Why cucumbers grow on a tree? Because they are candles! Top Tropicals Blog

Date: 17 May 2024 Top Tropicals Telegram channel & chat

Why cucumbers grow on a tree? Because they are candles!

Parmentiera edulis - Candle Tree, Guahalote

Parmentiera edulis - Candle Tree, Guahalote fruit

Parmentiera edulis - Candle Tree, Guahalote flower

🥒 Why cucumbers grow on a tree? Because they are "candles"! 🕯

🕯 This bizarre tree is a conversation piece and every plant collector should have one!
🕯 Parmentiera edulis - Candle Tree, or Guahalote - is a highly ornamental tree with interesting leaves, pretty cream flowers and...ready?
🕯One foot long fruits resembling a greenish-yellow cucumbers or candles that hang off the tree!
🕯Juicy fruit is edible and has a sweet flavor similar to sugar cane. Eaten raw or cooked; used to make pickles or preserves
🕯The fruit is a remedy for colds; roots used as a diuretic.
🕯Easy to grow and not fussy about conditions. Cold tolerant to light frost.

🎥 10 Plants That Will Make You Happy. Plant #2: Candle Tree.

🛒Get your own Candle Tree

#Food_Forest #Recipes #Nature_Wonders #Remedies

🏵 TopTropicals

Date: 16 May 2024 Top Tropicals Telegram channel & chat

What tropical fruit tree is cold hardy and easy to grow? Its Golden Loquat the Symbol of Prosperity, and it tastes like

Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) fruit

Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) trees in pots

Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) tree

Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) compot

Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) fruit

🧡 What tropical fruit tree is cold hardy and easy to grow? It's Golden Loquat – the Symbol of Prosperity, and it tastes like apricots!

🍑 Loquat tree (Eriobotrya japonica) is fast-growing, drought-tolerant, cold-tolerant, compact tropical fruit tree.
🍑 Heavy producer. Fruits are juicy, aromatic, and resemble apricots. Ripen from early Spring to early Summer.
🍑 Ideal for small gardens, beginner fruit tree growers.
🍑 High in sugar, acids, vitamins B and C, minerals, and pectin.
🍑 Eaten fresh, used in fruit salads, jams, jellies, chutneys, pies, tarts, and wine

🍑 Grown in Japan for over 1,000 years. In China, represents gold and wealth, often included in auspicious displays or offerings for prosperity💰

📚 Learn more about Loquats
🎥 YouTube video about Loquat
📁 Overlooked fruit: tasty Loquat recipes (PDF)

🛒Start your fruit garden with Loquats

#Food_Forest #Recipes

🏵 TopTropicals

Date: 15 May 2024 Top Tropicals Telegram channel & chat

What does a dragon taste like? Does Dragon Fruit come from a monster cactus? Learn why you need to grow your own

Hylocereus and Selenicereus Dragon Fruit or Pitaya

Hylocereus and Selenicereus Dragon Fruit or Pitaya trees on trellis

Hylocereus and Selenicereus Dragon Fruit or Pitaya on trellis

Hylocereus and Selenicereus Dragon Fruit or Pitaya red fruit

Hylocereus and Selenicereus Dragon Fruit or Pitaya purple fruit

Hylocereus and Selenicereus Dragon Fruit or Pitaya Yellow Parlora

Hylocereus and Selenicereus Dragon Fruit or Pitaya flower

🐲 What does a dragon taste like? Does Dragon Fruit come from a monster cactus? Learn why you need to grow your own. 🌵

🔴 You may have tried a Dragon fruit from the store l, but do you know how it grows? On a cactus tree!
🔴 Names: varieties of Hylocereus and Selenicereus - these fruit bearing cactus plants are also called Dragon Fruit or Pitaya.
🔴 Commercially grown fruit sold in a grocery store may be tasteless. You need to grow your own good variety to have tasty, sweet, flavorful fruit!
🔴 Dragon fruit comes in many varieties. Colors of flesh differ: white, pink, dark red and even purple. The outside of the fruit can be red/pink or yellow.
🔴 In commercial groves, Pitayas grow like cactus trees, over a strong support - big "umbrella frames" ☂️
🔴 It is an easy plant, with low water needs, takes both sun and semi-shade.
🔴 Our favorite variety is Yellow Dragon Fruit Palora, (Selenicereus megalanthus). It is the sweetest and has the most flavor of all. We shared some recipes earlier.
🔴 Can be grown in container with a wooden trellis. And the flower is beautiful, too!🪷

📚 Learn more about Dragon Fruit
🍹 Recipe: What to do with a Dragon fruit?

