Garden shelling peas are an annual vegetable than grow on a vine. These peas go by peas, shelling peas, English peas, and garden peas. The edible green pod fruit are contained in a slightly curved pod of the same color. Unlike its relatives the …
Cherries are really easy to preserve by freezing or drying. The question of pitting before or after freezing is a choice you’ll need to make, but I always pit before freezing which makes them super easy for the kids to use in their smoothies. …
Cherries are small, round fruit with a smooth skin. Sweet cherries, Prunus avium, are the fruit most associated with snacking and eating raw, and the sour cherries, Prunus cerasus, are tart, smaller than the sweet, and are often used in preserves. Maraschino cherries are actually light colored blush cherries that are bleached before being soaked in a sweet brine colored with a red food dye.
Sweet cherries are either self-fertile or require a pollinizer for fruiting, a different cherry tree, to set the fruit (the pollen needs to be from a different variety). Unlike sweet cherries, sour cherries are all self-fertile.
Cherry trees come in regular and dwarf sizes. Dwarf tree sizes reach about 10 feet tall making them perfect for smaller yards or a tighter spot in the garden. Regular cherry trees can grow from 20 to 35 feet or higher. Sour cherries are more cold hardy than the sweet cherries. When planting, space them out 20 to 30 feet apart, depending on variety.
Sweet cherries are hardy in zones 5-7, but can also grow in 8 or 9, and sour cherries grow in zones 4-6. Note that cherries require a certain number of chill hours. When selecting a cherry tree to plant in your garden, ensure your area has the proper amount of chill hours in your area to set the fruit.
For bareroot cherry trees, soak the roots in water for a couple of hours before planting. While the root ball is soaking in water, dig the hole which should be as wide as the roots when spread with a little extra room for them to spread out. Place the tree in the hole and gently spread out the roots to encourage growth once the tree wakes up. Refill with the soil you dug up with any amendments you chose to add, leaving the graft part above the ground. To settle the soil, step gently around the trunk and the soil that was dug up, and water the tree well.
Choose stems with at least two leaf nodes, and about 6 inches in length. Do not choose a sucker if the tree is grafted, and many varieties of sweet cherries are. Dip one inch at the end in a rooting hormone. Make a hole in your planting material as wide as the stem, and insert the end of the stem inside. Pack the planting material snug around the stem to hold in place making it stand upright and keep moist but not overly wet. A good simple planting material for cuttings is half perlite and half peat.
Sweet cherries are susceptible to cracking, so picking when the time is right is crucial when heavy rains or high humidity are expected before harvest. Cherry splitting happens from two different ways. Either it’s caused from ‘plant internal water-induced cracking’ from over irrigation or heavy rains and no drainage, or ‘rain-induced cracking’ where water is soaked through the skin until it bursts.
Test sweet cherries before picking. If the color is deep, and the fruit is sweet and juicy, then they are ready. For sour cherries, if the fruit is easily pulled from the tree, then they are ready.
Cherries are easily froze or dried for preservation. For details on how to freeze or dry fresh cherries, read How to Preserve Cherries by Freezing or Drying.
Image of cherries from QuinnDombrowski via a CC by-SA 2.0 license.
Have you ever wondered how the tomato ended up being classified as a vegetable over a fruit? An interesting article from the Washington Post brought up the Supreme Court case, Nix v. Hedden. The case involved unpaid duties on imported tomatoes from the West Indies. The importer …
Rambutan gets its name from the Malaysian word ‘rambut’ meaning hair. It is native to the Malay-Indonesian region, and is grown in tropical areas worldwide. The rambutan is related to the lychee and longan fruits. This sweet tropical fruit is roundish or elliptical in shape with …
The lychee, Litchi chinensis, is a member of the soapberry family along with the rambutan and longan. It is the sole member of the Litchi genus. Lychee also goes by the names lichi, laichi, leechee, or vai. It is a sweet, juicy fruit with a translucent flesh and an easy to peel skin.
The lychee is native to the low elevation areas of southern China, and is produced commercially in China, India, all over southeast Asia, and in South Africa.
The lychee trees are evergreen and dense with shiny, leathery leaves that are reddish in color when very young and grow to be green. The trees grow to about 30 feet with a spread as tall as the tree. Like the longan, it produces three types of flowers. For the lychee flowers: male (which appear first), hermaphrodite (fruiting as males), and hermaphrodite (fruiting as females). The lychee flowers are pollinated by insects.
They are wind sensitive, and need protection from the wind as they grow, and young lychees are very frost sensitive. Older trees can withstand some frost if they have protection. Lychee trees like full sun and are tolerant to most soil types. Once established they are moderately drought tolerant.
Lychees are propagated primarily via air layering but also by grafting, since the fruit does not reproduce true from seed. An air layered tree takes about 5 years to fruit.
There are many different cultivars that produce good fruit. Here are some of the popular types.
The lychee doesn’t ripen further when picked young, so the fruit needs to be fully ripe when picked. The fruit grows in clusters, so when harvesting lychee, cut off the entire cluster group. Eat immediately or store at room temperature for a few days. They can also be stored in the refrigerator for about a month, but can also be frozen whole.
Lychee fruit contains the compound methylene cyclopropyl-glycine (MCPG), and can cause hypoglycemic encephalopathy, a sickness that is often fatal. This toxin interferes with food metabolism, and malnourished and undernourished children are especially vulnerable because they have low blood sugars or are hypoglycemic. Where children are in areas of undernourishment, it is recommended that children limit their lychee consumption and have a meal before eating them in order to elevate their blood sugars to deter illness.
“Fruits of Vietnam: Major Fruits.” Fruits of Vietnam. FAO Corporate Document Repository, n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2017.
Gilman, Edward F. “Litchi Chinensis: Lychee.” EDIS New Publications RSS. Environmental Horticulture, 02 Dec. 2014. Web. 28 Sept. 2017.
“Lychee.” Lychee-Farmer’s Bookshelf. University of Hawaii Department of Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences, n.d. Web.
“LYCHEE.” LYCHEE Fruit Facts. California Rare Fruit Growers, Inc., 1996. Web. 28 Sept. 2017.
“Lychee.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Sept. 2017. Web. 28 Sept. 2017.
Morton, Julia F. “Lychee.” NewCROP. Purdue University Center for New Crops and Plant Products, n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2017.
SciDev. “Lychee Fruit Caused Deaths of Malnourished Children in India.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 14 Jan. 2016. Web. 28 Sept. 2017.
Vieth, Robert. “Lychee.” University of California Cooperative Extension Ventura. Regents of the University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2017.
The longan fruit comes from the Dimocarpus longan tree, and the fruit is known as ‘dragon eyes’ because of its round shape and translucent flesh, and the seed which resembles an eye. The tree originates from Mayanmar, southern China, southwest India, and the Indochinese peninsula. …
Betel nuts, or areca nuts, come from the areca palm tree, Areca catechu. It is not a true nut, however, but a drupe. The palm grows natively in China, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and was introduced to different islands via voyagers. It is commercially grown in …
This recipe makes great use of your summer squash.
This recipe is adapted from The Southern Junior League Cookbook: The Best Recipes from the Junior Leagues of the American South.
Blurb: There’s a growing demand for dependably hardy plants that require less maintenance and less water, but look no less beautiful in the garden. Plant Select—the leading purveyor of plants designed to thrive in difficult climates—meets this need by promoting plants that allow gardeners everywhere …