Mangos!
Or at Least
Mango Babies!
“Native to southern Asia, especially eastern India, Burma, and the Andaman Islands, the mango has been cultivated, praised and even revered in its homeland since Ancient times. Buddhist monks are believed to have taken the mango on voyages to Malaya and eastern Asia in the 4th and 5th Centuries B.C. The Persians are said to have carried it to East Africa about the 10th Century A.D. It was commonly grown in the East Indies before the earliest visits of the Portuguese who apparently introduced it to West Africa early in the 16th Century and also into Brazil. After becoming established in Brazil, the mango was carried to the West Indies, being first planted in Barbados about 1742 and later in the Dominican Republic. It reached Jamaica about 1782 and, early in the 19th Century, reached Mexico from the Philippines and the West Indies”. http://bit.ly/8OA9CgNour’s mango tree, pictured above, was badly struck by Hurricane Wilma. He lost half of the tree, and how the other half survived is simply an unexplainable miracle. The next year it fruited little, but did fruit, and I became the fortunate recipient of his bounty, along with everyone else who looked at the tree longingly – Nour is incredibly generous.
Not all fruits and vegetable are created equal, and Nour’s mangos happen to be delightful! The fruit usually arrives mid-summer, is sweet with firm flesh, and amply sized. Last year, as Nour brought me the last of the season’s fruit, I decided to plant a couple of seeds and to see what happened.
After enjoying the delectable flesh of the mangos, which I ate fresh, but also diced and froze, for later use, and I attempted to make mango jam, which actually turned into an ice-cream topping, then I made a marinade which I also canned, and finally chutney – I allowed several seeds to sit on the counter and dry out for about a week.
In a large, new, black, plastic pot, I placed the three seeds, in new potting soil, and generously added several shakes of Osmocote slow release plant food, which I use with my orchids. I regularly watered the pot, along with the other container plants on the back porch.
Several weeks passed before the lovely reddish leaves popped through the dirt, one at a time, over a period of ten days. I was thrilled! I had three healthy mango babies. I left them in the pot for another six weeks, before turning the entire pot over and cautiously removing the three separate plants.
I did not want the plants to grow too large, in the big pot, as I feared their roots entangling and separation becoming more difficult. I took the largest plant, and placed it in a new terracotta pot for Adrianna (around the top, I placed several oregano plants, which in time will grow over the side of the pot – they have a lovely veranda, beautifully decorated with potted plants. This mango tree, in the pot, will be happy there for quite some time.). The second plant I placed in a much smaller container, and the third I repotted in the original large pot.
Nicr healthy roots!
Left over, are the empty shells of the mango pits, which once they were surrounded by soil, water, and sun, split open, revealing what looks like a large lima bean, from which the stems shot out, followed by the leaves. It will be several years before my mango babies bear fruit, but meanwhile, I shall continue to enjoy Nour’s mama plant!
Nour’s Fruit!
