The MGS Forum
Plants for mediterranean gardens => Fruit and Vegetables => Topic started by: John J on August 29, 2012, 07:17:41 AM
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My mango tree has produced quite well again this year. It was grown from a stone that came from a Jamaican mango. The books say that fruit from trees grown from seed taste like turpentine. I've never tasted turpentine but I doubt that it tastes like these do.
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Well done, John. They are not the easiest fruit to grow in Cyprus, from what I hear. I certainly have not seen many decent specimens (one comes to mind in Pomos).
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Nice pics..beautiful and delicious fruit! We have a very young Mango (3 years old as a sapling) which has settled in well. Last year it flowered and I saw some tiny immature fruit but they fell off. This year I didn't see any flowers. So, no fruit.
I am interested to hear John how old your tree is and when it first started to fruit. Do you fertilise?
I have come to the belief that especially here in our area it can take 4-5 years for a tree to fruit from sapling stage. We have 2 Persimmons about 5-6 years old and this year both have a very good crop for the first time. Previously most of fruit fell off when green.
I don't know the reason for this.
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Our mango has quite a history, actually. We have an old friend, who lives in England, but is of Jamaican descent. One year she was visited by a Jamaican relative who brought her some mangos from home. Later that same year she came to visit us in Cyprus bringing with her the stones from the mangos, unfortunately not the fruit as she'd already eaten those! I attempted to grow the stones, purely as an experiment and with no expectation of success. Before potting them I tried to crack the hard shell without causing any damage in order to allow access for moisture. Several months later, having all but forgotten them, I noticed that one of them showed signs of growth. I nursed this for a couple of years, potting it on as it grew larger. Most of the literature I consulted seemed to agree that it took around 7 years for plants grown this way to produce fruit and that it was not worth the effort as they were stringy and tasted of turpentine, grafted plants were advised. My tree eventually became large enough to plant out and a site in dappled shade protected by other, more mature, trees was chosen. The soil here was pretty good having benefited over the years from the leaf litter deposited by the surrounding trees. Its reaction to being planted out was to go into suspended animation. Nothing moved for almost 2 years. It didn't die but it didn't put on any new growth either. Then suddenly one year it sprang back into life and the following year it produced a couple of fruit. I must admit that they were a bit stringy, but then a lot of mangos are, and the taste was certainly not of turpentine. Since then it has produced around 20 fruit a year. The time from sowing the stone to fruiting was 7/8 years, in line with the prediction. The tree is now 12 years old. I don't fertilise it relying, as I said, on the build up of leaf litter, but I do irrigate it twice a week during the hottest months of the summer.
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Plants with a history, like that mango of yours, always seem so much more significant and memorable, don't they? And it so often makes them seem to try that bit harder for us - as if they are determined to repay the feeling we have for them!
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I tried to grow a mango from the stone a few years ago. It did germinate and I planted it out but after growing for a few months it gave up the ghost. Something similar happened with an avocado grown in the same way. The avocado did survive for almost five years but didn't put on very much growth and it finally succumbed last year. The strange thing is that both were planted in rather favourable spots - deep soil and protected from winds.
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Thank you for the delightful life story of your mango tree, John. Most interesting. One can deduce that they naturally take a long time to fruit, so I will have to be patient. Ours too, went into 'suspended animation' for the first 2 years but it has now settled and producing good foliage. The mangos in the tropics are huge but I am quite sure that is due to rains/humidity and we in the Med will not have that problem. Do you know the variety by the way? The best mangos in the world without exception are the Alphonse variety from India and Pakistan. They have the most beautiful perfume and flavour and are without fibres.
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I have no idea of the variety, Pamela, only that the original fruit came from Jamaica. After 12 years the tree is around 3-4 metres tall and I don't expect it to attain the massive size of ones in areas of higher rainfall, at least not in my time! The fruit are not overly large, being 10-12 cm long on average.
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Thanks John. Ours is the Spanish variety Mangifera indica ‘Osteen’ which is grown quite a lot for commercial purposes in the Malaga area. It is available in markets here etc from Sept. Not the best mango as described before but very acceptable.
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Pamela and John, you're making my mouth water!
Back in the 1950s my father travelled quite a lot, and three times brought me back a mango from various tropical parts, so exotically juicy for a boy who had never had any fruit softer than a raspberry that the rule was that I had to eat them in the bath.
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As you say, Alisdair, the taste and smell of fruit is a very emotive subject. Growing up we were used to gooseberries, red-, white- and blackcurrants and, when they began to appear in the shops after the war, the exotic bananas (as opposed to the bunch of plastic ones adorning the greengrocer's window), citrus and the rare pomegranate (that we ate with the aid of a pin). If anyone had told me at that time that one day I would live in the Far East and eat such things as Durian; Papaya (Carica papaya); Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana); Rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum); Starfruit (Averrhoa carambola); Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus); and many others; I would not have had the faintest idea what they were talking about. It's still exciting to come across new, previously-untried fruit and give them a go, even if it means wearing a peg on your nose as with Durian!
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The mangos available at most greengrocers in London seem to come from Brazil and are very often stringy. Our Indian friends swear by the Alphonso variety and I agree with Pamela that these are superb - sweet, juicy and without fibres. However they might not be suitable for cultivation in the Med.
John, do you grow all the other exotic fruit-trees you mention?
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Fantastic results John!
We have two larger Mangotrees here but no fruits as they were damaged this winter by temperatures below 0ºC - hope next winter will be less hard - here a picture of them I took last year: http://www.mgsforum.org/smf/index.php?topic=410.msg2452#msg2452
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The mangos available at most greengrocers in London seem to come from Brazil and are very often stringy. Our Indian friends swear by the Alphonso variety and I agree with Pamela that these are superb - sweet, juicy and without fibres. However they might not be suitable for cultivation in the Med.
John, do you grow all the other exotic fruit-trees you mention?
Alice's question prompted a discussion on other exotic fruit-trees, which has now been split off into its own topic, here: Exotic fruit trees (http://www.mgsforum.org/smf/index.php?topic=1002.0).
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Yes! it's mango time again!
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They look amazing!. What a coincidence, I have just noticed on my 3/4 year old mango tree yesterday its first ever Mangos (6) I am absolutely chuffed! Frankly I wasn't looking out for them because the tree didn't seem to flower. They are still green. Variety 'Osteen' which is the one which is grown commercially in Malaga.
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Pamela, congratulations! Your variety seems to produce fruit in pairs while ours (variety unknown) are suspended from a single stem that grows longer as the fruit matures. You now have the pleasure of watching them ripen while anticipating how nice they will taste picked from your own tree.
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Well done folks!
I'm green with envy, but soon to be orange, methinks.
Mike
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Lucky you, Pamela and John!
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About twelve years ago, can't quite remember exactly which year, the first ever Italian Branch Plant Sale/Swap was held at my house in the spring. My husband had been visiting friends in India and was due back on the day of the meeting and arrived back safely in the morning with a large box of juicy, ripe mangos that we shared with those attending. This year I am hosting the event again before we sadly move on to other things but I fear we shall not be able to offer mangos to round off the day this time.
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I hope I will be here when they ripen....