Fruit of the Philippines - Aratilis

Almost part of any Filipino childhood is eating the organic fruit snack, aratilis. Also known as the mansanitas (tiny apples) in my province, its scientific name is Muntingia calabura. It is small tree that grows about 7 to 12 meters. This makes it easy for children to reach up and grab its fruit or climb it. However, climbing is not advised because its branches are thin and can not bear weight well.

The aratilis is popular among Filipinos because it’s a ready-to-eat fruit snack. With juicy sweet pulp and miniature seeds that you can eat with each bite, it can be an addictive treat. Our common rivals for it are the fruit bats that often stay up in the tree at night.

Summer is often when the aratilis tree flowers and blooms. Much like the apple tree (or mansanas in Filipino), it starts off with green unripe fruit that’s hard and bitter and later on, it ripens to give you soft, ripe, red and juicy fruit.

a.k.a. Mansanitas

Due to to the fructose content in its fruit, the aratilis is not only a source of happy summer moments but also of good energy and fun for children of all ages.

What fruit brings you back to happy childhood memories?

During summer, one of the fruit I love to eat is the Santol. Grown locally, it is also called kecapi in Malay, katon in Thai and faux mangoustanier in French.

Sandoricum koetjape or Santol has 2 varieties, the yellow and the red. The ones that grow in the Philippines are the yellow ones. The santol tree can grow up to 150 feet. It’s branches are long and they give good shades.

To harvest this organic fruit snack, try using a long pole. The skin of the santol is quite tough and lumpy. You need to peel it off to get to the pulpy center with seeds.

The pulp of the santol can vary from sour to sweet. It’s quite difficult to tell if it’s ripe or not. As for me, I try to squeeze the santol. If I can manage to do that, then there’s a chance that it’s ripe and sweet.

I don’t know if there are any dried fruit snacks made from the santol but we usually make it into candy or marmalade.

Have you tasted this fruit? Leave us your comments about it or share it on Facebook.

The tambis or makopa (Syzygium samarangense) is one of those fruit that has many names. This causes quite a confusion because there are several varieties of the fruit. To my knowledge, there are three varieties found here. There’s the pink bell-shaped makopa, the green bell-shaped one and the oval-shaped tambis.

What we have growing on our front yard is the green one. The tree has grown a bit more than 20 feet and is well-loved by kids. This organic fruit snack is meaty with white pulp and its taste can be bland to juicy sweet.

The tambis grows from a regular lemon size to a mature kiwi fruit. It grows in singles, pairs, triplets and sometimes in clusters of four to six fruits. Our makopa is seedless. For added sweetness, we would normally water our tree with water laced with brown sugar.

Do you know of any dried fruit snacks made from this tropical fruit? We would love to know about it on Facebook or leave us a comment below.

“Vegetables, Herbs and Fruit: An Illustrated Encyclopedia” authored by Mathew Biggs, Jekka McVicar and Bob Flowerdew is a helpful guide for people who want to make their garden space useful by growing plants that promote good diet and perfect health. The authors penned how to choose the plants well that may yield a good harvest.

The encyclopedia is arranged with vegetables first in alphabetical order, followed by herbs and then fruit presented by fruit type like orchard fruit, soft, bush and cane fruit, tender fruit, shrub and flower garden fruits and nuts. You will also learn that there’s more to herbs other than just adding flavor and taste.

Other useful features of this handy book includes a maintenance calendar, detailed topics on greenhouse growing, hardiness zones, soil fertility and even seed sources. More so would be 800 colorful images that brings to life 70 vegetables, 100 fruits and over a hundred herbs with recipes for you to try. From methods of practical gardening, the procurement of seedlings to medicinal benefits, you will realize that it offers you the key to life’s longevity.

Grab a copy of the Vegetables, Herbs and Fruit: An Illustrated Encyclopedia on Amazon.com for $19.77 and let us know what you think of it. Share your review on Facebook or leave a comment below.

