For the last three weeks, I have been picking wild mushrooms--- Black and Yellow Morel, Oyster Pleurotis, Ink Caps, and Asparagus.
Dixon

gee, all I have are peas and sand cherrys. I'm green with envy.
Kathy

I'm eating Dewberries, Rubus trivialis, by the bucket (and with buckets of vanilla ice cream) and Wild Plums, Prunus angustifolia, one at a time. Wild Bergamot is fresh and aromatic right now and starting to bloom, so it's great to throw into tea. Wild Blueberries (we have six native species in my region of the Gulf Coast) are just starting to produce a few ripe fruits. All the garden herbs are great right now from Dill to Basil.
Carol of Butterfly Baby Food Land

Almost everything is new this year (except an apple and pear tree that came with the house). Sunshine Blue blueberries were the first harvest, then Fall Gold raspberries, strawberries (I have 4 or 5 different kinds), Bright Lights chard gets brought in one stalk at a time, romaine lettuce 'Freckles' is so pretty, I got a few leaves off that before it bolts. Also nasturtiums, Feijoa petals, borage flowers Southern Giant mustard greens, basil, chives, Lebanese zuchinni and Sunburst patypan squash so far. My neighbor has Valencia oranges that I pick for juice.

Next up will be 20 kinds of tomatoes, all colors and sizes and the apples, pears and figs from the mature trees, more summer squash, plus peppers, melons, and winter squash, several mints for tea, lemon verbena, basil, & dill.

I'm also looking forward to my new baby trees growing up, mulberries are my favorite too - mine is Black Beauty plus plums, aprium, pluot, white apricot, peaches, nectarine, almond, walnut, white sapote, avocados, citrus, figs, and one sweet cherry.

I also have a superdwarf Cavendish banana, babaco papaya, cherimoya, rose apple, dwarf strawberry tree/arbutus, coffea arabica, pepino dulce, wonderberry seeds that just sprouted, watermelon, pumpkin, hops, passiflora and pitaya.

This is so much fun I don't know why I was stuck on roses for so long!

I could be yanking up some bamboo shoots, but I think the plant is too young yet.
Other than that, blueberries will be the first thing in my garden ready to eat.

Sequoia strawberries are proving to be bountiful this year--3 pints daily from a 3x3 patch!

Goumi produced its first fruit and its very yummy--a strawberry and cherry cross, methinks.

I thought the pawpaw had cross-pollinated but, alas, it hadn't and I'm without pawpaw this year (a late summer fruit). The apples didn't produce blossoms this year due to the funky spring weather.

The blueberries are getting close. They will be followed by the peaches. A few che' should appear this year--I'm very curious. Aronia will be available for the first time. And, my kiwi produced hundreds of blossoms, most of which got pollinated without me embarassing myself crawling and stretching with a q-tip for 6 hours like last summer.

Finally, the mulberry trees deposited by the birds (and growing QUITE well, thank you...after I spent a ton on yard trees in a new yard) have a handful of berries to try.

One more year for seaberry.

Mulberries.
The two seedling M.alba trees(purchased as "Black Giant" and M.rubra - but they're NOT!) are ripening now, and it's a battle with the birds for them.
'Collier' will be next in the ripening sequence, with 'Oscar's', 'Packy', 'Black', and 'Giant Black' ripening about the same time, followed by 'Illinois Everbearing' and 'Stearns'.
We'll be eating mulberries for the next 6 weeks.
Again, 'Wellington' is a real disappontment - not many berries, and a lot of winter die-back.
No fruits on 'Pakistan' or 'Cat's Tail' grafts, made last spring.

Lisa, You grow girl!!!lol And you're driving me crazy with envy. I too,am munching mulberries and should have a couple of lychees before too long and keep watching 2 small sapodillas. Those darn hurrricances took just about everything I had ! If you are ever up my way Stop by and I'll hook you up with some bromeliads. Peggy

rofl.....

my cookin' sage survived the winter and has decided to take some more turf for itself, and the mint is popping up in the lawn 3' from where it left off last year (my goal is for grass to be an unpopular minority in my lawn) and the bergamot and melissa just got harvested for my mom's tea ball :)

other than that, the daylily shoots were quite tasty in a white balsamic dressing, and I'm still enjoying the spinach I planted in a ring around my taro plant when I put her out for the spring- kinda hoping that she will shade the spinach and give me an extra week or two when things get hot.

the hardy kiwi vines are doing wonderfully, and I have great hopes for them.

the blueberry bush is just in its second year from a cutting, but is now in a sunnier spot where it seems happy.

The first Blackberries ripened today. Delicious, tender, juicy and sweet! Still enjoying Blues, Strawberries and the luscious Mulberries.

Berries ROCK!!!!!

Lisa (she of the purple fingers)

Lisa,

I am amazed that you are still picking strawberries!!! I passed up some sweet charlies because I thought it was too late in the season to get them going. But reading all your posts I will definately have them in my garden next year!
What kind of Mulberries do you have? I am looking for a sweet one that I can trim and keep it at reasonable height, since they can get soo tall.

Also what are you doing about squirrels? With as many edible plants as you have I would think they would be in heaven. They ate my mangos and occasionally mess with my citrus. I want to do more edibles, but not if I don't get to eat them.

