Thursday, April 19, 2007

Backyard delicacies

One of the things I'm most excited about with regard to the new place are the fruit trees in the back yard. Home-grown produce has always had a special spot in my heart (and stomach), probably because it always tastes so much better than what you can get in supermarkets. My landlord was kind enough to draw a map of the trees in the yard (some of which are quite unusual) so that I might be able to remember the types of fruit we might be getting. Given that they really didn't give me any information about caring for the trees, I've been doing a little bit of research.

Mango - Apparently this tree has never actually put forth fruit, but given that the trees in the backyard were only watered four times last year, this isn't too surprising. Mango trees need to be watered regularly in order to bloom and produce fruit. I'm hoping that water is the only factor limiting fruit production in our case, because mango is probably my favorite fruit.

Cherimoya - Apparently the landlords didn't really do much research when they picked their trees, instead planting those that reminded them of their origins, because this tree has to be pollinated by hand outside of its natural range. Yeah, that's so not happening.

Philippine Orange (aka Dalandan) - Apparently this fruit has a green rind and orange center when ripe, which seems very neat.

Philippine Lemon (aka Calamondin) - These seem to be used in the place of limes, which is good, as I never have limes when I need them.

Guava - I've never had one of these outside of a smoothie, so I'll be looking forward to trying this.

Persimmon - My grandparents grow these (along with oodles of raspberries, blackberries, kiwis...), and though I've never been very interested in the fruit by itself, they do make the best cookies.

We've also got grapefruit (hope the guys like it, since I can't eat it) as well as the standard apple and orange trees. Man, I can't wait for it to be summer!

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