Mango Season

[Moose]

Its Mango season here in South Florida. The overnight storm dropped a mess of these Haden Mangos that are 20+ feet up that are too high to harvest. Gotta get them peeled and into the freezer - all 80 of them.

[QUINNPALMS]

Awesome !! I think I would take up tree climbing...haha!

[Really full garden]

Mango season is winding down here in Guatemala.When the rains kick in the fruit gets wormy.

[Moose]

Since my AeAe Banana requires acidic soil and mine is calcareous, I need to heavily mulch. All vegetable waste from the kitchen goes there as well. I saved the mango peels and filled a 5 gallon bucket. The microbes and the earthworms are going to be having a party.

[spockvr6]

Mangos kicking in heavily on Pine Island as well........I picked up about 10 different varieties a couple of days ago at the fruit farm up the road.

My favorites are going to be ready to come off the trees in a few more days......Lemon Merangue.

[Palmdude]

Ooh finally Larry! The mango season was a few weeks late this year and lots of fruit fell from the trees prematurely. I have to get down there again for some mangos!

[Kumar]

The remains of an otherwise terrible season plucked yesterday -- the one on the right is from a different tree

[spockvr6]

Ooh finally Larry! The mango season was a few weeks late this year and lots of fruit fell from the trees prematurely. I have to get down there again for some mangos!

Ive eaten about $50 worth in the past week.....going back tomorrow for some more! I am going to turn yellow/orange soon.......

Edited June 26, 2014 by spockvr6

[grant b.]

call me jealous

[tropicbreeze]

Mangos here should start flowering over the next couple of weeks.

[Jimbean]

The mangos here are almost ripe. I live by a huge tree, and a bunch of smaller ones.

[Moose]

The freezer is officially full - 69 sandwich size zip lock bags worth. My hands turned orange from all the slicing and dicing.

[redant]

I love mangos, I spent the morning freezing and dehydrating some. Problem with dehydrating them is they never make it into storage, you eat them all instantly.

[Jimbean]

They are getting ripe now around here

[Moose]

The wife pulled out some frozen mango and blended it up with some ripe AeAe bananas to make some awesome smoothies this afternoon. Yum. yum!

[tropicbreeze]

Some of the trees are in full bloom here now. They always start off in the coldest weather.

[gsytch]

My Mango tree has that anthracnose (sp) disease. Not everywhere, but on new growth. It is way too big for me to spray. It seems to go away by summer, but I only have like 20 fruit on it. I can try to climb it, I guess, to get in there but it is rivaling my tall Queens in height. Any suggestions? Or, should I just let nature takes its course? TYVM

[Jeff Searle]

We've been a pickin over the last few weeks here too. It's always a race against the coons, birds, possums, whatever as they want their share as well. But Andy has been doing a good job slicing them up for the freezer. Over the weekend she made her extremely good, mango salsa. It was gone in two days. But the Glenns are our best we have.

[rick]

My Mango tree has that anthracnose (sp) disease. Not everywhere, but on new growth. It is way too big for me to spray. It seems to go away by summer, but I only have like 20 fruit on it. I can try to climb it, I guess, to get in there but it is rivaling my tall Queens in height. Any suggestions? Or, should I just let nature takes its course? TYVM

I greatly reduced the amount of anthracnose in my tree by doing a heavy pruning last summer right after harvest. I ended up cutting out at least 25-30% of the total canopy by following the pruning advice from Fairchild and cutting out several large upward growing branches. This opened up the center part of the tree allowing more air movement and faster drying after rain. I climbed into the tree and used a telescoping pole saw to get the really high stuff. I was expecting a small harvest this year but I ended up with the exact opposite. Here is some of this year's harvest.

Average fruit size is about 1lb which is smaller than previous years but its more than made up for in volume. Ive given away a couple dozen and there are still a lot left on the tree.

[Moose]

My Mango tree has that anthracnose (sp) disease. Not everywhere, but on new growth. It is way too big for me to spray. It seems to go away by summer, but I only have like 20 fruit on it. I can try to climb it, I guess, to get in there but it is rivaling my tall Queens in height. Any suggestions? Or, should I just let nature takes its course? TYVM

I greatly reduced the amount of anthracnose in my tree by doing a heavy pruning last summer right after harvest. I ended up cutting out at least 25-30% of the total canopy by following the pruning advice from Fairchild and cutting out several large upward growing branches. This opened up the center part of the tree allowing more air movement and faster drying after rain. I climbed into the tree and used a telescoping pole saw to get the really high stuff. I was expecting a small harvest this year but I ended up with the exact opposite. Here is some of this year's harvest.

20140706_185235.jpg

Average fruit size is about 1lb which is smaller than previous years but its more than made up for in volume. Ive given away a couple dozen and there are still a lot left on the tree.

Rick - Here is my suggestion, use a potato peeler on all those beauties. Its faster than a knife and you keep more mango meat. Then get them into the freezer. I use sandwich size zip lock bags. You can probably get three sliced up mangos in each bag. Its the perfect size for mango smoothies later.

Andrea Searle makes incredible frozen mango margaritas that are a monster hit when groups are strolling through their wonderful garden. She always graciously takes the time to make a virgin batch for me.

[Jeff Searle]

Rick,

What's the variety?

[stevethegator]

Over the past few weeks I must have harvested hundreds, between the "Glenn" at my family's place and the giant "Haden" (I think) at my new place. I like the Glenn best so I've been eating those fresh and freezing/dehydrating/giving away the Hadens.

The Glenn is finished now though and I have 51 Hadens in the kitchen, I better start eating them! haha

The counter:

Less-than ripe ones I'm shipping to family:

Fridge drawer:

[rick]

Rick,

What's the variety?

Sorry Jeff the tree was here when I moved in so I have no idea what variety it is. The fruit is fiberless with a very smooth creamy texture and an orangeish color. When fully ripe its extremely sweet with a really strong smell. It develops an orange/red blush on top especially where its exposed to the sun. When it starts to ripen on the tree the fruit turns from green to yellow. Based on looks I had thought it was a Glenn but this tree is easily 25 ft tall and would be quite a bit taller if I hadnt pruned so heavily last year. From what Ive read Glenn is normally 10-15ft. A friend gave me a Haden fruit so I know its not that. Any ideas?

A few ripe fruits with a ruler for scale

Here is one of the fruits cut up

[Moose]

My Haden mango is done. Just a couple left way up high that I can't get to. My squirrels are looking very fat. Now they are moving on to the avocado tree. Thank God they are after the avocados and not my Keitt mangos. Keitt is a cultivar that was developed in Homestead, Florida for South Florida conditions.

[Moose]

The Keitt cultivar can grow a mango up to 4 lbs. My biggest ever was 5 lbs., but none so large this year. Sorry for using my ham fingers for scale, nothing else to use whilst holding the camera. Keitt is a late season mango, harvest is in August!