TRIBAL NOTES
Ahh...fall is finally here. It's persimmon season here and the trees are loaded I don’t know about you, but this summer was a blissfully long, hot, wet one for us. After years of drought, we finally got our traditional Florida summer and for awhile you could almost set your clock by the 2:00 afternoon rain storm.
The plants have grown at record pace and the crop looks beautiful. Check out the crop notes below to see how well we’ve been growing.
The orchard produced a bounty of pears, apples and figs this year. We got our first good crop off the Carolina raspberries this year, they are a winner, heat and humidity tolerant and taste like the real thing.
The persimmon crop is in full swing now, and we ate our first Satsuma last week. The tasting table was officially set up last weekend and lots of folks got their first taste of persimmons, dried jujube, marinated olives and Satsumas.
The gardens are revving up for a great fall show, the butterflies and their favorite flowers are in full swing, and we’ve been planting fall and winter veggies throughout the gardens. It will be a full blown edible/kitchen/cottage garden look this season, with lots of new additions like artichoke and kohlrabi, and a speckled lettuce variety trial.
My motto is life’s short, enjoy the moment, so get out and take a road trip. The county roads are ablaze with native wild flowers and the there’s still time for one more beach trip and a visit
To Just Fruits and Exotics. We'd love to see you......
CROP UPDATE
We’ve got a great crop of trees this year. All tried and true varieties that are known to fruit reliably in the deep south and a great collection of local heirloom fruits like Christina and Larkin pomegranates , Joy apples , and Darleen’s kiwi . All the trees are grafted on root stocks known to be well suited for our climate. Root stock plays a huge part in the longevity of a fruit tree, knowing what your fruit tree is grafted on is first step to problem free trees.
We’re working our way deeper into the near wild fruits like Guthrie Plum , Florida Elderberry, American persimmon , Paw Paw
Big Red Mayhaw and Southern Paw Paw . Last year we collected a wild crabapple “ San Marco ” near St Marks that looks like it will be a fantastic jelly fruit, large and super productive. We’ve grafted it on wild crabapple to insure it will be true to type and bear within a couple of years.. The hunt goes on; if you know of an old heirloom or wild fruit tree that has exceptional qualities please let us know. These trees are quickly being lost to urban development, and now is the time to collect and preserve them.
This will be the year for claiming bragging rights on beautifully pruned trees. Most fruit tree nurseries hack their trees into pretty round balls, we take the time to get our trees trained properly. Peach, plum and nectarines are trained to open center, apples to central leader, and pears to modified central leaders.
Our trees come to you pre trained and if you’ll let us, we’ll spend a little time doing the final pruning and teach you how to maintain the structure before you take it home. If you’re serious about fruit growing, attend our annual fruit growing classes where we’ll demystify successfully growing fruit trees.
LOCAL VEGGIES RULE!!
We’d like folks to know that we grow our own vegetable plants. You won’t find a Bonnie’s shipped-in plant here. Our collection is a mix of University of Florida recommend varieties, and heirloom non-GMO varieties.
We do unusual cell packs like kohlrabi, artichoke and off beat asian greens so you can plant just a few and explore a new taste. Lettuce is a passion of ours so you’ll find usually up to 10 varieties on the benches. We trial many varieties in our gardens so we’ll have local knowledge on what and when to plant as well how to grow them. We’re good at helping you get success..
THE JF STRAWBERRIES crop is grown and ready to go.This year’s crop includes Sweet Charlie and Camerosa ,
two super sweet varieties that grow and fruit reliabliy in the deep south. 4 inch plants at nursery for $1.49 each. You know you need some....
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