Alfonso is fairly rare in Florida.....not a very widely planted cultivar at all, though some trees are maintained at places such as the Fruit and Spice Park in Homestead, as well as the rare fruit councils in the state which have their own gardens (such as the Broward rare fruit council, which I believe has an Alfonso planted in their extensive garden)

Edwards is much easier to come by, though commercial growers tend to avoid it because it is a VERY poor producer....probably the worst producing named variety. I will tell you now that most of the Edwards trees in the state are finished producing for the season. For some reason the Edwards ripened fairly early this year ( a lot in May/early June).

Kent you can definitely order and I know of several sources but realize that you'll have to pay shipping fees which add to the cost. I would say its difficult to top a good Kent.....Edward is probably the 'best' mango out there (I've never had Alphonso but don't think Edward can really be 'topped'). You may want to experiment with some more readily available varieties other than Edward or Alfonso.

Send me an email/message if you would like me to send you some links to companies that will ship.

Very true about Edwards poor production, yet it is one of the best tasting varieties. Alphonso is becoming more widely known and planted, but still not compared to others. There are so many excellent varieties out there, it's hard to be very picky.

Gary

Gary, you can definitely become picky. i moved to Florida two years ago and now am a mango snob!

living in NY i thought there was only one variety of mango, red ones (Tommy Aitkins)

now i will not even eat a kent or haden or any of their seedlings unless its off season and the phillipines, nam doc mai, lemon meringue, po pyu kalay are not in season.

alphonso do not grow alot in south florida, most indian varities like arid climates and are unsuitable for our humidity. im dying to try an alphonso though.

i have room in my yard for a few more large trees and am trying new varieties of mangos. i currently have julie, lemon meringue and carrie growing.

carrie tastes like ice cream, beautiful creamy texture. julie is a complex spicy coconut flavor. lemon meringue is my favorite, sickeningly sweet mango, and sour seed when you suck on it. i prefer asian mango varieties to the more popular haden kent seedlings so common around here

I was going through some old threads and found a place that sells the supposedly # 2 mango variety in India, its called a Kesar Mango and they call it the Queen of Mangoes. I ordered 6 and its really expensive but I wanted to try it before it goes out of season tomorrow.

I would love to come to Florida one of these days and go to a mango tasting festival! You guys are so lucky over there. We get lots of Champagne, Kent, Tommy Atkins and some no named varieties. We recently got some Ataulfo's in but I didin't pick any up. I'll let you guys know how the Kesar Mangoes taste. Cheers,
Simon

Hi Simon,

Can you please let me know where you ordered the Kesar Mango from?

TIA
desi

There are many sites online that you can order from but I think I ordered them from Mangozz.com and they tasted excellent.

Simon

I misunderstood, I thought you meant Kesar Mango Tree...had mango fever and didn't read thoroughly :)

Kent Mango trees and several other varieties are available in San Diego from Richard Frost. He frequents the Leucadia farmers market and during the spring and summer he is at the Mira Mesa farmers market.

His website: www.PlantsThatProduce.com

I tasted an alphonso for the first time at Harry's a few weeks ago. To be honest, it sucked. Definitely in the bottom group of the mangoes we tried that day. Maybe they would be better if they are grown in a more arid climate but in FL they don't seem to taste very good. It was bad enough to put my tree on my get rid of list.

In speaking to Sheehan (Murahilin) today, while he was at the mango festival, I learned that Dr. Campbell indicated that Alphonso grown with nitrogen fertilization and or not picked two weeks in advance and allowed to ripen off the tree are not good at all and are cpompletely different than those that are grown without nitrogen and are picked and ripened appropriately. Frankly, I can't see how it would make that much of a complete difference, but that is what he is saying. Overall, Alphonso's grown on my mucky soil, with no fertilization at all were pretty darned lousy.

Harry

Alfonso Mango in my backyard last year. I am located in San Bernardino, California.
Check out the picture.

This post was edited by shaanp on Sat, Jun 22, 13 at 18:02

Wow...that looks great!! Congrats...enjoy it when its ripe.

This years Alfonso mango flowers in my backyard. I live in Southern California.

Looks great!! Hope you get a nice crop this season...

The Alphonso mango in Orlando Florida - bought from home depot / lowes; planted in ground april 2016.