What are you canning now?

[flgardengirl]

No not Tampa, I am in NE FL area lol.
Pine Island Nursery is a good site to see about different varieties of tropical fruits. They have a variety viewer that tells about each kind. Click the first link listed below and go to Mango Viewer, then scroll all the way down and on the right it will say Condo Mangos. Click on that and it will show some smaller varieties that can be grown in pots. I have seen some of these varieties at Lowe's on occasion and they are 29.99 there I think. This is an excellent nursery (Pine Island) they will ship to most states. The shipping is kind of expensive because they really pack them well. If you are in FL, and you could make a trip sometime and pick up them yourself then it would be cheaper. The Pine Island Nursery is huge you may be chauffeured in a golf cart if you go LOL.

Ebay is another option to buy tropical fruit trees once you know what variety you want. Just make sure to get grafted trees vs seedling if at all possible they will fruit years sooner. Cacao is almost always sold as seedling and don't take that long to fruit..
Another place to see, buy, and actually taste Mangos before you buy is Fairchild Botanical Garden. They have a Mango Festival once per year. They also have a Chocolate festival. If you do a search you can probably find all the details. There is also The Tropical Fruit and Spice Park down in Homestead (if you make it down towards Miami sometime for Fairchild then it isn't too much further to Homestead) They have all kinds of stuff there. Then there is Echo Nursery I think its around Fort Myers area. They sell different varieties of tropical fruits and other edible plants. I know people all over the US even Ohio who successfully grow tropical fruit trees in pots (in their greenhouses in the winter).

http://www.tropicalfruitnursery.com/viewers.htm
http://www.echonet.org/content/nursery

Oh yeah if you type in certain nurseries and stuff like Mango Lychee etc on You tube the coolest videos can be seen. Fairchild Botanical Garden has some good videos on culture and grafting etc.

These guys are in Calif and have a wealth of tropical fruit information on thier website.
http://www.crfg.org/pubs/frtfacts.html

 

[Happy Chooks]

flgardengirl........The mango raspberry jam I made is heavenly too. It's in the Ball Blue book if you have that - I just omitted the pectin and cooked longer. (I prefer my jams without pectin - it's a texture thing for me)

It was interesting to me when I was looking for the mango lime recipe, that mango plants are related to poison ivy and they said you can react from touching green mangoes and not to touch your eyes.

 

[flgardengirl]

Thanks I will have to look up the Mango Raspberry recipe. The mango trees have a kind of sap that some people are allergic to and the green mangoes do too. I think some people will fry green mangoes and even make green mango salad etc so everyone must not be allergic to it. I am though.
I think people who are allergic to latex are usually allergic to alot of the sap from certain plants and tropical fruit trees and probably people with Oral Allergy Syndrome would for sure be allergic to the plant sap and of course raw mangoes.

 

[vfem]

Impatience is KILLING me, going to make a phone call about those figs... I NEED them!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[KDbeads]

Speaking of figs.....

What can I do with them? This is an idea garnering question as I don't have any..... yet. Only recipes I remember involve cooking and peeling them, can I not get around peeling? Hate peeling things....

 

[vfem]

Quote:
Depends on your fig type... I think some have tough skin, the ones I get have soft edible skin and I never skin them

They are YUMMY! We like them fresh, and sometime I squish them up with a masher and some sugar, then pour them over pound cake like you would strawberry short cake. Saw another recipe the other day with the figs cut in half and dabbed with butter and maple syrup (1 pinch of cinnamon) then roasted in the oven skin on for 20 minutes at 375. Then they were poured over riccotta cheese and the butter & syrup make a nice fig syrup to pour over all that. I think it would work with cottage cheese too.

 

[KDbeads]

Do you know what variety you are getting? Those sounds better for canning! I have maybe 4 canning recipes for figs, will be attacking my mom's tree until I can get my own. I may take a cutting off it if it's the same variety.

 

[vfem]

They're called Purple something or other... not the Turkey figs. I wish I could remember. They're much smaller then the common Turkey ones.

 

[3goodeggs]

Fla garden girl, thanks!
I used to go to Fairchild's a lot in my youth. I took a class at the Montgomery foundation and for two blissful weeks we got to study botany at Fairchild's. I got introduced to Lychee and Mamay.
Unfortunately we never made it to the Redlands Tropical fruit and Spice Park... That is something I have always wanted to do.
I will show my husband the sites and convince him that we NEED these things for FOOD. yea, that's it.

Also Poison ivy, poison oak, Brazilian-pepper, poison wood, mangos, and cashews are all in the same family, Anacardiaceae, but I think they changed the name on me since college.
I just looked up the spelling, because my spell check doesn't do Latin

, and the book also has pistachio in the same family.

 

[KDbeads]

Quote:
Hmmm... Maybe LSU Purple but I'm thinking there's another one as well...