Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

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Find it yourself. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Find it yourself

Sushi the Cat finding her sushi dinner in refrigerator

Sushi the Cat finding her sushi dinner in refrigerator

🍴 Find it yourself

"To find yourself, think for yourself." - Socrates

🐈📸 Sushi the Cat finding her sushi dinner at PeopleCats.Garden 
#PeopleCats #Quotes

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Chosing a good avocado tree

TopTropicals.com

Q: I'm in coastal Broward County. I'm putting together an order on your web site, and one thing that I would like is an avocado tree. I'd like to have something as close to true "Hass" as possible. Which cultivar does well here in SE Florida, and is most like Hass in texture, creaminess, and flavor? I'm not a big fan of the yellow watery Florida avocados.

A: Mexican type of Avocado have dark skin and buttery texture, while Florida green fruit types (West Indian type, with smooth skin), have lots of delicious melting pulp, so it is a matter of preference.
In coastal Broward county you can grow a wide range of varieties since your climate is very mild, so you don't have select cold-hardy varieties like Winter Mexican, Brazos Belle or Joey, etc. Yet there are many interesting varieties that rare and much more exclusive than Hass, with the same, or even better, quality buttery fruit.

One of the most popular varieties - Brogdon, with red-purple colored pear-shaped fruit, very thin skin, and yellow buttery flesh. It is also very cold hardy.

Very interesting exotic avocado is Kampong - Sushi Avocado - see photo above. The flavor of this fruit very nice, oily, creamy, nutty, reminds of almonds. At the same time, it has solid consistency and if you cut a square it remains a shape of the square. It is the best Sushi Avocado! It tastes great as an appetizer when cut in squares with some shrimp cocktail sauce.

Three collectible varieties:
Anise - leaves that smell like Anise, very rare, the fruit is of excellent quality, creamy and buttery.
Bacon - a large Mexican variety with dark-skinned medium-sized fruits, and a rich creamy flavor. It has exceptional fruit that ripen in late fall and into spring, they are easy to peel and have a light, subtle flavor. Another outstanding feature of the Bacon avocado tree is its angelic sweeping branches which helps keep the tree shorter and easier to pick its fruit.
Nishikawa is a very hot seller! Oval fruit somewhat resembles Hass, but larger, and has very high oil content.

See all Avocado trees from our store


Recommended fertilizers:
Fruit Festival Plant Food - Super Crop Booster
Mango-Food - Smart Release Fruit Tree Booster

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A single soul inhabiting two bodies. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

A single soul inhabiting two bodies

Philemon and Sushi the cats at PeopleCats.Garden

Philemon and Sushi the cats at PeopleCats.Garden

A single soul inhabiting two bodies

"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies." - Aristotle

🐈📸 Philemon and Sushi at PeopleCats.Garden 
#PeopleCats #Quotes

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A kitten like a rosebud. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

A kitten like a rosebud

Sushi the cat

Sushi the cat

😏 A kitten like a rosebud

"A kitten is in the animal world what a rosebud is in the garden." - Robert Southey

🐈📸 Sushi the cat, a couple weeks after she was born at TopTropicals Bfarm

#PeopleCats #Quotes

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What are the most interesting edible gingers? A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

What are the most interesting edible gingers?

Boesenbergia rotunda - Chinese Keys Ginger, Fingerroot, Kra Chai

Boesenbergia rotunda - Chinese Keys Ginger, Fingerroot, Kra Chai

Curcuma longa - Turmeric, Spice Turmeric, Longevity Spice, Indian Saffron.

Curcuma longa - Turmeric, Spice Turmeric, Longevity Spice, Indian Saffron.

Zingiber officinale - Spice Ginger, Cooking Ginger

Zingiber officinale - Spice Ginger, Cooking Ginger

Zingiber officinale - Spice Ginger, Cooking Ginger

Zingiber officinale - Spice Ginger, Cooking Ginger

🍱 What are the most interesting edible gingers?
  • Boesenbergia rotunda - Chinese Keys Ginger, Fingerroot, Kra Chai. A medicinal and culinary herb from China and Southeast Asia. It is used in Javanese cuisine in Indonesia, as well as in Thai cooking where it is called krachai. In the west it is usually found pickled or frozen. Kra Chai is used as a male tonic, vigor, health promotion, longevity, aphrodisiac.
  • Curcuma longa - Turmeric, Spice Turmeric, Longevity Spice, Indian Saffron. Turmeric powder might well be the healthiest spice on Earth. Made by grinding this dried root, this ancient superfood and key ingredient in curry powder has been used by Indian Ayurvedic healers for centuries.
  • Zingiber officinale - Spice Ginger, Cooking Ginger - the one you eat with sushi! Plant this ginger in the garden to produce your own fresh ginger for pickling or healthy lemonade.