Ariel

Ariel, the Sweet Charlies are by far the best strawberries i have ever tried to grow. They have been putting out berries steadily for at least 4 months now. They fruit even when they are small. I recently lost a few to an unknown cause, but the majority of the plants look great.

I have Wacissa, Pakistan and 4 Mulberry trees purchased locally that are heavy fruiters. I'm keeping them low and wide so I get the fruit easily instead of having it dangle out of my reach. So far, I haven't tasted a Mulberry that I didn't like(G).

Squirrels are HORRIBLE here! They destroyed all the Peaches and Apples in my orchard. The only apples/peaches/ nectarines I got to enjoy this year were/are from potted trees on the patio. I am waging all-out war with the squirrels and they are winning. They ate hundreds of apples (I have 11 apple trees in the orchard).

So far, they have not discovered the Mulberries, Blackberries, Blueberries, Citrus or Mangos.

I'm probably going to have to make wire cages around all my trees next year if I want fruit. What a job!

Lisa

Hi everyone,:)
I enjoy reading about your gardens, guys. AHH-H... Especially, yours ,Lisa! It is very inspiring!!

I am just a begginer and a dreamer. Someday I might too have a big edible garden with jucy fruits. Lisa, how much time do you spend daily in the garden? I keep planting mine, but scared that with small kids I am not going to keep up.

Does any one have a good experience with macadamia nuts " Beamont", white sapote " sue bell" , atemoya " perez ..." and jackfruit in Florida z 9b ? I've got the trees still in the pots, but after doing more research, I got scared that they are not the best varieties for my area. I would appreciate any suggestions. I am planning to have my front and back yards all planted with edibles.

Many young trees are already growing. most of them just planted : brogdon avocado( not doing well), starfruit,figs(Ischa and Brown turkey) in the pots because of the nematoeds in my soil, sapodilla, pitomba,tropical cherries, bananas, papayas,citrus trees,malabar chestnut,peanutbutter fruit,cattley guava,jujube,mulberries, black sapote,jaboticaba,persimmon "triumph",mango,loquat,passion fruit,wax jambu, sugar apple, blackberries, blueberry. What else am I missing as a great Florida fruit?? I am thinking of getting canistel later. This rain is so great for the garden!!!
Best wishes for all of you
Katerina

Garlic scapes..

sigh ...

the apricots and plums are over, and the mulberries
and the loquats too ...

and will be waiting a couple of months for the figs.

what trees should I propagate, to fill in this time of
no-fruit ... for future years?

differing varieties of figs? quavas?

[I like the unhybridized, small, natural
fruits ...]

Millennium Twain

Here is a link that might be useful: global consciousness, aka the 'BlueStar' ...

The only thing I am 'eating' is 'Gaia's Garden' by Toby Hemenway...it's a great starting point.... Working 60 hrs/week and dreaming up my 'food forest' It is starting to take shape.... Wiht a 2 acre pond in the middle.... I would like to communicate with others in zone 9, Fl.... just east of Tampa.... thank you!!!

Kotenok,

I would love to grow a triump persimmon in my yard. Could you guide me where to buy the plant?

Thanks
alpharetta

Well, for the last three years, I've done about nothing but plant trees, shrubs, flowers, and edibles, but this is basically what I have, although not all are ready to eat yet:

2 hamlin orange trees, 1 unknown sweet orange, 1 trifoliate orange (good for marmalades, james, and in teas), 1 meiwa kumquat, 1 ponderosa lemon, 1 variegated pink eureka lemon, 3 meyers lemons, 2 sambo lemons, 1 duncan grapefruit, 1 ruby red grapefruit, 1 persian lime, 2 honeybell tangerines, 2 'wonderful' pomegranates, 1 jujube, 1 golden dorsett apple, 1 anna apple, 1 ein shemer apple, 1 unknown apple, 2 jelly palms, several fig trees, 2 dunstan chestnuts, three pecans (unknown variety), 1 pineapple guava, 3 pawpaws, 1 mayhaw, 2 white mulberries, 2 himalayan mulberries, 2 sweet olive tea trees (used for fragrancing teas - so i guess you could technically call it edible - i love the apricot fragrance they put out), surinam cherry, several bananas, dewberries, tart blackberries, muscadine grapevines, purple passionfruit, micharo, loquat, japanese raisen tree, 2 blueberry bushes, 1 floridahome peach, 1 nectarine, 1 pineapple pear, 1 baldwin pear, Giant fuyu persimmon, wild persimmons, tanenashi persimmon (we've been making persimmon breads and such with these)...

Other things I'm experimenting with are mangos, papayas, and carambolas. We had tons of papayas in bloom earlier this year, but a big storm came and wiped them all out, unfortunately. So, don't plant papayas in low areas :/

As far as future plantings, I'm probably only going to try a handful of other citrus trees, like pomellos, marsh white grapefruit, ugli tangelos, honeybell tangelos (not to be mistaken for honeybell tangerines), and orlando tangelo.

I'd also like to get some more of the Israeli apple trees and maybe the UF tropic sweet variety. I may also need pollinators for my pineapple guava and jujube.

Also, we planted some quince seeds this year and hope to at least get an ornamental quince going. I'd also like to get a few more pomegranate varieties.

If you're in to gardening like I am, there's never an end :/