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Messages - Coconut Cream

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1
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Mango Fest 2025!!!
« on: February 17, 2025, 10:19:05 PM »
Let us convene the First Ecumenical Council To Review & Redress Grievances Of Horrible And Inaccurate Mango Variety Names.

Confusing and duplicative names shall be stricken from the annals of history and renamed correctly by The Wise Council. I'm looking at you, USDA Himsagar!

Namers of silly named cultivars that have become accepted in common usage shall be stripped of future naming rights and subject to punishment by Tommy Atkins. You ragamuffins know who you are.

Equal justice under the law!

2
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Alex Salazar (Squam256) Live on YouTube
« on: February 17, 2025, 10:56:12 AM »
Hi coconut. Can you go into why some people say to not fertilize or water trees? I’ve been told by my mango mentor to water especially in early stages , and during the dry season, but curious as why people would advocate against that? I’ve noticed young trees (around 2 years old) planted in ground, non-irrigated can grow just fine when receiving only rain water but I never considered extra water would be a bad thing, especially in the early stages.

It would be wrong of me to speculate on why other people make their very personal choices on how to care for their trees. Speaking only for myself, I was drawn to the youtube videos that made the growing process look easy with minimal input, probably because I am lazy. Some growers, in some microclimates, might get fast growth and productive harvests by not watering and not fertilizing mango trees. I was not one of them. When I ignored my young mango trees they survived but never thrived. Only after I started heavy watering and mulching and fertilizing did they take off and start growing. Well irrigation made the biggest difference.

Withholding water (except in extreme drought) from mature mango trees during blooming and fruit development times makes intellectual sense, because drought stress can induce flowering and excess water can dilute the flavor and sweetness of the fruit. On the other hand, the mango fruit is made up chiefly of water so the tree must require some amount of water during fruit development, right? Drought stress can cause fruit drop, and I feel like we are getting longer dry seasons stretching into June and even July. How much water is too much? I have to water my lawn to keep it alive during the dry season.

We all have to find the balance of what works best for our own trees and it really took me a while. Mango trees are not native to Florida, so trying to grow them "naturally" in fully native conditions proved difficult. The most important concept for me was to understand the distinct needs of juvenile trees and how that differs from mature trees.

3
Citrus General Discussion / Re: Best Potting Soil
« on: February 16, 2025, 11:13:41 PM »
Since you are close to Jack & The Beanstalk in Loxahatchee, I would take a drive there and speak to Catherine. Her citrus trees always look great, and she has her own recipe on how to get excellent results. A lot of what she said went over my head since I am not that into growing citrus, but if you speak that language she can give you the perspective of someone getting great results in a similar location.

I was there on Saturday and she also has several newly released selections from the greening resistance trials. I was shopping for Jabos so I didn't look in detail, but if you have any interest in citrus Catherine is a great person to know, and very helpful and sweet person to boot.

4
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Alex Salazar (Squam256) Live on YouTube
« on: February 16, 2025, 08:29:56 PM »
No as in no fertilizer? Palm/cactus mix from the big box store doesn’t have much in the way of nutrients.

I know, there are people that say no fertilizer (and even no watering!) for mangoes, including experts. That is sort of correct in my view. For juvenile mango trees that have are not large enough to bear fruit, I want to encourage quick vegetative growth to get them large enough to fruit. So I do give fertilizer with nitrogen, along with grass clippings and wood chip mulch. Something like 8-3-9 with micronutrients should do the trick for your young tree, even the standard fruit tree fertilizer from Home Depot works well enough if you want an easy option. Your local nursery should have the specialist fertilizers like slow-release Nutricote or Osmocote. The 6 month slow-release is a good choice if you can find it. Water heavily for fast growth as well.

Once your 3 foot mango tree gets to 6 feet tall with a thicker trunk, then you can adjust your routine to the fruit production stage, to limit the nitrogen and limit the water during bloom/fruit time.

