Enjoying the fruits of my labour

With all the hard work, insects, raccoons, squirrels, possums and who knows what else I am competing with, its hard to believe I actually manage to get to taste the fruits of my labour.

Anyway, here's some of the fruits now in season:

sugar apple
pineapple
limes
guavas
pomegranates

If I had to choose the most successful of these, I would have to say sugar apple, the small tree took 3 years to really come into bearing, but now we've been eating quite a few sugar apples daily for the last week or so.

So, if you live in a warm enough area, plant a sugar apple already !

Update on growing myrtaceous fruits: Eugenia uhalva added to unsuccessfull list

My third attempt at growing Eugenia uhalva has failed.

Each attempt took 6 months. The seeds are extremely difficult to germinate, then grow slower than anything I've ever seen, then just when you think , ok its going to grow its first real leaf, the shoot withers and dies.

Just to make matters worse, a second shoot may emerge a few weeks later, only to suffer the same fate after weeks of anticipation. All in all, about 6 months of wasted time per try.

If anyone succeeds in growing it, I'd be interested to find out how.

Caught in the act: Caribbean fruit fly

Caribbean fruit fly on green guava

With the recent outbreak of Mediterranean fruit fly here in Palm Beach County, I've been worried about the fruit flies in my own yard. I really wanted to make sure they were not med fly.

Today, I set out with my camera stalking around the variegated guava. I had no problem spotting them, there were many of them all over the guavas ! I don't know if the variegated guavas have a very tough skin, but so far only a few of them have been infested with very small larvae.

My pictures confirm these are Caribbean fruit fly, the bane of every South Florida fruit grower.

I was ably to squash the last one while it has its ovipository inserted, even when it was dead, and I tried to pull it out, it broke off inside the guava. This means they have very sharp nasty ovipositories and explains why they infest so many fruit.

Squashed Caribbean fruit fly with stinger caught in guava

Update: Strawberry guavas deemed unfit

I had to make a decision and fast. Every single strawberry guava is infested with Caribbean fruit fly worms. The fruit flies are now also targeting my other guavas, I frequently spot them with their ovipositaries piercing the fruit, laying their eggs.

After much deliberation I finally made the decision to remove the strawberry guavas. I really hate doing this, especially after waiting more than a year for them to grow and fruit.

The plants themselves are really pretty and ornamental, I am running out of space to plant the edibles I still want that are trouble and disease free, so these two plants had to go. I have learnt my lesson, from now on, only fruit-fly resistant fruits.

I am thinking more and more to just concentrate on the fruit we all really like: mango's.  I will have to concentrate on the condo mango's as space is definitely an issue, I am thinking of getting some early cultivars, Florigon and maybe Choc Anon, which is supposedly a miracle mango as it fruits from November - January. The earliest cultivars all fruit late May - June.

When life gives you elderberries then make some ....

Elderberry jam.

I kept putting it off, every day I'd see quite a few bunches of ripe elderberries and next day most would be gone, probably eaten by birds.

This weekend, I decided to try and make something out of them as there were more ripe bunches than usual. So, I picked a plastic grocery bag full, sat next to my wife watching tv and took all these berries off the stems using another plastic bag - these berries pack a beautifull purple colour, so best not to use your uncovered hands. This is the worst part, getting those thousands of little berries dislodged and removing all the small pieces of stem.

Then I just put it in a small pot (probably 1 quart), the berries filing it about 1/2 way, added very little boiling water, turned the heat up until it started to boil, then added about 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar and kept on boiling it, tasting it every now and again. At first I thought it would be a complete waiste as it tasted bitter and not edible at all, but the longer I cooked it, the better it started tasting. After aobut 20 minutes or so, it started to become sticky, so I let it cool and put the sticky mess into a small jam jar I had my wife keep and wash.

This stuff is delicious ! Unlike anything I've ever tasted, with the skin and many seeds, it has a crunchy texture and is quite chewy. The colour is unbelieveable, dark burgundy, must be loaded with anti-oxidants. Try it on toasted sour dough bread with butter, then add some brie or sharp cheddar on top ... hmm heaven.

Pomegranate update

First I tried foot sox to protect the pomegranates from the leaf footed bugs. They simply ignore them and still suck the juices making them rot.

Then I tried paper bags made from thick magazine glossy paper. I found this almost ripe pomegranate invaded and ruined by monkey beetles, which made a hole in the paper to find the pomegranate and then tunneled right through the foot sox also.

Seems foot sox and paper bags are not going to do it in Florida. Next up ? Maybe I'll try window screen, the nylon type, just need to figure out how to make a bag from it, so that pomegranate is in the middle and insects can't reach it through the mesh, the other option I was thinking is to use row cover material and make bags out of that.  Oh the length us fruit nuts will go through.

It seemed like a good idea at the time

I really wanted a passionfruit vine. I never thought in my wildest dreams it would be this invasive. It started innocent, 3 little vines growing along a trellis, they were supposed to just fill the trellis and any tendrils overgrowing would just be pruned.

It turns out these are lillikoi or yellow passionfruit Passiflora edulis var. flavicarpa - read up on it and you'll discover this vigorous vine quickly smothers and engulfs anything in its path.

Here's the problem, its taking over a substantial part of the garden, not only vinining and smothering everything in its path, its also growing on the ground, space that I normally use to grow squash and pumpkins in the fall. Not only has it overgrown the trellis to the point that the wires basically snapped and can no longer support the weight, its engulfing the largest plant in my garden, a travellers palm. If you just turn your back on it and come back a few days later, the tendrils are starting to vine into anything in its path.

If it was laden with delicous yellow passionfruit, I might overlook its aggressive behavior, but after flowering on an off since January 2010, I have yet to see a single fruit.

 I have to make a decision about it soon, before it becomes almost impossible to get rid of it. Another reason why its hard to get rid of it - I see tonnes of Gulf Fritillary butterflies around it, its one of their hosts plants.