It ’s punishing to explicate to gardeners in temperate climates , but the sheer amount of food you could develop in the humid tropics is unconvincing . Every time I inflict South Florida I get mood envy . South Florida gardening can be truly amazing .
You really have to screw it up to lack food for thought . And think me – it does happen . There are way too many ornamentals and areas paved over with concrete and planted with inedible grasses and ribbon , yet if you are a gardener who will do work with the clime and sexual love to grow , you’re able to bring forth mad quantities of produce .
About 12 years ago I planted a starfruit tree diagram in my parents ’ backyard . Here it is in 2013 , to the lower left . It ’s only about 4′ grandiloquent here .
And here it is today :
This tree is a fiend , producing path more starfruit than my category can eat . They are angelic and juicy , and Mom regularly gives them away to friends .
Many others accrue to the ground and are re - take up into the soil .
Is this a wastefulness ?
Well , maybe in a sense , in that no individual gets to enjoy the yield that settle and rot . But in another sense , it is n’t , as the fruit feed the land , the insects and the louse . Also , these fruit are the outcome of the rainwater and sunshine God sends in abundance . If you want to take it down to the numbers pool , the tree in the beginning be me $ 35 . Since then it has produced literally tons of fruit which has been enjoy by many , many citizenry . Baskets have been eaten and baskets have been given away .
My sister Rachel told me today that starfruit sell for $ 1 each where she endure in Georgia . Down in South Florida , I count it ’s about the same , perchance a little less . If you were to forecast the value of the fruit we ’ve eaten over the years , it must be at least $ 2000 so far , and the tree should have many years in front of it .
And then when you look at the other tree in this system , some of them have been substantial champs . The mulberries are abundant , the moringa are always produce novel harvest of leaves , the katuk is a a huge mess of greenery , the mango tree tree is ridiculously overfill with fruit , and there are yams everywhere .
In a tiny little South Florida yard .
But just the starfruit alone is a will to what can be bring forth in the sand , provided the climate is frost - barren yr around .
And not only is it abundant , it ’s beautiful .
I absolutely love starfruit and how the semi - semitransparent fruit bent like Taiwanese lanterns on graceful nut - brown branches .
When I was in Grenada I remember masses on YouTube saying , “ whoa – there are so many Mangifera indica on the land , just rotting forth ! You need to can them ! ”
It ’s heavy to believe it , but you really can not keep up with fruit in the tropics . There ’s always more , pour out out from Heaven in insane teemingness . By the time you finished canning the first round , you ’d have another thousand pound of something else to can . You ’d really never even end up get around to EATING what you’re able to , since there ’s always more fruit coming in time of year .
You just relish what you’re able to blame as the seasons vary , and learn to not concern about saving all the superfluous . Sure , it would make sense to get a pig or chickens or something to turn the abundance into meat , but still – there ’s so , so much !
I wish I could get everyone in South Florida to at least raise one edible fruit Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree . Maybe they ’d view the bug and flora more after that . Next matter you ’d do it , there would be food in such teemingness you would n’t need to spell any .
It ’s a dreaming . Every time I visit and see the greenish lawns and trimmed , inedible hedges , I reckon what could be done . Maybe one day it will .
If you go down to the south and have n’t compute out how to garden yet , you ’ll delight readingThe South Florida Gardening Survival Guide . You ca n’t gravel the potential productivity , once you know what you ’re doing .
If just one starfruit tree is worth M in fruit … reckon the economic value of a small tropical garden or intellectual nourishment timberland ! The teemingness of the Torrid Zone is opened to you . Will you seize it ?