Seed morphologist Wolfgang Stuppy and visual artist Rob Kesseler launched the book, “Fruit: Edible, Inedible, Incredible” to add to the series “Seeds” and “Pollen”. This is a reference on the life and death of fruits, all in a fully illustrated package with relevant information attached to it.

Plant reproduction is carefully inspected in the book with fascinating stories and pictures that capture the true essence of fruits. This fruit book explores the difference between a fruit and a vegetable, as well as other classifications of fruits from simple fruits like apples and berries, multiple fruits that came from one flower, Schizocarpic fruits, Anthocarpous fruits, compound fruits that come from several flowers and even bogus fruits.

Fleshy fruits gets its own chapter on this highly visual book. Fruits like cacao, baobab, durian and Osage oranges are highlighted in this chapter. Stuppy discusses how fleshy fruits came to be, different dispersal methods, its biological functions and how fruits interact with animals in the environment.

This book gives a new perspective on how a fruit comes to life and how it dies.   You can buy Fruit: Edible, Inedible, Incredible on Amazon.com for $37.80 & ships for FREE with Amazon.com’s Super Saver Shipping.

Leave us a comment below for your thoughts on it or join us on our discussion on Facebook.

pomegranates

Everyone knows that pomegranates are healthy fruits, loaded with anti-oxidants that actually help prevent cancer, lower blood pressure and cholesterol and reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s but what many people don’t realize are the effects that pomegranates have on skin and hair. Pomegranates contain a key chemical that helps to keep blood vessels healthy and regulate blood flow, they also have recently been shown to help in collagen production which helps to “plump” and restore skin.

Making Skin Gorgeous Again
The oil from pomegranates can now be found in many skin care products, lotions and even some make-up. The reason for this rise in popularity, pomegranate seed oil contains excellent moisturizing properties. Wrinkled and dull skin can easily be treated and reversed with this miracle oil thanks to it’s one of a kind fatty acids. Pomegranate seed oil also helps to restore the epidermis and fight aging, something every woman longs for after finding that first wrinkle.

Hair Repair
Pomegranates are wonderful moisturizers and can now be found in shampoos and conditioners such as Burt’s Bee’s products and other popular brands. Softening hair without making scalps oily and improving the texture of hair is another plus of pomegranates. From head to toe, pomegranates are positively one of the world’s most perfect fruits!

Heather Green is a freelance writer and the resident blogger for OnlineNursingDegrees.org, a free informational website offering tips and advice on online nursing schools.

Author: Paul Masterson

Aronia Flowers

Chokeberries, the poor man Goji berry. High in anti-oxidants, sour tasting hence the name but great in fruit juices, jams and wine.

Living in Ireland were the weather can be too damp to grow many of what we call ‘Super Foods’ I got excited when I heard about the Chokeberry. You see the Chokeberry is a hardy little plant that is trouble free to grow, yeh! It doesn’t have pests or diseases to contend with and the birds so far haven’t discovered them. They are probably too busy with the strawberries.

Last autumn (fall) I planted three experimental Chokeberry plants to see if they would produce any fruit.

Aronia Berry or Chokeberry

I live in a rural location on the side of a hill, two miles from the sea. The house is called ‘Windy Acre’ for a self explaining reason. So it is a challenge to grow anything. I planted these plants in full sun with some protection from the cold Northerly winds under the Ash tree. The Ash stands at approximately 40’ high and does break the winds.

The plants survived the coldest winter on record for Ireland. We normally have mild winters, but last winter was the exception when temperatures plummeted to sub-zero during the day. When spring came I was glad to see them flowering. The flowers are multi-stemmed with white petals and are similar to brambles.

During flowering it is best to water these at least every day in a dry spell, although they are quite tolerant if not watered too often.

Aronia Berry or Chokeberry

The Chokeberries are now producing fruit in multi-stemmed clusters. They are approximately 7mm in size with a bluish-black colour. If not picked, the fruit will remain on the plant until the winter.

Some propagation tips:

1. Seeds should be stratified in moist peat for 3 months between 2c and 5c.
2. Softwood cuttings taken in early summer root easily untreated. Use a rooting hormone.
3. Division has also proved to be highly successful. Cutting suckers with a sharp spade and transplanting them throughout the garden will almost always work.

