Florida Fruit Geek

Celebrating the abundance and diversity of tropical fruits.

[floridafruitgeek]

I just had a 'papaya revelation'. Papaya plants make fruit all year, but they especially love the steamy tropical heat of a Florida summer. As the weather turns hot and the days lengthen, the fruits get sweeter, and the flesh color deepens and darkens. At least part of that deep color is due to the presence of lutein and zeaxanthin, two pigments the human eye preferentially accumulates. Scientists aren't positive, but they think the function of these two nutrients may be to protect the delicate tissues of the eye from UV light. So, what just occurred to me...at just the season when our eyes are most exposed to intense UV light, papayas are producing an abundance of the nutrients that may protect our vision from that light. Beautiful! #papaya #papayaplant #lutein #zeaxanthin #summer

[floridafruitgeek]

Homegrown macadamia nuts! Most people associate this delicious and expensive nut with Hawaii, but macadamias actually thrive in many warm-climate areas around the world, including central and southern Florida. There's actually a zone in central Florida where the ranges of macadamia and pecan overlap; lucky gardeners in this area can grow two different types of world-class nuts in their back yards. But while pecans are easy to crack with any hand-held nut-cracker, macadamias have a shell that's so hard it defies belief. I'm sure there are better ways to do this, but when I've had a supply of freshly-harvested macadamias, I've sometimes resorted to hitting them with a hammer. Hard. But once you get that shell cracked, inside is the familiar white macadamia nut, with its creamy-soft delicious flavor. Native to Australia, commercial varieties of macadamia are actually two closely related species, Macadamia integrifolia and Macadamia tetraphylla, and hybrids between the two. The nuts in the picture are on a tree in a friend's yard in Orlando, and the tree appears to be Macadamia tetraphylla. I've succeeded in propagating this tree by cuttings, and I now have a number of small plants of it growing. Macadamia nuts are good food to eat; their oil is high in the same kind of healthful monounsaturated fats that are in olive oil. #macadamia #macadamianut #macadamianuts #Macadamiaintegrifolia #Macadamiatetraphylla #macadamiatree

[floridafruitgeek]

I just harvested all these! The summer pineapple crop has started a month early this year. #pineapple #pineapples #pina #abacaxi #summer #tropicalfruit

[floridafruitgeek]

Lichis are ripening! If you've never had lichi fruits, they taste like the best grapes you've ever eaten in your life. Except better. These were grown by my friend Larry Shatzer of Our Kids Tropicals, who has an amazing collection of tropical fruit trees near Orlando, including some extremely rare stuff. Larry's assistant Ryan @drakesfx is in the pic, showing me where the ripest lichi fruits on the farm are. #lichi #lychee #litchi #Litchichinensis #Sapindaceae

[floridafruitgeek]

Blackberries versus mulberries! These two fruits are a neat example of convergent evolution producing similar-appearing berries on unrelated plants. Both are compound fruits evolved to entice birds to disperse the plants' seeds. Blackberries, on left, are in the rose family - they're related to apples and pears and peaches. They grow on a low, brambly bush that's thorny, at least on the wild types. Mulberries, on right, grow on a tree, and they're in the same family as figs and tropical goodies like jackfruit and breadfruit. If you find either of these for sale in markets, you can always distinguish them by the little stem attached to mulberries. Plus, when you eat them, blackberries have noticeable little crunchy seeds, while mulberries have no detectable seeds. Both berries are delicious and super good for you, loaded with anthocyanin pigments that are so important for good health. #blackberries #mulberries #Rubus #Morus #Rosaceae #Moraceae #eatarainbow #antioxidant #anthocyanins

[floridafruitgeek]

The wild plums are having a banner year. This one is on my property, and it's got a phenomenal crop right now. Lots of the wild plum trees I find around North Florida have sweet, delicious fruit. But it's as if the universe is playing a big gag on me as a fruit geek: the closer I get to my place, the more sour the wild plums are. By the time you get to my property, the wild plum trees have fruits are so sour they taste like they'll strip the enamel off your teeth. (Bad karma? 😉) I'm dealing with it by cutting many of them back and grafting on sweet varieties. But not this tree. Anything that fruits like this is a keeper, plus this tree has a particularly beautiful form, and looks stunning when it gets covered with snow-white blooms in February. But what to do with all those sour plums? I'm looking at recipes for Japanese umeboshi plum vinegar. Anyone have other good recipes for sour plums? #plum #wildfruit #sour #Prunusumbellata

