Garden Blog - Top Tropicals

Date: 26 Aug 2024

What fruit is more sour and has more vitamin C than a lemon

Costa Rican Guava, Cas Guava (Psidium friedrichsthalianum)

🍋 What fruit is more sour and has more vitamin C than a lemon

  • 🍸Costa Rican Guava, Cas Guava (Psidium friedrichsthalianum) is native to Central America and known for its intensely sour taste, which makes it perfect for flavorful juices and beverages rather than eating fresh.
  • 🍸Cas Guava fruit is used in traditional Costa Rican drink "Agua de Cas," a refreshing blend of cas juice, water, and sugar.
  • 🍸Cas Guava fruit is packed with vitamin C: about four times more vitamin C than a lemon, making it an excellent immune booster. It's also rich in antioxidants, which help combat oxidative stress and reduce inflammation.
  • 🍸Cas guava tree is pretty hardy, thriving in poor soils and resisting pests and diseases.


📚 Learn more:

🛒 Order online

#Food_Forest #Guava

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Date: 4 Feb 2025

The star of the orchard

Start Fruit - Carambola Tree (Averrhoa carambola)

😛 The star of the orchard



Start Fruit - Carambola Tree (Averrhoa carambola). Growing this tree is a fun and rewarding way to enjoy this unique and delicious fruit right at home!

📚 Learn more from previous posts:


Star Fruit from our garden
How to grow your own Carambola
Top 10 fast-fruiting trees: #8. Carambola - Starfruit
Carambola Banana Whip
Carambola tree is the Star of the orchard

🛒 Shop Star Fruit varieties

#Food_Forest

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Date: 18 Feb 2025

What cactus vine produces gooseberries

Perescia aculeata, Barbados Gooseberry fruit

Q: I've heard about a tropical gooseberry suitable for making jams but don't know its exact name. Do you have it? Gooseberry jam is my husband's favorite, but I can't find gooseberries here in Florida - too hot, maybe?

A: Yes, we do have the plant you're looking for! We've just made some delicious jam from this tropical gooseberry, and it tastes just like the northern varieties but even more flavorful! Florida's winter is the perfect season for this wonderful fruit. Right now, our plant is growing quickly and vigorously over our fence, and it's covered with fruit. Just a couple of months earlier it was full of fragrant, beautiful white flowers!

The plant in question is Perescia aculeata, commonly known as Barbados Gooseberry. It's a unique cactus with both edible leaves and fruit, making it a tropical treasure that offers beauty as well as culinary delights.

The fruit is yellow with a juicy, subacid pulp that tastes remarkably similar to traditional gooseberries. You can enjoy the fruits fresh, stewed, or transformed into jams and jellies.

The young leaves are also edible, adding a nutritious boost to your meals.

This fast-growing vining cactus prefers well-drained soil that remains moist during the summer and drier in winter, and it can be effectively grown in containers on a trellis.

Watch a short video of Barbados Gooseberry fruiting.

Plant Barbados Gooseberry

Perescia aculeata, Barbados Gooseberry jam

Perescia aculeata, Barbados Gooseberry flowers

Date: 22 Feb 2025

If you are missing Northern fruit that dont tolerate hot climate, plant this

Tropical Raspberry Mysore (Rubus albescens x niveus)

🍇 If you are missing Northern fruit that don't tolerate hot climate, plant this

in Tropical Raspberry Mysore (Rubus albescens x niveus) is from India. It thrives in heat!
  • 🔹 Unlike common raspberries from up North that can not tolerate heat, Mysore Raspberry grows very well in hot humid climates.
  • 🔹 Grows very fast into a scrambling shrub with flexible stems.
  • 🔹 Blooms and fruits throughout the year.
  • 🔹 The fruit turns purple black when ripe, it is very juicy and sweet.
  • 🔹 One cluster may contain as many as couple dozen fruit.
  • 🔹 Great for large containers and will produce large amounts of fruit.
  • 🔹 Cold hardy to upper 20s F.


🛍 OrderTropical Raspberry

#Food_Forest #Container_Garden

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Date: 28 Mar 2025

This is how a young Loquat tree is fruiting

A young Loquat tree fruiting

🙂 This is how a young Loquat tree is fruiting



For the previous posts⤴️

📚 Loquat in previous posts:


🎥 YouTube video about Loquat
📁 Overlooked fruit: tasty Loquat recipes (PDF)

🛍 Shop Loquat Trees and enjoy fresh fruit benefits

#Food_Forest #Loquat

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