So if you want a low cost ‘Super Food’, do give the Chokeberry a try.

Medicinal uses:

1. Originally considered to be of little medicinal value, new research shows that Aronia melanocarpa has a high concentration of polyphenols and anthocyanins, stimulating circulation, protecting the urinary tract, and strengthening the heart.
2. Ongoing studies at the University of Illinois also suggest that Aronia may include compounds that fight cancer and cardiac disease.

Paul writes for and owns www.bonsai.ie, a specialist web journal on Bonsai, Japanese Gardening and writing on the Tinytrees Garden.

Do you have a personal fruit growing story to share?  We love guest posts so that we can share experiences of readers all around the world.  Please share yours by contacting us.

Lovely Black Elder

The black elder, or sambucus nigra, is actually a very common shrub in Europe and eastern Asia that has been believed since ancient times to hold mystical medicinal qualities.  The dark purple berries of the black elder smell sweet but are rather tart and spicy in flavor.  Still, wines, jams, and syrups made from from elder berries are a European tradition continued today.  The fruit of the American elder, or sambucus Canadensis, has similar healing properties.  The popular flu drug Sambucol is made from the extract of elder berries.  Studies have shown that the medicine does indeed double flu recovery!  The elder has many benefits:

Treats influenza A and B

Contains antioxidants, which stimulate the immune system

Relieves aches, paints, and fever

Antiviral

Antibiotic

Antibacterial

Sooths upper respiratory problems

Promotes circulation and lymphatic health

For access to the health benefits of elder berries, consider trying an herbal tea made from dried elder flowers or berries by pouring a cup of boiling water over two heaping spoonfuls of elder flowers and straining after ten minutes, or by adding cold water to two spoonfuls of dried elderberries, boiling and straining the mixture.

If you love nature and love to plant fruit trees, why not learn the techniques and tips on how to grow fruit trees? If properly planted and positioned in exact locations, all fruit trees are in fact, aside from you being environment friendly, an added beauty to your back yard or to your surrounding. Fruit trees also provide you delicious gifts yearly.

If properly established, and you know how to care for fruit trees in addition to properly maintaining your planted fruits, you will become a blessing to your neighbors and to the world. It is vital that you know how to grow fruit trees properly.

Here are some suggestions from fruit trees growers:

1. Ensure to choose a climate fitted for growing fruit trees. Check your yard what fruits will grow best. Determine also its drainage and sunlight availability.
2. It is best to raise more than one kind of fruit tree. It is better to plant a variation of fruits to have successful harvest.
3. Antioxidant fruits are also recommended for you to nurture and develop for health reasons and benefits of the whole family.
4. It is best to put bark mulch or needles of pine all around the tree base so that weeds will not populate as this will be the cause of competition for root growth.
5. Growing fruit trees take years to have fruits, and thus patience. Be sure to protect, control pests, and prune them regularly.

If you’ve been reading our site for awhile, then you may already know some basic elberberry information. Many companies have taken advantage of the said benefits of the elderberry tree and they have started to mass-produce it so that it becomes available to a greater number of people.

What exactly are the benefits of elderberry tea? It is said that the flowers from which the tea is made are rich in antioxidants that helps the body fight off free radicals, which can cause the damage or even death of cells in the body.

Aside from being an antioxidant that helps prevent certain diseases, elderberry tea also contains various vitamins and minerals including Vitamins A and C, B6 and calcium, to name a few. Fevers and painful joints may also be cured with the help of this beneficial drink, as what many Native Americans have proven over the years.

If you decide to make your very own elderberry tea from growing elderberry seeds fresh from your garden, be sure to follow a few guidelines. The most important of them all is to make sure that the berries you pick are already ripe. Although they come in very rare cases, elderberry poisoning can actually happen. When making your drink, you can boil dried flowers and drink them up or you could get the berries, take out the elderberry seeds and get the juice out. A person may drink a cup of elderberry tea up to three times every day.

Do you drink elderberry tea?  Do you make your own or do you have a favorite brand?