Mangos, Mangos, Mangos

Yes, mango season is finally here. I long ago stripped the fruit from my younger trees, but several of the older ones are getting their first chance to fruit. Let's take a tour.

This is the only surviving fruit on the Ice Cream tree. It's a delicious variety, but most experts say it's poorly adapted to our region. If this fruit survives to maturity, it will be a good occasion for my tree to tell its interesting story.

The Glenn variety is considered one of the most reliable producers. The half-dozen on my tree are starting to show some blush.

Coconut Cream! There are only two on the tree. It's one of the varieties that don't develop much color, and this one is full size, so I'm going to harvest it now before someone else does.

This is one of the half-dozen or so fruit on the disease-resistant Mallika. Pine Island Nursery rates it a top-score 5 in every category except "color". Like many sources, they recommend picking it at the "mature green" stage and allowing it to ripen on the shelf in 10 to 14 days.

The Rosigold has actually fruited for a couple of years, and already gave some fruit from last fall's blooming. It now has several starting to show color. I picked one a couple of weeks ago, and after ripening on the shelf it was very tasty. Rosie is rather subject to anthracnose, so the fruit are not very pretty, but for home use the extended season and small tree make the Rosigold variety a good choice.

Here is this year's entire crop from my young Kent. It's supposed to be a later-season variety, but this one looked ready to pick a month before the book says. Perhaps it was just early because the tree could put all its energy into this one fruit. But down on Pine Island, friend of the MRFC Steve Cucura reports an oddly compressed mango season, with the peak coming up in the next three weeks or so. To be safe, eat lots and lots of mangos this month!