[floridafruitgeek]

I've realized something recently: there are a TON of wild plum trees around here. Spotted this magnificent beauty along the road to my property. Flavor varies a lot from plum tree to plum tree - on this one, fruits are a little on the tart side, but very pleasant and plum-y. I'd driven past this tree countless times, but I never spotted it until I bicycled past it during fruiting season last year, when it was loaded with plums. It's got another heavy crop again this year. Makes me wonder how many times did I drive by this tree over the years, and never saw all that beautiful fruit because I was...driving. So I guess that's another potential health benefit of biking - not only do you get the exercise, but if you keep your eyes out, there are also potentially the health benefits of including more fruit in your diet. (Health benefits of plums: they contain chlorogenic and neochlorogenic acids, which offer significant antioxidant protection, and may help slow the rise of blood sugar after a meal). **Please only bicycle on roads that are bike-friendly. Consequences of bicycle-car interactions can over-rule the health benefits of exercise & fruit consumption. 😘 #plum #Prunusumbellata #wildfruit #wildfood #antioxidant #bicycling

[floridafruitgeek]

Papaya abundance in the greenhouse. In the tropics, papaya fruits are available year-round. Here in the almost-tropics, they're available seasonally from outdoor plantings, and year-round from greenhouses. But the funny thing is, the greenhouse papaya plants here develop an odd "super-branching" habit. Apparently it's a physiological reaction to frequent exposure to near-frost conditions in these minimally heated greenhouses over winter. The branches grow tall and load up with fruit, enhancing the feel of it being a "papaya fruit forest". #papaya #mamao #greenpapaya #greenhouse #tropicalfruit

[floridafruitgeek]

Australian beach cherries are fruiting in my greenhouse. Also called Cedar Bay Cherry, this species is reported to be be nearly ever-bearing on mature plants. My plant is only about a foot tall, and it's been popping out a few fruits sporadically, but that's been enough for me to conclude that the flavor is excellent. I look forward to having these in near-continuous production as my plant matures. This one is part of the wonderful Eugenia group of tropical 'cherries'. It used to be Eugenia carissoides, but it's been reclassified as Eugenia reinwardtiana. A friend has one in a seven-gallon pot in his greenhouse, and it has fruit most of the year. #australianbeachcherry #cedarbaycherry #Eugeniacarissoides #Eugeniareinwardtiana #Myrtaceae

[floridafruitgeek]

Wonderberries! I'm getting obsessed with finding easy-to-grow fruits that are high in anthocyanins, the purple antioxidant pigments that are so important for good health. The research on benefits of anthocyanins is simply astounding, including: -Preventing age-related decline in neural function -Protection against cardiovascular disease -Improving blood sugar regulation -Reduce cancer cell proliferation and tumor formation. Wonderberry is a hybrid species developed by Luther Burbank over a century ago. Called Solanum burbankii or Solanum retroflexum, it produces abundant crops of berries that are intensely purple with several types of anthocyanins. I grew it from seed, and I'm just getting my first harvest now. So what's my verdict so far? The fruits do indeed have deep dark purple pigmentation, especially just under the skin. I was a bit underwhelmed by the experience of eating them fresh off the plant: the berries are small, kind of seedy, and don't have a lot of flavor. I've heard they are traditionally used in cooked dishes, sweetened with sugar. They might be good in a smoothie, mixed in with sweeter, more flavorful fruits. It'd be great if a breeding program could develop this species to have larger, fleshier, more flavorful berries. Wonderberry is in the same genus as tomato - I wonder if the two species can be hybridized to create intensely purple, anthocyanin-rich tomatoes. I've got lots of other anthocyanin fruit-growing experiments in the works - stay tuned! #wonderberry #wonderberries #Solanumburbankii #Solanumretroflexum #berries #antioxidant #anthocyanins #eatarainbow #eattherainbow

[floridafruitgeek]

