Live in sunny Florida? Don’t waste the climate! You can grow the wonderful plants of the tropics, unlike most of the country.

S. Meyers comments on my post about the magical power of South Florida gardening:

I live in Central Florida and have an established Carambola (Star Fruit) tree. Very prolific grower with an abundance of fruit each year. Very drought & wind tolerant fruit tree as well as being a beautiful & reliable shade tree. I cut it back to about 1/2 it’s height every couple of years and it grows back and has never missed a season of providing an exceptional harvest. Learning how to CAN fruit is on my bucket list but for now, I use a dehydrator. Dehydrated star fruit is fantastic and I sprinkle some of the batch with cinnamon. Makes a very tasty treat!

I have a massive mango tree which I have hired tree trimmers to cut back twice in recent years. Both times I lost a season of fruit but on that second year the harvests were larger than previous years have ever been and the size, quality & taste of the fruit has been exceptional. Mangoes that taste like honey! This tree is also drought & wind tolerant and is the biggest and best shade tree in the yard!

Finally David, I want you to know that I have two Florida Mahogany trees! One was planted about 25 years ago in the dry, scrub habitat I reside in on the Lake Wales Ridge on some vacant land I own across from my home. It was about 3 ft tall when I put it in the ground & watered it for the first two weeks and that’s it! Never pruned, Never fertilized and the only water it gets is from Mother Nature … just let God take the lead. Beautiful kinda pear shaped canopy that it designed itself, unlike the Mother tree it came from (which was massive like the one in a video you posted on YT). This tree is now, I’d say about 30 feet tall. Two years ago I finally found a sapling and dug it up. I put it in a five gal. pot, nurtured it through the winter, watched it grow from 14 inches to 3 feet. I planted it in the ground in late Spring and staked it, watered it and protected it during the 2022 hurricane Ian. It survived and is now about 6 feet tall. I grew up in South FL with a huge Mahogany tree in our front yard. Both of these trees are descendants of that tree. I can’t wait for this one to grow big and provide beauty & shade to the front yard. And yes, I know all about the seed pods they produce (I call them hand grenades) and hope to be able to get some seeds started for great grand baby trees in the future. Thanks for sharing so much of your knowledge.

Growing up in South Florida, I only was dimly aware of how good we had it. We harvested coconuts and mangos, calamondins and key limes, grapefruit and pineapples… it was just a way of life.

Now that I live in Lower Alabama, I miss some of those species a lot. We had our four-year run in the Caribbean, though, so we have lots of memories of fresh tropical fruit.

If you’re in South Florida, roll with it! Enjoy what the climate offers you, and don’t get hung up on the few things you can’t grow. It’s a huge blessing to live in a place where the bounty of the tropics can be transplanted into your own backyard.

Also, you’ll find this book a big help:

Today we’re getting ready for our first official nursery sale since launching Alabama Food Forests.

If you’re local to Escambia County Alabama, we’ll be setting up at the Atmore Flea Market on Saturday morning, from 8AM – 1PM.

ADDRESS: 1815 Highway 21, 36502, Atmore, AL

The official announcement, as posted on YouTube:

ALABAMA FOOD FORESTS GRAND OPENING SALE!!! Come meet us and get some “GOOD” plants THIS SATURDAY! We will have our nursery booth set up at the Atmore Flea Market, from 8AM to probably around 1PM.

ADDRESS: 1815 Highway 21, 36502, Atmore, AL

Some of the plants for sale include:

Tobacco transplants
Bamboo (giant yellow timber type) “Robert Young”
Goji berries
Coffee (Coffea arabica)
Various herbs
Banana (Dwarf Cavendish)
Black walnut
Daisies
Elderberries
Surinam cherry …plus quite a few other cool things.

We will also have books, and maybe some T-shirts. Please come on by – would love to meet you! Thank you to all of you who told me you were interested in attending if we set up. There was enough interest that we’ve decided to go for it. You guys are amazing.