📚 More gingers in previous posts:
5 most beautiful flowering gingers
Alpinia formosana x zerumbet Variegata - Variegated Ginger
Costus spicatus x woodsonii - Red Button Ginger, French Kiss
Hedychium coronarium - Butterfly Ginger
Kaempferia angustifolia - Laos Silver Stripe

What is your favorite Ginger? Share in comments👇

🛒 Shop Gingers

#Shade_Garden #Container_Garden #Food_Forest


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What was discovered in the Pyramids: Pigeon Pea - an Ancient Superfood. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

What was discovered in the Pyramids: Pigeon Pea - an Ancient Superfood

Cajanus cajan - Pigeon Pea and Egyptian pyramids

Cajanus cajan - Pigeon Pea and Egyptian pyramids

Cajanus cajan - Pigeon Pea

Cajanus cajan - Pigeon Pea

Cajanus cajan - Pigeon Pea

Cajanus cajan - Pigeon Pea

Cajanus cajan - Pigeon Pea

Cajanus cajan - Pigeon Pea

What was discovered in the Pyramids: Pigeon Pea - an Ancient Superfood...
  • Cajanus cajan - Pigeon Pea - existed for more than 4800 year! It's been widely consumed in South Asia, South East Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Documented in India since 2,800 BC; reached Ancient Egypt around 2,200 BC.
  • Provides flavorful, nutritious, and healthy food, with potential to become widely popular like Japanese sushi 🍱
  • It is a showy perennial woody shrub or small tree, 4-8 ft tall, with soft leaves. Can be grown in container
  • Pretty flowers are yellow, with purple or red streaks, pods containing oval to round seeds.
  • Many culinary uses: the tasty and healthy beans used in rice dishes, soups, stews, tempeh, tofu. Unripe pods eaten in curries, leaves and young shoots cooked as a vegetable.
  • Rich source of fiber, protein, vitamins (B, C, E, K), and minerals (calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, zinc).
  • Medicinal value: various folk medicinal uses for sores, bladderstones, jaundice, skin irritations, bronchitis, coughs, pneumonia, toothache, dysentery, and more.
  • Everyone can grow it! The plant is super easy, tolerates poor soils, drought tolerant, improves soil quality like many other beans.


📚 Learn more about Pigeon Pea

🛒Grow your own Pigeon Pea Superfood

#Food_Forest #Remedies #Container_Garden #Fun_Facts

🏵 TopTropicals

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Discovering the jungle. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Discovering the jungle

Discovering the jungle Discovering the jungle
🌳 Discovering the jungle

Our
Sushi was in the tree today. She gets herself up there and cries because she can't get down. She was on the roof the other day too. We showed her a tree to get down from. She just kept crying. Will she figured it out eventually?

🔠 PeopleCats.Garden 
#PeopleCats #Quotes

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Purrrfect Mother. A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Purrrfect Mother

Josephine the Cat with her kitten Charlie

Josephine the Cat with her kitten Charlie

Josephine's Kittens

Josephine's Kittens

Josephine the Cat with her Kittens

Josephine the Cat with her Kittens

🐈 Purrrfect Mother

"There is no way to be a perfect mother, but a million ways to be a good one."
- Jill Churchill

📸 Josephine, the street-smart cat, came with a litter (of course!) but quickly proved to be the purrfect mom to her kittens. Her son Charlie Jr. and other 3 kids - Philemon, Sushi and Lily - definitely hit the jackpot at Top Tropicals Sebring Farm!

🐈 PeopleCats.Garden 
#PeopleCats #Quotes

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Lilys fresh start: from bullied to beloved! A Top Tropicals Garden Blog post.

Lilys fresh start: from bullied to beloved!

Cat Lily (Lilimon)

Lily’s fresh start: from bullied to beloved!

Remember Josephine's adorable kittens? You've met her famous son - dashing Philemon, now say hello to his sister, Lily - Lilimon!

Lily spent three happy years at our Ft Myers Garden Center, living the good life... until one day her siblings, brother Loki (aka Charlie Jr) and sister Sushi, decided to form a "no Lily allowed" club and started picking on her. Can you believe it? Sweet, gentle Lily - bullied!

But Lily’s no pushover. She packed her paws, waved her tail goodbye, and set off for our TopTropicals Bfarm in Sebring. And guess what? She's already mingling with the other #PeopleCats and making new friends. Now she’s settling in, and proving that fresh starts can come with purrs and sunshine.

Stay tuned - this story is just getting interesting!

🐈📸 Cat Lilimon at her new home at Top Tropicals Bfarm. 

#PeopleCats

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Cat Horoscope:
Sagittarius Zodiac Cats 11/22-12/21

By Alex Butova, the Witch of Herbs and Cats

Sagittarius Zodiac cat sitting on a post

How to know the astrological sign of your cat?
The astrological sign of a cat can be determined by either their date of birth or adoption, as adoption is often considered a second birth for cats...
More >>

Sagittarius Zodiac cat on a deck

Cats that help regain faith in one's future...

Sagittarius cats are natural explorers, keen on investigating every nook and cranny of their abode and surroundings... Consequently, they may find themselves in situations requiring rescue, such as descending from a lofty tree pursued by curiosity or rescue from large birds of prey to whom your favorite decided to indicate who exactly is the sheriff of this district...

Restlessness characterizes Sagittarius cats, as they possess boundless energy and an insatiable curiosity for new experiences...

Sagittarius cats are exceptional healers for their human companions, alleviating physical and mental distress. Their mere presence, coupled with a soothing aura, helps individuals overcome serious illnesses and regain faith in their future...

Sagittarius cats are drawn to plants with large, striking, elongated, leathery leaves. Fruits, nuts, and chestnuts are particular favorites, satisfying their gourmet inclinations. Alocasias and Colocasias with their heart-shaped leaves and arrow-like (named also sagittate!) shouts, resonate well with both Sagittarius humans and Sagittarius cats, offering the vibrations necessary for achieving their goals. Opting for fragrant herbs, fruits, nuts, and aesthetically pleasing and fragrant flowering plants ensures the satisfaction of these feline aesthetes and gourmets.

Sagittarius Zodiac white cat with black bird

Note: The bird was fine and flew away! Sushi the Cat was very gentle.