Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

Date: 18 Jul 2024

How to grow your own tea? Where does the tea come from?

Camellia sinensis - Tea Leaf Tree

Camellia sinensis - Tea Leaf Tree

Camellia sinensis - Tea Leaf Tree and Tea in a cup

Camellia sinensis - Tea Leaf Tree and Tea in a cup

☕️ How to grow your own tea? Where does the tea come from? From Camellia!

  • 🍃 Did you know that tea comes from a Camellia plant?
  • Camellia sinensis - Tea Leaf Tree - is the plant used to make all types of true tea: green, black, white, and oolong.
  • 🍃Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world, after water.
  • 🍃Green tea is rich in antioxidants, which help protect your cells from damage.
  • 🍃Drinking tea can boost your immune system, help fight off infections, improve oral health by reducing the growth of bacteria.
  • 🍃Regular tea consumption is linked to improved bone health and reduced risk of osteoporosis. It can aid in weight loss by boosting metabolism and help reduce the risk of heart disease.
  • 🍃Tea contains caffeine, which can improve mental alertness and focus. On the other hand, tea contains L-theanine, an amino acid that promotes relaxation and reduces stress.
  • 🍃The plant is very slow growing, can be grown in container or in the ground in frost-free areas. Takes sun to semi-shade.


📚 Instructions how to make tea from tea leaves (PDF)

🛒
Plant your own Tea Tree

#Food_Forest #Remedies #Recipes

🏵 TopTropicals

Date: 16 Jul 2024

How to make healthy food taste delicious? Longevity Spinach Super-food Recipes

Longevity Spinach recipe

Longevity Spinach recipe

Gynura procubens (Longevity Spinach, Okinawa Spinach)

Gynura procubens (Longevity Spinach, Okinawa Spinach)

How to make healthy food taste delicious? Longevity Spinach Super-food Recipes.

  • ☘️ Gynura procubens (Longevity Spinach, Okinawa Spinach) is one of the Superfoods, known for its longevity-promoting properties in traditional medicine.
  • ☘️ Native to Indonesia, commercially grown in China. It is a relatively hardy perennial that once planted, you will have these healthy greens for many years!
  • ☘️ Both the stems and the leaves are edible and nutritious, can be eaten raw or cooked. They have a unique flavor with a faint hint of pine, and will add a beautiful aesthetic element to cuisine.
  • ☘️ This green is also known as cholesterol spinach, and there are many claims that it lowers can cholesterol.
  • ☘️ Perfect for hot and humid climates unlike traditional Spinach that only grown in cooler areas. It will thrive in any type of soil, any type of light other than dark shade, and is pest-free.
  • ☘️ Very adaptable to container gardening and even grows well on a windowsill.
  • ☘️ The leaves and young shoot tips can be steamed, used in stir fry, tempura, stews, and soups. Just add them at the very end.

Check out the recipes⬇️⬇️⬇️

📚 Gynura: Longevity Spinach Superfood Recipes

🎥

🛒 Plant Longevity Spinach and live long

#Food_Forest #Recipes #Remedies

🏵 TopTropicals

Date: 15 Jul 2024

How Mulberry fruit helps with diabetes

Fruit of Mulberry Tree (Morus x Alba hybrids)

Fruit of Mulberry Tree (Morus x Alba hybrids)

Mulberry fruit

Mulberry fruit

🍇 How Mulberry fruit helps with diabetes

  • 💜 Mulberry Tree (Morus x Alba hybrids) originated from China. Everyone knows this sweet, tasty, juicy fruit but very few people are aware of its amazing health benefits.
  • 💜 Mulberry fruit can lower blood sugar levels in patients with diabetes. They improve the absorption of carbohydrates in the gut. Eating this fruit slows the breakdown of sugar in the stomach so that it's absorbed more slowly into the blood. This helps the body keep blood sugar levels in a healthy range.
  • 💜 Mulberry fruit have a low glycaemic index, making them suitable to consume after meals to avoid spikes in sugar levels.
  • 💜 More health benefits of Mulberry:


