Fruit brings people together
August 23, 2017 9:05 AM Subscribe
Want to meet your neighbors? Plant a mango tree. "I loaded brown paper grocery bags with as many mangoes as they'd hold, set them on my doorstep, and waited."
"As an introvert, I sometimes struggle to make small talk, but when I bring bags of mangoes to social events, conversations start naturally."
"As an introvert, I sometimes struggle to make small talk, but when I bring bags of mangoes to social events, conversations start naturally."
Related: Endless Orchard
posted by mykescipark at 9:09 AM on August 23, 2017 [3 favorites]
My neighbors think I'm a weirdo loner, perhaps because I kind of am.
posted by thelonius at 9:11 AM on August 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by thelonius at 9:11 AM on August 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
As a South Floridian, in my experience, sometimes it's more like you'll pull up to your house and old people will look up guiltily, paper shopping bags full of your mangoes, saying things like "Oh, we didn't know you actually ate your mangoes, we thought maybe you had this tree for decoration."
posted by Comrade_robot at 9:22 AM on August 23, 2017 [19 favorites]
posted by Comrade_robot at 9:22 AM on August 23, 2017 [19 favorites]
Mangoes don't grow here, and apples don't grow on the crappy apple tree in my garden either. They do grow in the garden of the student house across the road. This year I am going to scrump them.
posted by biffa at 9:30 AM on August 23, 2017
posted by biffa at 9:30 AM on August 23, 2017
Vegetables on the other hand. Plant some zucchini and your neighbors will run every time they see you with a bulging plastic grocery bag.
Man I miss the mulberry tree down the block from my first childhood home. And the mangoes, lychees, and gross Florida avocados of my early adulthood.
posted by bilabial at 9:42 AM on August 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
Man I miss the mulberry tree down the block from my first childhood home. And the mangoes, lychees, and gross Florida avocados of my early adulthood.
posted by bilabial at 9:42 AM on August 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
Oh @comrade_robot, that would make me so mad!
I volunteer at a local community garden with multiple, huge, avocado trees. People of all ages and backgrounds, who speak many different languages, stop in and it is the BEST thing to be able to give avocados freely. What a gift to be able to express tangible goodwill like that -- it's no cost to me (there are SO MANY AVOCADOS -- if you don't give them away, they'll go bad or the rats will eat 'em) and builds a relationship with them. If I ever have greenspace of my own (#millenialdreams) I definitely want to plant fruit and/or avocado trees.
posted by rogerrogerwhatsyourrvectorvicto at 9:46 AM on August 23, 2017 [5 favorites]
I volunteer at a local community garden with multiple, huge, avocado trees. People of all ages and backgrounds, who speak many different languages, stop in and it is the BEST thing to be able to give avocados freely. What a gift to be able to express tangible goodwill like that -- it's no cost to me (there are SO MANY AVOCADOS -- if you don't give them away, they'll go bad or the rats will eat 'em) and builds a relationship with them. If I ever have greenspace of my own (#millenialdreams) I definitely want to plant fruit and/or avocado trees.
posted by rogerrogerwhatsyourrvectorvicto at 9:46 AM on August 23, 2017 [5 favorites]
Peaches in Texas. But between the birds, the slugs and the neighborhood kids you'll be lucky to get one for yourself...
posted by jim in austin at 9:49 AM on August 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by jim in austin at 9:49 AM on August 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
I just thought about this... and my community garden is walled. So for people to get the fruit they have to be gifted (haven't noticed anyone scrambling over the high fence) - requiring it to be a goodwill transaction, not a scavenger's score.
Maybe good fences make good fruit trees?
posted by rogerrogerwhatsyourrvectorvicto at 9:52 AM on August 23, 2017
Maybe good fences make good fruit trees?
posted by rogerrogerwhatsyourrvectorvicto at 9:52 AM on August 23, 2017
We've been planting fruit like mad since we bought our house two years ago, and so far we've got two lemon trees, a loquat, a mulberry tree and a mulberry bush, a beautyberry, a peach tree, some seagrapes, and a grapefruit tree. So far only the lemons are producing reliably but I've got high hopes that within the next few years we'll become the neighbors who are always giving away fresh fruit.
posted by saladin at 10:00 AM on August 23, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by saladin at 10:00 AM on August 23, 2017 [4 favorites]
I definitely want to plant fruit and/or avocado trees.
You're doing a great service for someone 10 years from now, be it you or someone else, but don't expect much the first few years. We planted a couple dwarf avocados a few years back which will make their second avocado this winter. The 100-ish-foot-tall tree across the street from us seems to generate a few hundred avocados a year and the owner seems to use as many as she can reach.
