell like Jasmine.
Unlike other coffees, this one grows well in full sun. Even the South Florida sun. During the dry months I have to water it now and then when the leaves start drooping. I have only given it a very small amount of rare fruit fertilizer.
This year, we had no frost, regardless they started blooming well after any possibility of frost. I bought the seeds on Tradewindsfruit.com, they have very thick seed coats and off all the seeds only 2 managed to break through the seed coat and grow.
Both are covered in berries, when ripe they'll turn red, they are edible and have a slightly sweet taste. They are apparently very high in anti oxidants.
If you are looking for an exceptionally ornamental but also functional plant, give Catura coffee a try.
I read that roses just don't do well here, still I bought this knock down rootstock from Costco, planted one in a container, stuck the other into the ground in the garden.
The container grown plant succumbed from mites and died, but the one in the garden, just kept growing and blooming almost year round.
Its right by the back window, so every morning when we open the blinds, we're met with one or more beautiful Pink Roses.
I pruned it like you are supposed to in the north, but soon realized it works different here, so now I leave it, when there is dead or crossing canes, I prune it.
It rewards me with stunning blooms year round.
This has been a disappointing year for lithchis. It just didn't cool down for long enough this year, so all over South Florida, everybody is complaining about the same thing, our most favorite fruit trees failed to bloom and set fruit this year.
If there is one fruit that I long for every year, it's the litchi.
To make up for it, the Longans seem to be having a great year. My tree is fruiting the 2nd time and is laden with fruit. I hate waiting for them to ripen, it's like it takes forever.
No, they can't replace the lithchis, but they are fantastic in their own right.
The first year after planting, the Fairchild flowered but didn't set any fruit.
This year, the 2nd,the little 5 foot tree set 12 mango's!
The tree is so short, the fruit is hanging so low and is resting in the grass, where some critters were eating into it, so I picked one of the fruit, let it ripen.
The color outside is dull and Green, but inside its a beautiful dark orange- yellow.
The fruit has some hints of the lancetilla's aromatic spiciness. Unlike the overpowering spiciness of the lancetilla, I find the Fairchild excellent to eat.
So come on, if you can spare a small space in your backyard, you can grow a Fairchild and still be rewarded with lots of fruit.
I say it about a lot of fruit, but pineapples are really one of my favorite fruit.
When I started out with a few pineapple tops, I could never imagine how my pineapple crop would snowball. Once it starts fruiting, most plants produce two or more little offsets on the fruit stem, these can be wrenched off, left to dry a day or so, then planted. I leave the parent plant and it generally produces suckers that fruit faster than any other means of propagation. Within a few years, I have more than 50 plants scattered throughout my garden, anywhere there's a little spot, I stick it in.
No one living in a subtropical climate has any excuse not to grow pineapples.
Pineapples are undemanding, beautiful and offer up a feast in 2-3 years. No store bought pineapple can taste like a ripened pineapple right from your garden.
For the last few weeks , we've been eating one or two pineapples from my garden every day . Most were sweet like candy, with a hint of coconut. Some were less sweet, but for the treasure trove of minerals, vitamins and fibre, who cares. Some are fist sized, some are large like their store bought parents. It likely depends on how much water and nutrient it received.
Nothing is easier to grow, just twist off the top, let it dry a day or two, then make a small hole, stick it in and tamp the soil around it. I don't do anything special, no watering, fertilizing, nothing. They just grow, take their time. Once I plant them, I leave and forget about them, until one day, they suddenly start flowering and within a few months offer up their prize.
The picture below is my new pineapple patch where I removed the dead banana plants, most of these are tops from the fruit we've been eating, some from offsets and a few store bought tops.
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