Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

🔥 What is hotter that hot pepper? Wiri Wiri Pepper! - it's about how to live long and have a great skin.

🌶 These two peppers are a must for spice lovers - intense fruity habanero flavor packs quite a bang! 💥
Extremely showy, these ornamental peppers have culinary benefits and are great for container garden.

• ❤️ Capsicum annuum x chinense - ❤️-shaped Biquinho Pepper that you saw in earlier post. An exceptionally distinct pepper, an ancient hybrid of Capsicum annuum (bird pepper) and Capsicum chinense (habanero group). While of small size (1"), these heart-shaped red fruits are prolifically produced along the branches of compact plants.

• 🔴 Capsicum frutescens - Wiri Wiri Pepper from Guyana is the illustrious gem; hard sought and rarely found. This plant produces good yields of small 1/2" berry shaped hot peppers. Peppers grow upright, are very hot, and turn from green, to orange, to red when mature. Guyanese dinners will only take one of those meals for you to never forget! The secret of their food is the flavor, and one of the cornerstone ingredients in many of their dishes is the Wiri pepper. The Guyanese population claim that it is not just a key ingredient to their diet, but also to why they are so good looking, live so long, and have such great skin.

❗️ What makes these peppers so much different than any other hot peppers?
Hot? Yes, it is important that hot peppers are, but the people who really know, know that it is not just about heat, it is about flavor! And that is exactly what makes these little red gems so special.

For abundant crops, fertilize with Sunshine C-Cibus plant booster.

🛒 Order Hot Peppers

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💃 Does Red Passion flower produce edible fruit?

• ♥️ Passiflora coccinea, or Red Passion Flower, is a spectacular, passion-red variety!
• ♥️ It is tropical, evergreen vine from South America known for its stunning scarlet-red flowers and edible passion fruit. Yes, the fruit are edible, but they are very rarely seen.
• ♥️ It thrives in full sun or part shade with fertile, well-drained soils and can grow up to 10-12 feet long.
• ♥️ This easy-to-grow plant is perfect for trellises, walls, and containers. Minimal pruning is needed, and it blooms primarily in summer and fall.
• ♥️ Attracting butterflies and hummingbirds 🐝

💻 Do you grow Passion vines? Share yours in comments👇

📚 From previous post: The truth about Passion flower and Passion fruit.

🛒 Shop Passiflora plants

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🍲 How to make a zippy Papaya-Citrus Marinade

🍗 🍖 The Papaya enzyme papain makes this fruit especially suitable for tenderizing meat in marinades. Use this zippy marinade for beef or poultry.

• 
  ✔️ 1 cup papaya puree
• ✔️ 1 tbsp lime zest
• ✔️ 1/3 cup grapefruit juice
• ✔️ 1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce
• ✔️ 1 tbsp honey
• ✔️ 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• ✔️ 1 tbsp coarse black pepper
• ✔️ 1/2 tsp basil leaves
• ✔️ 2 tbsp olive oil

🍊 Combine and mix all ingredients except olive oil, then gradually mix in olive oil. Marinade meat for 2-8 hrs and cook over grill.

📚 From previous posts:

• • How to have fresh Papaya fruit year around
• • Top 3 most wanted Papaya varieties
• • The truth about Papaya

🛒 Get your own Papaya tree

#Recipes #Food_Forest

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What is the biggest mango fruit?

🔍 We discovered one of the biggest Mango fruit after we planted this new variety - Kiew Yai.

Right now the fruit is almost a foot long!

⏳ The tree was planted in April - only 3 months ago.

😋 Looking forward to tasting it soon and sharing our taste impressions with you. Stay with us!

⬆️ Reminder: In order to have good quality fruit, your Mango tree must be grafted. Grafted varieties start fruiting right away, while seedlings may take from 7 to 10 years to fruit and the taste of the seedling's fruit will always be a surprise, they may be small in size and very fibrous.

📝 Check out our earlier posts on Mango

🛒 Order Kiew Yai and shop more Mango varieties

#Food_Forest #Mango

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How to always have your own Root Beer

• 
  Piper auritum - Root Beer Plant, Acuyo, False Kava-Kava - is a close relative of Piper methysticum (Kava-Kava), and Piper nigrum (Black Pepper). It is very often confused with Kava-Kava, and probably has some similar medicinal effects.
• 
  This herb originated from Tropical America and grows also in the South Pacific.
• 
  Large-leaved perennial, known for its leaves, which are used for their spicy aromatic scent and flavor, some liken to root beer, others to anise-clove. It can be used for making a root beer-flavoted drink.
• 
  This species is easily identified by its huge leaves which can grow over a foot long in older specimens.
• 
  The leaves are chopped and used for flavoring, as well as used whole, as wrappings for meats, tamales, etc.