We inherited older lemon trees and a granny smith apple and they're wonderful. We have a very productive santa rosa plum tree but it died and its replacement, a persimmon, is still many years away from that level of fruit. I expect we'll never really see it in full maturity - we'll have moved by then no doubt.
But keep planting fruit trees people. They're a gift for the future.
posted by GuyZero at 10:04 AM on August 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
You're doing a great service for someone 10 years from now, be it you or someone else, but don't expect much the first few years. We planted a couple dwarf avocados a few years back which will make their second avocado this winter. The 100-ish-foot-tall tree across the street from us seems to generate a few hundred avocados a year and the owner seems to use as many as she can reach.
We inherited older lemon trees and a granny smith apple and they're wonderful. We have a very productive santa rosa plum tree but it died and its replacement, a persimmon, is still many years away from that level of fruit. I expect we'll never really see it in full maturity - we'll have moved by then no doubt.
But keep planting fruit trees people. They're a gift for the future.
posted by GuyZero at 10:04 AM on August 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
So far only the lemons are producing reliably
If you're in the right zone and have space, definitely plant a lemon tree, especially a meyer. Insanely productive and who doesn't love fresh lemon?
posted by GuyZero at 10:05 AM on August 23, 2017
If you're in the right zone and have space, definitely plant a lemon tree, especially a meyer. Insanely productive and who doesn't love fresh lemon?
posted by GuyZero at 10:05 AM on August 23, 2017
Plant some zucchini and your neighbors will run every time they see you with a bulging plastic grocery bag.
In summer it's dangerous to leave your car parked with the windows down lest you return to find it full of zucchini.
posted by exogenous at 10:26 AM on August 23, 2017 [7 favorites]
In summer it's dangerous to leave your car parked with the windows down lest you return to find it full of zucchini.
posted by exogenous at 10:26 AM on August 23, 2017 [7 favorites]
Surreptitiously placing zucchini in your neighbors' mailboxes is actually a federal offense.
posted by maryr at 10:35 AM on August 23, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by maryr at 10:35 AM on August 23, 2017 [3 favorites]
As a South Floridian, in my experience, sometimes it's more like you'll pull up to your house and old people will look up guiltily, paper shopping bags full of your mangoes, saying things like "Oh, we didn't know you actually ate your mangoes, we thought maybe you had this tree for decoration."
...and then they'll vote down funding for local schools.
Locusts, man.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:39 AM on August 23, 2017 [4 favorites]
...and then they'll vote down funding for local schools.
Locusts, man.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:39 AM on August 23, 2017 [4 favorites]
The home we're selling soon has a secret treasure in the back yard: a peach tree that just this year has matured enough to give abundant fruit. The peaches growing here in South Florida are small, but gorgeous and delicious. Little orbs of barely contained sunshine. I hope the new people value this tree, but you can never tell.
Meanwhile, our newly puchased older home has four --- FOUR --- avacado trees at various growth stages, from mature oldster to tiny babytree. These folks were thinking long term! Upon learning this, I sighed. Resolved to learn to stop hating avacados. And perhaps replace that babytree with a young peach, so we can have sun-warmed tree-ripened peaches again. In a few years.
My son greeted the news of the avacado mini-orchard with a gleam of avarice in his eyes. He and his fellow millenial college roomies are Making Plans. But avacados, it seems, alterrnate productive years with low-fruit years. We are in a low-fruit year. So I'll have some time at least to prepare for the globular green onslaught.
Maybe a South Florida meetup next avacado season?
(Saladin, are you EATING those beautyberries? I thought they were just for the birds.)
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 12:46 PM on August 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
Meanwhile, our newly puchased older home has four --- FOUR --- avacado trees at various growth stages, from mature oldster to tiny babytree. These folks were thinking long term! Upon learning this, I sighed. Resolved to learn to stop hating avacados. And perhaps replace that babytree with a young peach, so we can have sun-warmed tree-ripened peaches again. In a few years.
My son greeted the news of the avacado mini-orchard with a gleam of avarice in his eyes. He and his fellow millenial college roomies are Making Plans. But avacados, it seems, alterrnate productive years with low-fruit years. We are in a low-fruit year. So I'll have some time at least to prepare for the globular green onslaught.
Maybe a South Florida meetup next avacado season?
(Saladin, are you EATING those beautyberries? I thought they were just for the birds.)