How do you know when a stalk of bananas is mature enough to harvest? I've heard different theories on this, but I've only found one method that's completely reliable: wait till you see the first banana start to turn yellow. See it? Before that point, you can cut the stalk while they're all still green, and they will yellow and ripen off the plant, but you run the risk that they won't be mature enough to ripen to the full flavor that's possible for that variety. But once that first fruit turns yellow, the fruits are mature enough to ripen to reach their full symphony of flavors. I suspect that one reason grocery-store bananas are so bland tasting is that they were harvested for shipping weeks before they were fully mature. In my opinion, if you want to REALLY experience the exquisite flavor that's possible in bananas, you need to do what's shown in the pic, or get them from someone who did. #banana #bananaplant #tropicalfruit

[floridafruitgeek]

Hellooo, peaches! (Can you tell peach season makes me happy?) These lovelies were grown using only organic fertilizers, and no sprays of any kind. Peaches are thought of as a temperate-zone fruit, but in Florida their range overlaps with many of the world's great tropical fruits. At the Fruit and Spice Park in Homestead, I've eaten fresh-off-the-tree peaches within seed-spitting distance of great big mango trees and jackfruit trees and coconut palms. #peaches #Prunuspersica #fruitselfie #plantgeek #fruitgeek #geek #nerd

[floridafruitgeek]

It's peach season here! Florida is a transitional zone, where the range of tropical fruits like mango overlaps with the range of temperate-zone fruits like peaches. I got these lovelies at the farmers market, where the grower told me they've got a very short peak season. I've only dabbled a tiny bit with growing peaches at my place, but the flavor of these is inspiring me to plant a bunch more. #peach #peaches #Prunuspersica #melocoton #paradise

[floridafruitgeek]

I've been able to cut my sugar intake by using these berries, called miracle fruit, Synsepalum dulcificum. Before I had access to these, when I would make lemonade (or more often, sour-orange-ade!), I'd sweeten the drink with plenty of sugar or honey. Or if I was making a smoothie with fruits that were a bit on the tart side, I'd throw in some honey or dried fruit to sweeten it up. Don't need to do that when these are around. Miracle fruit alters your taste receptors, so that for an hour after you eat one, any sour flavors taste sweet. On a hot day, it's sooo nice to squeeze some sour citrus juice into a glass of cold water, suck on a couple miracle fruits, then sit back and enjoy the sweet "lemonade" - without any added sweetener. The miracle fruit effect makes it taste like you dumped a bunch of sugar in. #miraclefruit #miracleberry #nosugar #lemonade #unsweetened #Synsepalumdulcificum #paradise

[floridafruitgeek]

Nice stalk of 'Dwarf Orinoco' bananas plumping out in the greenhouse. This variety can be used as a plantain in cooked dishes like tostones, and it's also great as a fresh eating banana - when fully ripe, the fruits become soft and sweet, with a hint of strawberry flavor. 'Dwarf Orinoco' is an especially productive variety - under ideal growing conditions, it can make stalks of fruit that weigh up to 90 pounds (40 Kg). #banana #bananaplant #plantain #platanos #tostones

[floridafruitgeek]

It's cherry season in Florida! Not the northern cherries (genus Prunus) many people know, but tropical "cherries" in the genus Eugenia. This one is Cherry of the Rio Grande, Eugenia aggregata, which is probably the most cold-hardy of the group, handling winter freezes down to 20F (-7C), so it's well-suited to growing here in North Florida. The Eugenia genus is big and diverse and delicious, including Surinam cherry (Eugenia uniflora), pitomba (Eugenia luschnathiana), and pitangatuba (Eugenia neonitida). I'm steadily expanding my Eugenia collection, enjoying the diversity of tropical "cherries". #cherryoftheRioGrande #Eugenia #Eugeniaaggregata #Eugeniainvolucrata #cherry #cherries

[floridafruitgeek]

Grapefruit: next year's crop and this year's crop on the same tree at the same time. Grapefruits stay on the tree so long that there's a period in spring when they're still hanging there, sweet and tasty, while the little baby fruits of the following year's crop are developing. These trees have fruit on them 12 months a year. #grapefruit #citrus #fruittree #toronja #pomolo #Florida