    - help prevent fatty liver diseases, and lower cholesterol levels.
    - Mulberry leaves show their benefits against cardiometabolic risks, including antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, antiobesity
    - Due to flavonoids and other phytochemicals, Mulberry juice has been shown to have anti-cancer properties, specifically against breast cancer cells.
  • 💜 Mulberry is called Tree of Life for a reason.
  • Revelation 22, Verse 2: "In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."
  • 💜 Mulberry Tree is very cold hardy and can grow in wide range of climate zones, from USDA 5 to 10. Dwarf cultivars available - perfect for container culture. One of them is called Dwarf Everbearing - it fruits virtually year around!


🛒 Plant your own Mulberry tree

#Food_Forest #Remedies

🏵 TopTropicals

Date: 8 Jul 2024

What is the best Avocado variety? Five most popular Avocado varieties

Avocado Brogdon

Avocado Brogdon

Avocado Hass

Avocado Hass

Avocado Fuerte

Avocado Fuerte

Avocado Oro Negro

Avocado Oro Negro

Avocado Winter Mexican

Avocado Winter Mexican

Five most popular Avocado varieties



"What is the best variety of Avocado?"
"Do you have the one with small black fruit and bumpy skin?"

"I have avocado with very large green fruit, what variety is it?"

These are frequently asked questions we get from our customers. This basic "classification" by black/green doesn't encompass all the wonderful qualities avocados have to offer. There are numerous hybrids in cultivation, and once you plant your first tree and taste the REAL fruit (not from the grocery store), you'll be eager to explore other varieties. While it's true that avocado fruit can vary in "butter" content, most superior varieties are equally delicious.

✅ We will guide you through Avocado varieties like we did with Mango varieties in earlier posts. First comes first -

🏆 The most popular Avocado varieties:



1. Brogdon - red-purple pear-shaped fruit, 7-15 oz. Skin is very thin, yellow buttery flesh. Fruit ripens in late summer-fall. Very cold hardy.

2. Hass - probably the most popular, but this tree prefers drier climate (Florida is humid, so we plant adaptable Florida Hass here). The fruit is dark-colored with a rough and bumpy skin, turns black when ripe.

3. Fuerte - a dwarf and a very cold hardy variety. Everybody's favorite "Condo Avocado": perfect for container culture and small yards. The mature tree in the ground is under 15 ft; 6-7 ft in containers.

4. Oro Negro - Oro Negro means "black gold" in Spanish, which is an incredibly appropriate name for this fruit. This Monroe hybrid (with big size fruit) is crossed with a Mexican type which would explain the black skin. The flesh is rich and buttery with a creamy texture.

5. Winter Mexican - one of most cold hardy varieties, Guatemalan x Mexican origin. Mature trees may withstand temperatures in the mid 20s. Oblong fruit, 12-18 oz, thick green skin. Very vigorous tree, bears heavily and regularly in December-January.

📚 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!

🛒 Shop Avocado Trees

#Food_Forest

🏵 TopTropicals

Date: 3 Jul 2024

Why everyone wants the Sugar Apple?

Annona squamosa - Sugar apple, Red fruit Kampong Mauve

Annona squamosa - Sugar apple, Red fruit Kampong Mauve

Annona squamosa - Sugar apple, Green fruit Thai Lessard

Annona squamosa - Sugar apple, Green fruit Thai Lessard

🍏 Why everyone wants the Sugar Apple?



Annona squamosa - Sugar apple - is considered by many as the most delicious tropical fruit. We introduced the Annona trees earlier.
  • ✳️ Very small, compact tree, perfect for container or small yard, see photos from our Tropical Fruit Tree contest Winner.
  • ✳️ Starts fruiting within 3 year from seed!
  • ✳️ Easy to grow and undemanding
  • ✳️ The fruit is sheer deliciousness, pulp resembling custard.


🛒 Order Sugar Apple

#Food_Forest #Container_Garden

🏵 TopTropicals