Had no problem with TT and I will order from them again. I do recommend doing your own research and not using their descriptions as gospel. I have had none of the problems LivinginParadise has had.

I am interested in one of these. In case we are close, what city are you in or near? Everyone's definition of central FL is different. There's one dude in Vero who considers him in central florida and I consider that south Florida with Tampa being the border of Central FL and South Florida. 

In 9b as well. There are a few in my neighborhood I have learned about on our gardening FB page. My neighbor across the street has a fairly large one in ground he doesn't live there to protect. I am going to get some seeds from it I think and grow one myself when I replace yet another citrus tree.

I have pretty low luck with citrus and am gradually removing them when they become too much of an eyesore and I have something to replace them. Very much a case of new home owner, excited to have room for fruit trees and figuring that "Hey, its Florida!" 100+ fruit trees and 5 years later I am down to 9 citrus trees with 3 on a short list for removal.

Mangos do well here. I have 2 in pots, Mahanchok(sp?), and a Pickering, then a Cotton Candy, Graham, Sweet tart, and lemon zest in the ground. I got fruit this year of the Graham and Pickering. I had flowers on the ST and LZ, but before I realized it, like literally overnight, those damn grey and orange weevils got to them and devastated the flowers and really hurt the LZ's leaves before I got rid of them. I still find the occasional weevil on my persimmon and all spice trees. For some weird reason they ignored my graham and pickering, although a deer tore up the Graham pretty bad, it still ended up with a lone fruit. Most of my mangos have a modicum of protection being in full sunlight but under the overhanging branches of oaks or pine trees. While it might not be the best protection, they weathered the light frosts we had the past two years with no problem. My sugar apple is under the same protection and it does great.

The Cotton candy is too recently planted to gauge anything about it. It hasn't even put out its first flush yet but seems to be happy. My LZ which got messed up from the weevils is finally recovering and is hardening its first successful flush. While the weevils screwed up the flowers on my ST, they don't seem to mess with the leaves and it is starting its 3rd flush of the season and has gained about a foot and a half of height. The container trees aren't near as vigorous. The graham is still recovering from the deer attack and is growing oddly, I might have to do some bonsai work to make it look like a normal tree again.

I am east of Orlando just past Bithlo. Listening to Adam talk about his weather over at his nursery, we get completely different weather from the northern Orlando area. Not surprising though since our rainfall record is completely different as well. for example, I had to go water my container and newly planted stuff yesterday and if we don't get any rain this afternoon I am going to have to go run the irrigation system. Havent had rain since Saturday.

Has anyone tried using piles of mulch? I had a four foot pile in my yard "composting"(ie. I would get to it at some point) and the heat radiated off the pile. I don't know who crawled around on giant saw dust piles as kids(yeah I now know that was dangerous) and sledded down them, but they were always hot. So I wonder if placing good sized piles of mulch under trees would accomplish a thermal source that would rise and keep the tree above it warm? Obviously not up against the tree itself although I hear mounding around the trunk is a thing.

Actually mine did the same thing this year. I had a lot of fruits for once and they got to about pinky thickness but never changed to yellowish orange and then just shriveled into nothing.

Hey Shot, I am curious since I have never seen it sold before, what does an average jackfruit sell for by the pound?

Not an expert by any means but I will tell you what I know. Buy them as eggs or one or two day old chicks and keep them dry as getting them wet can kill them apparently although obviously they need water to drink. bring them to their home as soon as you/they can as they will bond to the area. The trick I heard is after the chick stage keep them in a coop for a few weeks to get used to the area and let them out a little each day. They will range about a quarter mile from their coop. You can keep them in a coop at night or not. Obviously if you have predators in the area you will have casualties but GF are quite a bit tougher than chickens when it comes to predators. My neighbor keeps his free at night every now and then until my other neighbor complained they were following his around and walking on their mustang. We have bobcats, raccoons and possums and he didn't have issues but has had regular chickens killed off when accidently left out. They are quite loud and are clearly audible from my garage 250 yards away.

I am no expert by a long shot and I grow as a hobby not as a source of income but I have read on this subject extensively and know quite a few things I would change on my limited 2 acre property that I would do if I had to start over.  You are in PR correct? You have sizable land available to buy? You can grow almost anything. I don't know how big you are planning. First off, before you worry about methodology, you need to figure out who is your market and what actually sells. Are you selling in a farmers market, are you selling in stores? I have been to PR but I was on a mission so didn't get near as much time to look at markets or trees. The reason this matters is you want to maximize what actually sells vs what you can grow. This then will determine your methodology on how to go about growing. If you know something is kind of rare but when it shows up it is a big seller then maybe devote a decent portion of your land to this. I would make the majority of the property your bread and butter tree(s). There's usually a reason something is rare and you don't want to base your entire crop on it. Therefore having a bread and butter tree will ensure you have a product that will sell and will reliably grow in quantity in your climate. If you have a big enough property, you will have enough space to try multiple different methodologies then based on the trees involved. If you have a shade loving crop tree, then awesome try the SALT method.  Then if you wish to live off the land, have an acre or so for growing ground crops specifically for you, I have heard a garden needs to be a half acre a person so there you go.

Ponds. Have fun with it. If I had that sized area I would have several ponds connected by some smaller canals with large overhanging trees providing shade on them with stone foot bridge crossings. Use the dirt to fill in low areas elsewhere or large mounds for trees that don't like as much water and make a small waterfall elsewhere using a water pump. Then work out from there. The whole trail idea sounds like a winner but again, you will need to decide whether you want an orchard or a food park as the undergrowth is going to drive you nuts even on a couple acres if you cant mow it.  Then again, with that amount of sized land you can easily do both. There are some fruit trees that like being near river edges. My neighbor across the street has only 10 acres and he has 4 different small ponds, two surrounded by different water loving fruit trees.

You definitely have room for both a fun area and a more serious orchard area that is designed for easier upkeep and you want easy upkeep for the majority of it. Thankfully irrigation is a non issue. My neighbor has a hard time taking care of just his ten acres and has had to hire someone to help a few times a week. Unless this is going to be a full time job for you, you need to consider this as well. Invest in a good mower. Don't be in a rush to fill the area up at once. For pollination reasons you might consider certain areas for certain tree types. Mangoes I imagine get pretty tall there. Maybe make one corner your mango corner and start with one at the edge of the property and start planting inward.

Another thing I personally always wanted to do was to walk through a mature allspice orchard. I have heard the smell when surrounded and under the canopies of dozens of allspice trees is amazing. Cant do that on my dinky 2 acres. 

An mango I picked up years ago that got hit hard by two successive frosts. I was still new at trees so I didn't give up hope and just planted the dead stump in the back 40 out of the way of everything. Lo and behold, spring comes and so do new leaves. I doubt it will ever get tree like in shape or have any hope the mangos will be any good since growth is coming up below the graft but its fun watching it.

Yay rain. I suddenly discover my roof leaks since there hasnt been rain for like a year and a half to notice. Then pull down the soffett to get a look at the leak and get mud and insulation dumped on me. Note this is all at the tail end of the storm. Then I go to wash the yuck off and no water. My well pump burned out on me. Well dude guessed there was a lightning strike nearby. When it rains it pours.

Very nice. I didn't get any flowers this year from my lychees. Lots of nice flushes of new leaves, especially from the big one I pruned but no flowers :(I think it was the lack of cold weather and drought.