Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

Date: 29 Jun 2024

How to get big shade tree in one season with an ice cream on it? Its real!

Ice Cream Bean Inga

Ice Cream Bean Inga

Ice Cream Bean Inga

Ice Cream Bean Inga

Ice Cream Bean Inga fruit

Ice Cream Bean Inga fruit

Ice Cream Bean Inga tree

Ice Cream Bean Inga tree

🍧 How to get big shade tree in one season with an ice cream on it? It's real!

  • 🍦 Ice Cream Bean Inga is the ultimate fast-growing, shade-providing fruit tree with an irresistible twist! It not only transforms your yard into a cool, inviting oasis in record time but also produces fruit that kids (and adults!) can't get enough of!
  • 🍦 Picture this: pods up to a foot long, bursting with sweet, creamy pulp that tastes exactly like ice cream!
  • 🍦 Craving instant shade? Perfect for those sunny spots where you need shade, the Ice Cream Bean Inga rapidly unfurls its lush, umbrella-like canopy, creating a natural, leafy retreat in just one season!
  • 🍦 With its delectable treats and speedy growth, this extraordinary tree is sure to be the highlight of your garden - where shade and sweetness meet!


🛒 Get shade with ice cream benefit

#Food_Forest #Fun_Facts #Nature_Wonders #How_to

🏵 TopTropicals

Date: 5 Jun 2024

Top 10 Dwarf Condo Mango - great for container culture

Mango Cogshall

Mango Cogshall

Mango Ice Cream

Mango Ice Cream

Mango Julie

Mango Julie

Mango Okrung

Mango Okrung

Mango Pickering

Mango Pickering

Mango Nam Doc Mai

Mango Nam Doc Mai

Mango Mallika

Mango Mallika

Mango Carrie

Mango Carrie

Mango Diamond

Mango Diamond

Mango Keitt

Mango Keitt

🥭 Top 10 Dwarf "Condo" Mango - great for container culture.

  • 🟠 1. Cogshall - an ultra compact grower up to just eight feet tall, will still produce a good size crop. Very colorful and has a mild, sweet flavor. Fungus resistant.
  • 🟠 2. Ice Cream - far and away the most popular of the "condo mangoes." Flavored like the name. Maintained at a height of just six feet (!) making it ideal for container growing.
  • 🟠 3. Julie - the most popular variety in Jamaica and many other Caribbean islands because of its rich, sweet, coconut/pineapple-like flavor. Great for containers, but keep in mind it's very cold sensitive, don't plant it in the ground if you get freeze in winter.
  • 🟠 4. Okrung - Thai compact cultivar, served in Thailand in combination with sticky rice. One of the most popular varieties in Thailand. The fruit is very sweet, with the highest sugar content.
  • 🟠 5. Pickering - great for pot culture. It has a bushy, compact growth habit, maintained in a container at just six feet (!). The fruit has a firm flesh with a fantastic coconut/mango flavor.
  • 🟠 6. Nam Doc Mai - The most popular variety for pot culture. Everyone loves it. Eaten green or ripe, a Thailand favorite.
  • 🟠 7. Mallika - condo mango native to India. Among the best of the new generation of Indian dessert mangos. Intensely sweet, rich and highly aromatic flavor with hints of citrus and melon.
  • 🟠 8. Carrie - the flavor is by far the most outstanding. It has absolutely no fiber and extremely rich in flavor, sweet, aromatic and a pure pleasure to eat. You will savor every mouthful! Its compact size makes it an excellent dooryard tree.
  • 🟠 9. Diamond - It has a great taste very similar to Nam Doc Mai. Very compact, of a dwarf habit, great condo mango.
  • 🟠 10. Keitt - the best all-around late mango. Very productive, good-flavored, and disease resistant. Has a very long and late season. The compact tree is semi dwarf that bears 4-5 pound goliath fruit!


📝 See also earlier post: 5 most Favorite Mango Varieties

🛒 Shop Mango Trees

#Food_Forest

🏵 TopTropicals

Date: 20 Aug 2024

How to make an exotic treat: Barbados Cherry Jelly

How to make an exotic treat: Barbados Cherry Jelly
🍒 How to make an exotic treat: Barbados Cherry Jelly

Barbados Cherry is a vigorous grower that starts producing right away, and by the second year you have so much fruit that you don't know what to do with it - you can eat only so much fruit out of hand! Earlier we shared a recipe of delicious Barbados Cherry Juice drink. The juice tastes very similar to Guava juice: it is very aromatic and tasty, and has a beautiful Baby-pink color. The Jelly recipe is even more exotic teat!

🎀 Barbados Cherry Jelly

  • ✔️ 4 cups cherry juice
  • ✔️ 5 cups sugar
  • ✔️ 1 package dry pectin
  • ✔️ 2 tbsp lemon juice

  • 🍷To fully ripen cherries, place them in plastic container, cover and leave overnight. Cherries will be dark, rich red color the next day.

  • 🍷To make juice: Place cherries in a pan, cover with water, bring to boil. Crush cherries and simmer for a few minutes. Strain.

  • 🍷Add pectin and bring to a boil again. Add sugar and lemon juice and boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat and skim off foam. Pour into sterilized glass and seal.


📚 From previous posts:

🛒 Order Barbados Cherry Tree

#Recipes #Food_Forest

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Date: 15 Sep 2024

How to add flowering vines to the landscape

Urechites lutea (Pentalinon luteum) - Yellow Mandevilla

🔍 How to add flowering vines to the landscape

  • 🍀 Vines, by their nature, are almost always climbers. There are also some that make good hanging flower vines for your baskets hanging under trees or on the front porch.
  • 🍀 Some vines are also in the fruit category. The Passiflora is a beautiful perennial climbing vine that has very showy flowers and then a fruit that can be eaten off the vine or made into a wonderful juice. It would make a nice fast growing vine for a fence or trellis. The Barbados Gooseberry also falls into this category.
  • 🍀 One of the most popular fast growing flowering vines is the trumpet vine - Allamanda. It is an evergreen vine and will take some cold without damage, although it is still considered a tropical flowering vine. It can be grown as a large shrub or small tree and makes a beautiful focal point in the landscape.
  • 🍀 If you have some large trees in your yard, a great climbing vine for shade that also produces a usable product is the Pepper family. Yes, they flower and yes some of them produce pepper that you can use in your kitchen. If you like to know what is in your food, grow your own!
  • 🍀 Another perennial, fast growing and evergreen climbing vine is the Monstera. Monsteras will climb the side of a large tree and can produce an edible fruit after a few years. It is very tropical looking, but will take some cool nights as it is protected under the canopy of the tree.


🎥 Urechites lutea (Pentalinon luteum) - Yellow Mandevilla

🛒 Shop flowering vines

#Hedges_with_benefits #How_to

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Date: 2 Nov 2024

What plant is a vine, a cactus, a tasty fruit, and a pretty flower at the same time?

Perescia aculeata - Barbados Gooseberry

🐰 What plant is a vine, a cactus, a tasty fruit, and a pretty flower at the same time? Barbados Gooseberry!



Perescia aculeata - Barbados Gooseberry is in full bloom all Fall through Winter, these flowers are so pretty!

📚 Learn more about this fruiting Cactus vine with pretty flowers and tasty fruit:


What is Barbados Gooseberry?

🛒 Plant Barbados Gooseberry

#Food_Forest #Hedges_with_benefits

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