To those requesting fruit, these must ripen fully on the tree, once picked the ripening stops, under-ripe fruits are inedible, when picked ripe they are quite delicate, so shipping these would be difficult even in the best of circumstances.
Secondly, these fruits do not keep for long. If I place a ripe apple, orange, mango, plum, grape or kiwi on the kitchen counter, one week later there would likely be very little change in its appearance. Not so with kwai muk, these would begin to get moldy after just a couple days. So shipping would need to happen quickly, like overnight.
Next, when bringing a package to the post office, they always want to know if the parcel contains anything fragile, liquid, perishable or potentially hazardous. In the case of kwai muk, to answer no would be a violation of law, potentially subject to prosecution, even though the likelihood of that may be minute. To answer honestly, that the content is both fragile and perishable, would likely preclude shipping via first-class and priority. FAA regulations would allow for ground transit exclusively, which tends to be substantially slower, not to mention more expensive in some cases. My experience is limited, but recently it cost me like twenty bucks to send a 1.6 ounce bottle of perfume across a few counties to Miami. First-class would only have been five dollars, if I had been willing to lie about the contents.
Given all that, the best of circumstances would be small trees with lots of fruit in mid-season, which would allow for a careful and adequate harvest. What I have is a single, large tree which had a very small crop this year, and now its the tail-end of the season. I went outside to take a gander, I was able to spot just four ripe fruits currently, there is one small fruit about 15 feet up, the three larger ones are at about 25 foot in elevation. It might be possible to get an extension ladder positioned between the maze of branches, but I think it would be more trouble than its worth. To use some sort of picker on a pole would almost certainly damage the fruit and render it of little value other than immediate consumption and/or harvest of seeds.
As it is, the ripe fruit fall from the tree and splat on the ground. In a famine situation, I would pick off the leaves and twigs that get embedded and rinse off the smaller debris and be be thankful for something to eat. Otherwise, these fruits mostly go to waste. Last year was a bumper crop and I was able to pick a substantial quantity of fruit from the step ladder, so that was worthwhile, but most of the fruits were out of reach and ultimately went splat.
I've had more than a few requests for fruit, so this explanation is to convey that I'm not just being uncooperative or difficult, to transport these would really be a challenge. People want to contend that 'well I had somebody send me these one time and all went well, so I don't understand your problem', and I want to forestall any such arguments. To me its simply not worth the effort. Now if somebody nearby wants to come to my location to sample the fruits, I'd have no problem with that, I'm not averse to sharing, but the fruits are few and far between, and they won't persist much longer. I do anticipate being able to fill orders for seeds over the course of the next two weeks or so, then this window will close until next year. I do welcome comments and questions, but would hope to avoid all contention. To those who bought some seeds already, they will ship after T-day and you will be notified with tracking, thanks.
Topic: Selling fresh kwai muk seeds - usa (Read 2866 times)