📚 Learn more about Piper plants

🛒 Grow your own Root Beer Plant

#Food_Forest #Remedies

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How to always have your own Root Beer

• 
  Piper auritum - Root Beer Plant, Acuyo, False Kava-Kava - is a close relative of Piper methysticum (Kava-Kava), and Piper nigrum (Black Pepper). It is very often confused with Kava-Kava, and probably has some similar medicinal effects.
• 
  This herb originated from Tropical America and grows also in the South Pacific.
• 
  Large-leaved perennial, known for its leaves, which are used for their spicy aromatic scent and flavor, some liken to root beer, others to anise-clove. It can be used for making a root beer-flavoted drink.
• 
  This species is easily identified by its huge leaves which can grow over a foot long in older specimens.
• 
  The leaves are chopped and used for flavoring, as well as used whole, as wrappings for meats, tamales, etc.

📚 Learn more about Piper plants

🛒 Grow your own Root Beer Plant

#Food_Forest #Remedies

🔴 Join 👉 TopTropicals

How to always have your own Root Beer

• Piper auritum - Root Beer Plant, Acuyo, False Kava-Kava - is a close relative of Piper methysticum (Kava-Kava), and Piper nigrum (Black Pepper). It is very often confused with Kava-Kava, and probably has some similar medicinal effects.
• This herb originated from Tropical America and grows also in the South Pacific.
• Large-leaved perennial, known for its leaves, which are used for their spicy aromatic scent and flavor, some liken to root beer, others to anise-clove. It can be used for making a root beer-flavoted drink.
• This species is easily identified by its huge leaves which can grow over a foot long in older specimens.
• The leaves are chopped and used for flavoring, as well as used whole, as wrappings for meats, tamales, etc.

📚 Learn more about Piper plants

🛒 Grow your own Root Beer Plant

#Food_Forest #Remedies

🔴 Join 👉 TopTropicals

How India grows most of the mangoes in the world.

• 📍 India grows 45% of all the mangoes in the world. However, exports account for only 1% of international trade - almost all the mangoes are consumed locally by the residents.
• 📍 Mango import in the US limited by only easy-to-ship, fibrous varieties such as Tommy Atkins.
• 📍 To enjoy the full palette of mango varieties, you need to grow your own tree or buy fruit from local growers in southern areas.

📝 Earlier posts on Mango:

• 🔸 Mango rainbow: What's the taste of that mango variety?
• 🔸 5 most Favorite Mango Varieties
• 🔸 Top 10 Dwarf "Condo" Mango
• 🔸 Top 5 vigorous growers and reliable producers
• 🔸 Top 5 exotic Mango varieties for rare fruit collection
• 🔸 How to grow a mango tree
• 🔸 How to protect mango fruit from rodents

🛒 Plant your own Mango Tree

#Food_Forest #Fun_Facts #Mango

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🍹 How to make tasty Carambola Banana Whip

• ✔️ 1 ripe Carambola
• ✔️ 3 ripe Bananas
• ✔️ 1 tbsp Honey
• ✔️ 1/2 tsp Cocoa (optional)

Blend ingredients until smooth. Scoop into frosted mugs. Garnish with Carambola and Banana slices.

🍷 Enjoy while cold ❄️

📚 From previous posts:

• • Why Bananas? They are good for you and are fun to grow!
• • How to grow your own Carambola

🛒 Order Carambola and Banana trees

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Five most exotic avocado varieties

👀 We introduced 10 most popular varieties in our earlier posts. Here are 5 more - interesting and unusual cultivars.

1. Bacon - A large Mexican variety with dark-skinned medium sized fruits, and a rich creamy flavor. It is very cold hardy, late-producing variety of Avocado tree with exceptional fruit. It is a highly productive tree with a lovely upright and spreading habit. Its dark green, glossy leaves lend an attractive, tropical appeal to the 15-20 feet of heigh. The oval fruits ripen in late fall and into spring. The fruits are easy to peel and have a light, subtle flavor. The tree has angelic sweeping branches which helps keep the tree shorter and easier to pick its fruit.

2. Black Prince - The fruit was large, oval, 16-36 oz, green and slightly pebbly. The fruit turns black couple days after it is picked, ripens and softens. Black Prince deserves its title! The fruit pulp is thick, and has a rich, nutty flavor. The trees grow vigorously. Superior variety for a backyard grower. Harvesting mid-August to mid-September.

3. Mexicola - black fruit, rich butter content, one of the most cold hardy varieties. Mature trees may withstand temperatures in the low-mid 20s.

4. Reed - The fruit is large, weighing over a pound and round in shape. It has a large seed, but plenty of edible flesh. The skin remains green even when ripe. It is described by some as the best tasting avocado, buttery, bold, rich and nutty with an oil content of about 20%. It is a type A avocado, but fruits consistently year after year without other avocado trees around. It can be kept to around 15 feet with pruning. The branches do tend to droop horizontally.

5. Russel (green and red) - easily recognized by its gourd-like shape, large, 24-36 oz and up to 13 inches long! Flesh is yellow, sweet, excellent quality, the seed is small.

📚 Learn more: Avocado Variety Guide - check this out for interactive chart of Avocado varieties and sort them by flower type A or B, tree habit, fruit shape and quality, cold hardiness, origin, season and more!

❔ What is your favorite Avocado variety?
Share in comments👇

🛒 Shop Avocado Trees

#Food_Forest #Avocado


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