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 12:46 PM on August 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
As long as you plant one of the mango trees that produce delicious mangoes, not one of those which produce inedible “turpentine mangoes”. Because all you'll get then is the local council complaining when the garbage collectors can't lift the bin because mangoes are heavy. (This actually happened in Queensland, where turpentine mango trees are common in backyards.)
posted by acb at 1:10 PM on August 23, 2017
posted by acb at 1:10 PM on August 23, 2017
I am so jealous. So, so jealous. Mango will never grow here. The best no-effort producers in my yard in zone 5 are my asparagus. As with fruit trees, you have to be patient. I planted my crowns 6 or 7 years ago. This spring was the first year that I had too much asparagus for our family of four, and it'll only get better from here. People were very happy to take fresh asparagus off my hands.
posted by Cuke at 1:32 PM on August 23, 2017
posted by Cuke at 1:32 PM on August 23, 2017
the slugs
how big are texas slugs that they can reach the tops of trees oh my god
posted by poffin boffin at 4:33 PM on August 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
how big are texas slugs that they can reach the tops of trees oh my god
posted by poffin boffin at 4:33 PM on August 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
how big are texas slugs that they can reach the tops of trees oh my god
Not as big as banana slugs, which are apparently the second-largest kind of slug in the world. They're pretty cute, really. They're UCSC's mascot!
As a South Floridian, in my experience, sometimes it's more like you'll pull up to your house and old people will look up guiltily, paper shopping bags full of your mangoes, saying things like "Oh, we didn't know you actually ate your mangoes, we thought maybe you had this tree for decoration."
Last time I was in Ojai, CA, I kept seeing tourists stopping by the side of the road to steal oranges from people's trees. People can be jerks.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 4:44 PM on August 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
Not as big as banana slugs, which are apparently the second-largest kind of slug in the world. They're pretty cute, really. They're UCSC's mascot!
As a South Floridian, in my experience, sometimes it's more like you'll pull up to your house and old people will look up guiltily, paper shopping bags full of your mangoes, saying things like "Oh, we didn't know you actually ate your mangoes, we thought maybe you had this tree for decoration."
Last time I was in Ojai, CA, I kept seeing tourists stopping by the side of the road to steal oranges from people's trees. People can be jerks.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 4:44 PM on August 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
I have a spindly-but-outrageously-productive pomegranate tree in the front yard of my house, and throughout the summer and into autumn it slowly droops with fat, green fruits that slowly shade into delirious pink. I have a share program worked out with the local ring-tailed possums: they keep being adorable and making little peepy-chirpy noises while they scraunch up the high-up fruit, and I giggle at their little pink noses and take the lower-down fruit.
I love pomegranate.
LOVE.
IT.
But I live in an inner city suburb that experienced waves of migration from Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria... There's a horde of tiny, unstoppable nonnas who seem to roam the streets looking for unattended fruit. Early one bright March morning I heard crashing, rustling and several voices cackling and jibing in Greek. I hauled myself out of my bed (in the front room) and stuck my head out the door. "Hello?" says I. A five foot nothing nonna was precariously perched on my low front fence, her two partners-in-crime holding her upright as she swiped at my ripe pomegranates*. "Oh!" she said, "Too high! Too high!" and jumped (!) down, while her crew of hardened produce-thieves scurried off with a basket (!!) of my bloody pomegranates.
Oh, how we laughed.
To this day, crying "Too high! Too high!" while achieving something you've pretty much completed anyway is an in-joke in the 7 household.
*oo-er...
posted by prismatic7 at 5:22 PM on August 23, 2017 [4 favorites]
I love pomegranate.
LOVE.
IT.
But I live in an inner city suburb that experienced waves of migration from Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria... There's a horde of tiny, unstoppable nonnas who seem to roam the streets looking for unattended fruit. Early one bright March morning I heard crashing, rustling and several voices cackling and jibing in Greek. I hauled myself out of my bed (in the front room) and stuck my head out the door. "Hello?" says I. A five foot nothing nonna was precariously perched on my low front fence, her two partners-in-crime holding her upright as she swiped at my ripe pomegranates*. "Oh!" she said, "Too high! Too high!" and jumped (!) down, while her crew of hardened produce-thieves scurried off with a basket (!!) of my bloody pomegranates.
Oh, how we laughed.
To this day, crying "Too high! Too high!" while achieving something you've pretty much completed anyway is an in-joke in the 7 household.
*oo-er...
posted by prismatic7 at 5:22 PM on August 23, 2017 [4 favorites]
"Here in tropical South Florida we have two seasons..."
Damnit, I was hoping this was an article about how some Canadian found a way to grow mangoes in Ontario.
posted by storybored at 7:40 PM on August 23, 2017
Damnit, I was hoping this was an article about how some Canadian found a way to grow mangoes in Ontario.
posted by storybored at 7:40 PM on August 23, 2017
Not sure if I've ever had a mango although I get them confused with guavas so maybe.