5
Who knew, wasn't Denzler supposed to be fall fruiting?! Maybe it gets a second crop or something.

That was one reason why I got the Denzler from Catherine at Jack & The Beanstalk Nursery. She talks about the fall season fruiting in this video:

https://youtu.be/upFkbFA-7ls?si=ysNMt5te7_4WCMPA&t=1090


6
Citrus General Discussion / Re: Planting 5 acres of Citrus in Georgia
« on: February 16, 2025, 06:42:58 PM »
If growing for money, start with research into market demand and cost basis, then work backward from there.

7
I got both the lesser and greater varieties from Derek and they are really nice. I buy a lot of rhizomes and these came out of the box very fresh and very viable. Big cuttings with lots of roots. Some of them were already sprouting and each cutting had plenty of eyes. They are already in the ground and I am confident I'll get close to 100% strike rate on them. I am curious how they will grow and perform in the various spots I tucked them in. I am hoping they carry through the winter better than some of my ornamental ginger plants.

8
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Are these safe/good coconuts to drink?
« on: February 15, 2025, 08:00:50 PM »
When you open the the coconut to drain the liquid, if you smell a foul odor or taste any fermentation/carbonation in the water, then don't eat that one. If you pick them off the tree you will be safe.

Here are some more tips for opening coconuts:

https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=56816.msg536827#msg536827

9
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Are these safe/good coconuts to drink?
« on: February 15, 2025, 05:59:21 PM »
Is there such a thing as a coconut you shouldn't eat? The only bad ones I've seen are just the rotten ones under the tree.

I've eaten coconuts of all descriptions, colors, and ripeness levels. The younger ones are easier to open and might have jelly meat or rubber meat, but the mature nuts with harder meat are also great.

10
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Florida Spring Avocados
« on: February 15, 2025, 04:39:30 PM »
Lara has Ronnie in 3 gallon for $90 + shipping. Generally, the 3 gallon trees I have mail ordered from Julian have been very large and healthy for their pot sizes and completely ready to plant. Tropical Acres or Truly Tropical might also have Ronnie in 7 gallon. I don't think anywhere else is grafting it right now.

The 1 gallons are much more freshly grafted and vulnerable to failure. I would plan on about 6 months - 1 year in the pot before planting a 1 gallon avocado.

11
Denzler isn't doing anything yet which makes sense since it's supposed to fruit later in the fall. Anyone else feel free to add your notes so we can all learn!

Interesting. My Denzler flowered a while back and has already set fruit here in the very southern tip of 10A.

12
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Fruit Tree suggestion requested
« on: February 14, 2025, 02:54:45 PM »
Your limiting factor is going to be the flooding. The usual suggestions for plants that like wet feet include Jaboticaba, Sapodilla and Annonas grafted on pond apple root stock. That's what I have planted in my low area, but it rarely has standing water longer than a few hours after a storm.

This discussion should give you more ideas:  https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=45285.0

13
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Florida Spring Avocados
« on: February 13, 2025, 11:17:55 AM »
It sounds like you already have pretty good coverage and have made some good choices, I apologize for replying as if you had no experience growing avocados :)

Apmay is only available through Lara, and nobody even has a tree yet. Nobody has even tasted the fruit except the people in the videos. They were eating the avocado in August so I suspect it's more of a summer Avocado where you could pick some fruit early in April/May but that is just my skeptical nature.

Ronnie, on the other hand, is the real deal. I have tasted that one and it's delightful. Very dense, creamy, flavorful and intense flesh with good sized fruit. It's probably the latest season avocado we have available to grow here and the one I put in the ground is doing pretty well.

14
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Sapodilla Variety Box Tasting Notes
« on: February 13, 2025, 09:44:14 AM »
Nice to see you liked Hasya, Erickson Farms sells Hasya fruit very reasonably for shipping or pickup in case anyone else might be interested in trying it: https://ericksonfarm.3dcartstores.com/Sapodilla_c_6.html

Yeah, that is a fantastic deal. 20 pounds for about 90 bucks shipped. I actually called them a couple days ago to ask what variety they were selling but never heard back. Now that I know it's Hasya, time to place an order.