🛒Grow your own Tasty Dragon Fruits

#Food_Forest #Recipes #Nature_Wonders

🏵 TopTropicals

Date: 13 May 2024 Top Tropicals Telegram channel & chat

Why nuts? We are not nuts! But we taste like peanut butter

Bunchosia argentea, Peanut Butter Tree

🥜 Why nuts? We are not nuts! But we taste like peanut butter... Craving a Nutty Surprise? Meet the Delectable Peanut Butter Tree!

🔴 Bunchosia argentea, commonly known as the Peanut Butter Tree, earns its name from its fleshy fruits that boast a delightful peanut butter flavor - how cool is that?
🔴 This attractive small tree dazzles with clusters of yellow flowers, followed by an abundance of dark red fruit with rich, sweet flesh reminiscent of peanut butter.
🔴 Loved by both kids and adults, this exotic fruit is as fascinating as the Miracle fruit, making it a rare gem in cultivation.
🔴 Compact in size, small tree reaching only 10-15 ft or kept as a bush, it's a perfect choice for limited spaces.
🔴 Can thrive indoors, starting to fruit within just 2-3 years from seed.

🛒 Get your own Peanut Butter Tree

#Food_Forest #Nature_Wonders

🏵 TopTropicals

Date: 12 May 2024 Top Tropicals Telegram channel & chat

How Blue Jaboticaba is different from regular Jaboticaba?

Blue Jaboticaba tree, Myrciaria vexator

🍇 How Blue Jaboticaba is different from regular Jaboticaba?

In fact, they are very much alike! Just different species of Myrciaria that has somewhat smaller growth habit, which makes it an excellent container fruit tree! It also is much more productive.

🔵 Blue Jaboticaba tree, Myrciaria vexator is a beautiful slow growing tree or shrub. It bears dark purple, almost bluish fruits, with thin, sweet flesh that taste somewhat like sweet grapes.
🔵 Fruits are borne in late Spring or early Fall and usually eaten fresh or used in drinks.
🔵 The plant is little known in cultivation, yet the fruits are of equal or superior quality to regular Jaboticaba that we mentioned earlier. A single bush may produce several thousand fruits!
🔵 Blue Jaboticaba can tolerate light frost when established.

🛒 Order Blue Jaboticaba

#Food_Forest #Container_Garden

🏵 TopTropicals

Date: 11 May 2024 Top Tropicals Telegram channel & chat

18 most popular herbs: where to use each herb?

Basil

Catnip

Rosemary

Balm

Cilantro

Sage

Tarragon

Lemon grass

Mint

Thyme

🥬 18 most popular herbs: where to use each herb? 🍲

🌿 Arugula - Green salads, pasta sauce
🌿 Balm - Iced drinks, salads, poultry stuffing
🌿 Basil - Tomato salad, any past dish? home-made pesto, garnish
🌿 Catnip - Sauces and stews, for tea
🌿 Chervil - Soups, green salads, as a garnish
🌿 Chives - Cream cheese, potato salad, green salads, sauces
🌿 Cilantro - Stews, rice, salads, salsa
🌿 Dill - Fish dishes, pickles, potato salad
🌿 Lemon grass - Oriental stir-fry, for tea
🌿 Marjoram - Italian dishes, stews, soups
🌿 Mint - Add to potatoes, peas, cucumber, carrots, mint sauce, mint tea
🌿 Oregano - Italian and Greek dishes, green salad
🌿 Parsley - Butters, pasta dishes, as garnish
🌿 Rosemary - BBQ, roast lamb/chicken, fish, fried/baked potatoes
🌿 Sage - Stuffing, add to poultry, mix with cream cheese
🌿 Sorrel - Soup, serve with fish, pastries
🌿 Tarragon - Fish, chicken, sauces
🌿 Thyme - Stocks and stews, add to pasta

📸 Basil, Catnip, Rosemary, Oregano, Cilantro, Sage, Terragon, Lemon grass, Mint, Thyme

🛒 Shop tropical herbs and spices

#Food_Forest #Recipes #Remedies

🏵 TopTropicals

Date: 11 May 2024 Top Tropicals Telegram channel & chat

What is the most popular and the easiest tropical fruit tree grown as a house plant?

Coffee tree in a cup

Coffee tree flowers

Coffee tree in a pot

Coffee tree fruit

☕️ What is the most popular and the easiest tropical fruit tree grown as a house plant?

No doubt about it - it's a Coffee tree!

