A Bittersweet day

Carm..Yes, that is a nice thing to do with your son. Builds memories! You are lucky that during the cold winter you will still have nice summer fruit. Your bushes did very good I think. So now do the same bushes produce next year or do you have to start over with a new plant? To answer your question, no, you can pick the mangos from the tree if they look ripe. Sometimes though they trick you. They look ready but when you cut into them, they are not which is why I like to wait till they fall. I have to be quick picking them up however because the iguanas love the mangos and of course take the big ones. I have some iguanas that are 5' long. Its really cool to watch them eat the fruit. They eat what they want and leave the rest then retreat back to the water although they spend a lot of time sunning themselves in my back yard too. They are totally harmless and are much more afraid of you then you are of them. If they feel threatened, they whip their tail at you and believe me, you would not want it to connect with you! Some of the mangos are too high in the tree to pick, like the one I was talking about in my discussion and so you have to wait for them to fall unless you have a big ladder. Oh well, now I will wait on my citrus which is next and I'll be posting about my pink grapefruit, lemons, limes oranges, tangellos, and of course my prized bananas!

I almost want to trade you, I love citrus fruits and bananas..So with mangos, you can't tell if they are rip until they either fall on their own or you cut into them? The reason I asked is I bought one at the store once and I cut into it and it was not ripe enough.. As for your question about starting over, I don't know..lol I know that there are parts of the bush that doesn't produce fruit and I do remove them, but this years harvest was my biggest since I had them. Before it was, hey look a couple berries, they'd get eaten and then no more..That is why before we drove to various areas in the county to pick our berries, this is the first year I actually had a "real harvest" So I guess I should look up on the best care for them now that they have established themselves and giving me lots of fruit..lol

Wow H..I would kill to have all those different fruits in my yard. I am lucky enough to have pink grapefruit trees, key lime tree, 2 orange trees and of course the Mango tree. I also have bananas which give so much fruit I have to give them to everybody I know as not to waste them. But berries, peaches (although I did plant a peach pit just yesterday. Have no idea if you can grow a tree just from the pit of a piece of fruit but figured what the heck, have nothing to lose) apples and grapes would be heavenly. Apples won't grow here, not sure about grapes. Did you start your cherries from seeds or pits? and what about the grapes, seed packets? Next year I am definitely going to try berries. Next year, too, I will ship you some Mangos. Just hope they are bigger than this year. I guess it depends on the winter. Good luck with all that fruit..I am jealous!! J

Hi shaggin...Wow, first time for a mango? I Love Love Love them and eat them almost daily. I also cook with them..Mango salsa is fantastic with fish! I wish I could grow plums too...The bananas we have are so sweet and delicious..small and petite though, not real big. I picked some oranges this weekend and am going to make some orange sherbert today...I've never made sherbert yet so I hope it works!!!