15
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Monroe Avocado over flowering concern
« on: February 13, 2025, 09:43:09 AM »
Nothing to be concerned about. Some of the flowers will turn into little berries and you can just strip them off the tree if they don't fall off on their own. I don't like to let my small trees carry fruit, so I would give this one at least another year of vegetative growth before letting it take the fruit to maturity.

16
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Mango ID
« on: February 13, 2025, 09:40:34 AM »
Look on the bright side, at least you didn't buy a whole box of them  ;D

17
Tropical Fruit Buy, Sell & Trade / Re: Low latex Jackfruit Seeds source
« on: February 12, 2025, 11:05:13 PM »
I need to remember to get a few of these myself, was planning to direct sow them in the forest behind my house.

18
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Florida Spring Avocados
« on: February 12, 2025, 01:55:14 PM »
You're in Vero Beach, so your calendar will probably run a few weeks behind those estimated dates which are for Homestead, almost 200 miles south. You may have to give some consideration to cold tolerance as well.

My best advice for Summer avocados in Florida is to focus on mango & pineapple season  ;D

The avocado trees all flower in the early part of the calendar year, and it takes time and sunlight for those flowers to turn into nutritious fruit, that's why we have the gap in the calendar. The longer they stay on the tree, the better they will taste, so it pays to be patient with the early season varieties.

If I had to pick the best tasting avocados with the most complete coverage of the calendar, these would be my choices:

Apmay - Brogdon - Simmonds - Maria Black - Nishikawa - Ronnie

We don't know the flower type of Apmay. Of the rest, Simmonds is the only Type A.

19
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Help me select my next mango
« on: February 12, 2025, 01:45:53 PM »
Really looking forward to trying Imam Passand this year I find it so interesting and I enjoy Indian varieties most.

The taste should be wonderful, but it has a reputation as a problematic tree for us to grow with splitting fruit and production issues.

20
Green Sapote has found a new home. Mangoes still available and a couple of other rare 3 gallon mango trees as well.

Also have a 7 gallon Kampong Avocado for $75.

21
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Florida Spring Avocados
« on: February 12, 2025, 09:16:58 AM »
Not really. Lara Farms has introduced a new variety called Apmay that is supposed to make some early fruit in April/May, but nobody has it yet.

https://larafarmsmiami.com/products/hass-avocado

You might get some carryover from very late fruit into February & March from a variety like Ronnie.

Then for the earliest varieties starting in the summer you are looking at Donnie, Dupuis, Hardee, Pollock and Simmonds.


22
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Help me select my next mango
« on: February 12, 2025, 09:05:07 AM »
Early Season = Dwarf Hawaiian

Late Season = Honey Kiss, Little Gem

Should all be fairly disease resistant.

23
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Kauai White
« on: February 11, 2025, 09:04:32 AM »
I've actually got one of the crowns from these pineapples in a pot, it has barely grown in the 6 months or so that I've had it. Is this a slower growing variety or is it just winter dormancy?

24
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Alex Salazar (Squam256) Live on YouTube
« on: February 11, 2025, 09:03:41 AM »
Dang, I thought he was starting his own youtube channel  ;D

25
Tropical Fruit Discussion / Re: Sapodilla Variety Box Tasting Notes
« on: February 10, 2025, 11:24:35 PM »
I'm trying to find a cochin - something a little more dwarf, but I might settle for one of the Crunch ones or a Mai.

I got a 15 gallon Cochin at Jack & The Beanstalk in Loxahatchee recently. Xain's World probably has some 3 gallon Cochin. Lara Farms has 1 gallon Cochin they will ship if you don't want to drive to the east coast but I have lost a lot of their 1 gallon trees. I might also get a Cheena as I think that's another one of the smaller jacks.

Here's a recent video that came out of a Butterscotch sapodilla tasting. Not a lot of detail but you get to see two trees and the fruit. So far it's not very productive for him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5yBRIoRdI8

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