🔸 Coffee is the most popular fruit tree suitable for indoors.
🔸 Coffee is shade loving plant, easy to grow, providing regular water.
🔸 Coffee grows into a beautiful dark green shrub or small tree.
🔸 The white, fragrant, star-shaped flowers are clustered and resemble gardenias to which they are related.
🔸 The whole fruit is edible, it is a small fleshy berry changing in color from green to yellow to red.
🔸 The seeds are the actual "coffee beans", they can easily be dried, roasted and ground at home.

🎁 Coffee is a perfect gift plant and a great indoor container fruit tree.

🎥 Coffee Tree Showcase · Grow your own: Free Coffee Everyday

🛒 Get your own Coffee Tree

#Food_Forest #Container_Garden #Shade_Garden

🏵 TopTropicals

Date: 10 May 2024 Top Tropicals Telegram channel & chat

What is Jaboticaba? It sounds so cool!

Jaboticaba (Myrciaria cauliflora) fruit

Jaboticaba (Myrciaria cauliflora) fruit on a tree

Jaboticaba (Myrciaria cauliflora) fruit

🍇 What is Jaboticaba? It sounds so cool!

Jaboticaba (Myrciaria cauliflora) is the most popular native fruit of Brazil that famous Brazilian Vine La Vino Tinto is made of!🍷

🟣 Grape-like purple fruit with a thick skin and delicious melting pulp somewhat resembling Northern Black Currant in flavor.
🟣 Trees grow very slowly and due to small leaves and dwarfish growth habit are often used as bonsai. Some old bonsai specimens can fruit.
🟣 Larger specimens are very valuable because it takes Jaboticaba up to 7 years from seed to start fruiting.
🟣 Similar to Mamey, Jaboticaba has cauliflorous fruit - that grow on main stems or woody trunks.
🟣 Jaboticaba is relatively cold hardy, mature trees are taking down to 23 F for short periods without serious damage.

🎥 Video about a mail ordered Jaboticaba tree.

🛒 Shop Jaboticaba trees

#Food_Forest #Nature_Wonders #Container_Garden

🏵 TopTropicals

Date: 8 May 2024 Top Tropicals Telegram channel & chat

What is this spiny Hedgehog fruit and how does it taste?

Annona montana - Mountain Soursop, Hedgehog Annona

🦔 What is this spiny Hedgehog fruit and how does it taste?

👀 This is one of the coolest looking tropical fruit!

Annona montana - Mountain Soursop or Hedgehog Annona. It is also called Wild Custard Apple, Guanabana de Monte, or Wild Soursop.

📍 This fruit is prized for its deliciously sweet and tangy fruit, reminiscent of a blend between pineapple and strawberry. It tastes similar to regular Soursop (or Guanabana), with slightly milder flavor. The pulp is highly scented.
📍 The fruit, up to a pound, has the most unusual looks! Just look at these curious Hedgehog spines! 🦔
📍 The tree is medium sized, with beautiful, large, leathery dark green leaves that emit a strong aroma when crushed.
📍 Mountain Soursop is much more cold hardy than the Soursop, established trees can take some frost, down to 24F when full grown.
📍 Trees produce within just 2-3 years from seed, like many Annonas, and can happily grow and produce in a large container.

👨�‍👧 We guarantee that everyone who sees this fruit in your garden will ask for seeds even before they taste the fruit! And you will have lots of seeds to share because Mountain Soursop is very reliable producer with many seeds in each fruit.

🛒 Order Hedgehog Annona

📚 Learn more about Hedgehog Annona

#Food_Forest #Fun_Facts #Nature_Wonders

🏵 @TopTropicals

Date: 7 May 2024 Top Tropicals Telegram channel & chat

Why exotic Mamey fruit is so much wanted?

Pouteria sapota, Mamey Sapote

🍊 Why exotic Mamey fruit is so much wanted?

Pouteria sapota, or Mamey Sapote - is Cuban favorite. It is considered by Cubans to produce the best fruit in the world.

🍹 The fruit has delicious bright orange soft flesh, sweet and pumpkin-like in flavor. The Mamey fruit is eaten fresh, in milk shakes and ice cream.

👀 Mamey has a curious growth habit: flowers emerge in clusters in the axils of fallen leaves along the branches, followed by the showy fruit. This is called cauliflorous - plants that flower and fruit from their main stems or woody trunks. Other examples are Cucumber tree and Jaboticaba.

🌳 Mamey is a slow growing, compact tree, but needs some space to spread the branches. It normally grows 20 ft in height and 20 ft wide.

🛒 Order Mamey Tree

#Food_Forest #Fun_Facts #Nature_Wonders

🏵 TopTropicals

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