I'm such an East Coaster that it never occurred to me that lemons grew on trees until I saw one in California when I was like forty. I know that sounds dumb but I had just never really thought about it before.
posted by octothorpe at 3:53 AM on August 24, 2017
I'm such an East Coaster that it never occurred to me that lemons grew on trees until I saw one in California when I was like forty. I know that sounds dumb but I had just never really thought about it before.
posted by octothorpe at 3:53 AM on August 24, 2017
I have 300 pounds of loquats every April. It's ridiculous. There is only so much jam and dried loquat one person can eat. Not even the squirrels and crows can eat enough. There is always more loquat until they are gone in May.
I have a pretty decent garden, but I have a few things that are unstoppable. Rosemary until it is 7 feet tall. Lavender taking over an entire bed and always the loquats.
posted by Sophie1 at 6:17 AM on August 24, 2017
I have a pretty decent garden, but I have a few things that are unstoppable. Rosemary until it is 7 feet tall. Lavender taking over an entire bed and always the loquats.
posted by Sophie1 at 6:17 AM on August 24, 2017
Saladin, are you EATING those beautyberries? I thought they were just for the birds.
We're planning on making some in to jelly and once the yields get big enough maybe infusing some booze too.
posted by saladin at 6:59 AM on August 24, 2017
We're planning on making some in to jelly and once the yields get big enough maybe infusing some booze too.
posted by saladin at 6:59 AM on August 24, 2017
You'd be surprised how many "just for the birds" fruits you can eat (or ferment).
When we bought our house a few years ago, we found a bunch of wild pin cherries growing around the edges. Last year, I harvested enough of them to make a gallon of wine, and I just tried it last week: not amazing, but decent! (And with some tweaks to the recipe, I bet it could be really good. I'll be trying again with my harvest from this year, and I bet they'd make good jelly, too.)
We've also found wild strawberries and wild raspberries and wild plums and wild apples. The raspberries, in particular, are the best I've ever tasted.
We've also planted five dozen or so other "just for the birds" fruits, like serviceberries and highbush cranberries and elderberries, but they're still too young yet to bring in a harvest. (Well, the serviceberries are big enough, but the birds like them so much that they'll strip them bare before they're even ripe!)
Sadly, though, anyone who finds out about my fledgeling orchard just looks at me with pity, as if I've lost my mind. Maybe they'd want to be my friend if I planted named named cultivars, but when you're interested in wildlings, expect a lonely road.
posted by ragtag at 10:29 AM on August 24, 2017
When we bought our house a few years ago, we found a bunch of wild pin cherries growing around the edges. Last year, I harvested enough of them to make a gallon of wine, and I just tried it last week: not amazing, but decent! (And with some tweaks to the recipe, I bet it could be really good. I'll be trying again with my harvest from this year, and I bet they'd make good jelly, too.)
We've also found wild strawberries and wild raspberries and wild plums and wild apples. The raspberries, in particular, are the best I've ever tasted.
We've also planted five dozen or so other "just for the birds" fruits, like serviceberries and highbush cranberries and elderberries, but they're still too young yet to bring in a harvest. (Well, the serviceberries are big enough, but the birds like them so much that they'll strip them bare before they're even ripe!)
Sadly, though, anyone who finds out about my fledgeling orchard just looks at me with pity, as if I've lost my mind. Maybe they'd want to be my friend if I planted named named cultivars, but when you're interested in wildlings, expect a lonely road.
posted by ragtag at 10:29 AM on August 24, 2017
I caught my neighbor strolling down my drive with an armful of lemons from my backyard tree. Which annoyed me, but I said fine, it's okay if you take a few. It's a Meyer and I only use one or two lemons a week unless I'm in a mood for lemonade. So normally half of them end up on the ground and it felt a bit miserly (and from a practical point of view, nearly impossible) to not share. Except last time I looked there wasn't a single ripe lemon in reach on the whole damn tree, not even the dirty old holdovers from months ago.
So now I'm cranky because dammit I have artichokes that need lemon mayonnaise.
posted by tavella at 10:41 AM on August 24, 2017
So now I'm cranky because dammit I have artichokes that need lemon mayonnaise.
posted by tavella at 10:41 AM on August 24, 2017
My neighbor corn-bombed me last night, so I have to make room in the freezer for DELICIOUS, DELICIOUS ears of corn. I may have overplanted squash in his garden, so he has been giving it away at work. I imagine him saying, in his very .mil way, "Yeah, this is from the liberal feminist next door, but it's GOOD."
I made a couple of related posts that might be of interest: Eating from the Earth: Hank Shaw's Hunter Angler Gardener Cook blog and Grapes of Wrath, Fruit of Philanthropy (on gleaning; 2010, so expect link rot).
posted by MonkeyToes at 11:13 AM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
I made a couple of related posts that might be of interest: Eating from the Earth: Hank Shaw's Hunter Angler Gardener Cook blog and Grapes of Wrath, Fruit of Philanthropy (on gleaning; 2010, so expect link rot).
posted by MonkeyToes at 11:13 AM on August 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
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