Okay, we all know that it’s a little too soon to be plucking nice, ripe mangos from your trees, but it is true that early-maturing cultivars have already been in flower for a few weeks and, barring damaging frost as winter rolls along, we might be able to start harvesting the delicious, juicy fruits sometime in May. It’s…
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Recently Florida’s Commissioner of Agriculture, Adam Putnam, distributed a story that had been reported on a Tampa-area television station. It quoted some fairly astonishing statistics regarding citrus production in Florida: The most recent growing season yielded 104 million boxes of oranges. Only 11 years ago, 243 million boxes were picked! Some of the difference was…
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Things are not always as they seem. Take the popular cashew. It looks for all the world like a nut, it is used culinarily as a nut, and just about everybody calls it a nut. But it’s really a seed, and a strange one, at that. The cashew tree, Anacardium occidentale, is an attractive, mid-sized tree…
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As just about everyone knows, southern Florida’s climate permits homeowners to grow a vast and impressive array of fruit trees. But the lower end of the peninsula is also a sitting duck for the introduction of diseases and detrimental insects. Lamentably, Richard Lyons’ Nursery must now recommend that you no longer plant citrus and avocado trees…
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This is a very interesting time of year weather-wise. In November we experienced several cool days. Apparently the nighttime temperatures were low enough for the lychee trees to start to flower. With the last few nights in the fifties we might have a decent lychee crop in 2013. Hopefully the blooms will be a mix…
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