Spring Training

Baseball spring training is well underway, and there's also been some spring training for mango season here in north Sarasota. All thanks to Rosie, my Rosigold mango, not to be confused with the well-traveled Rosie who now lives with Mr. and Mrs. Colorado.

Rosie was bought at the MRFC's 2012 tree sale, and stands a little over six feet tall. In the crazy warm weather last fall, she bloomed and managed to hang on to several mangos. They were going along fine, but seemed to stop growing after the near-freeze on January 24 ushered in a stretch of cooler weather. I picked one on the 31st, just in hope that I could say I grew a January mango, but it never ripened.

So I wasn't very optimistic about the one I picked early in March. It sat on the shelf for a long time. Lemons and loquats joined it briefly, before moving on to their culinary destinies. Finally, a patch of anthracnose on its skin started to spread, and maybe it didn't feel quite so firm, so on March 23 I decided to give it a try.

RBI for Rosie, it was a pretty good mango! Firm, but sweet and very flavorful. Best I've had since, oh, last fall.
 

Regular season baseball starts in a week, but regular season mangos are farther off. At least there's a little more to come for now. Here is another of Rosie's, that will be ripening on the shelf by the time you read this.

And Rosie's all caught up in the frenzy of mango-making going on around here, so she's making more fruit too.

As long as I'm showing off mango photos, I can't resist closing with this shot of three on the east side. From the left: Glenn, Coconut Cream, and Mallika. With oak trees to the east and west, they have to get by on a few hours of midday sun. But they have grown well--- well enough to earn the green light to produce a few fruit this year if they can manage it.