Where to start? Thank you, Kat, for a great inspiration in butterfly gardening, I loved your "Florida certified" garden. Thanks for taking time with my son and explaining him about the atala butterfly caterpilar. Big Thank you to you David. You are a wonderful host, thank you for sharing you home with us for a day. Your food was to die for (I will have to get the recipe for your thai wings, and the chaya wrapped yummies!!!) And the meat, hmmmmm, so good. Kristi, thank you for thinking of my little boy with the gardening supplies, he gardens with me quite a lot. Those will come very handy. Ricky, thank you for your autographed book, you are really talented. Thank you Lisa, for sharing with us the lovely variegated heliconia, it has been a long time on my wish list. It was lovely to see everybody again, and thanks to those who drove the distance, and to those who traded plants with me. Jerry and I had a great time. Hope to see you all at my place at the end of September!!! Veronika Oh, and Tony, what was the name of the candy? Those were so good (the Lychee ones).

Hello, There are several popular kinds of mangoes from Cuba. The Biscochuelos from Santiago de Cuba, is a beautiful sizeable, rich, suculent and very sweet mango, hence the name of Biscochuelo meaning biscuit. The Manga Blanca. I don't know why is given a female name, but is a very smooth yellow skin with no blush, shaped sort of like a Cushman Florida mango or kidkney shape. The flesh has a very firm texture, not that juicy, it has a very different taste from other sweet and juicy mangoes. It is a mild sweetness that tastes great without being excessively sweet. Excellent for slicing or eating green with salt. The Prieto which has a very dark green skin, which is the reason for its name meaning dark is a small mango, very fibrous, however, very juicy and extremely sweet will be the reward. It is excellent for juicing. It is considered a heirloom in Cuba. The tree is small which is suitable for small yards. The Toledo another Cuban heirloom. A true dwarf by nature, will grow up to 8 or less feet thourgh out of its life. The small 6 oz fruit is greenish yellow with pink-orange blush. The flesh has fiber but very rich flavor, a mango that typifies the local Caribbean mango. A best kept secret cultivar. San Felipe mango considered to be one of the most beautiful mangoes in terms of color, shape and size and brags as the most beautiful mango trees in your neighborhood. It is very eye-catching with bright yellow skin with a red-apple blush with white dots. The flesh is deep yellow to orange and averaging a pound. Its flavor is very rich, sweet and spicy which is considered one of the classic mango flavors of the world. It is consistent producer of beautiful fruit. The mango Filipino, which is really a mango brought to Cuba from the Philines. It has slender, sigmoid shaped much like most Asian mangoes. The fiberless flesh is Canary yellow- greenish with a very juicy, sweet peculiar taste most popular for squeezing and sucking its juice. Of course there are many others in different parts of Cuba, but the ones I mentioned are the ones that I kwow.

Here's the photo journal of my next tasting. Yum! This is so fun! This time the contenders are: Herman, Nam Doc Mai, Champagne, Fairchild, Florida Red, Choc Anon, Tahar, Ott, Edward and for an interesting comparison the first Georgia peach of the season. My ratings are: 1. Edward, 2. Florida Red, 3. Champagne, 4. Georgia Peach, 5. Choc Anon, 6. Fairchild, 7. Ott, 8. Herman, 9. Tahar, 10. Nam Doc Mai My husbands ratings were the same, except he had a tie for first place: the Edward & the Georgia Peach. Edward - not quite as perfectly ripened as the last one, but still excellent. Florida Red - This one was I think about 1 day past perfect ripeness. But it was very juicy, melting and very sweet. Smooth and very flavorful. Champagne - A little more tart that is characteristic, but still very good. Georgia Peach - First of the season, so not yet of perfect ripeness. It had good full flavor, with a pronounced floral note. Both sweet and tart, more tart than a perfectly ripened fruit would be. Choc Anon - I think these were picked too soon, they started wrinkling before getting soft. Still very tasty. Flesh was firm with no fiber. It was tangy, coconutty and had a slight pineapple taste. Apparently forgot to take a pic of the inside of this one. Fairchild - This one ripened most perfectly of the 3 fairchilds I bought. It was firm and buttery to cut through, but the flesh to pit ratio is pretty poor, and this was the largest fairchild of the 3. It was mild flavored, and pleasant with a slight pine flavor near the skin (which was not bad tasting). I am however a bit underwhelmed by the fairchilds overall. They are good, but I expected from descriptions for them to be outstanding. How do others feel about them? Maybe I got less than optimal fruits? Ott - This had firm flesh and was sweet and mild. The flavor was smooth and simple. It was in fact almost indistinguishable from the Fairchild. Herman - This one got a bit overripe - there was some spoilage by the pit. It had a medium amount of fiber. It was flavorful and sweet, but had an earthy undertone I didn't like. Although that could have been due to the overripeness. Tahar - This one also was a bit overripe. It was a bit stringy with a coconutty flavor. Nam Doc Mai - Once again, this one rated last. This fruit was slightly better than the last one. The flesh is so silky smooth, I really wanted it to taste awesome. It was slightly sweeter than the last one I tried but still had an off earthy undertone to it that I didn't like. Forgot to take an inside picture of this one too.

You might need to give the tree several years before you can be able to make an accurate determination of what the variety tastes like. I know Satsuma mandarin trees can take up to 7 years to develop optimal flavor, and even after that the flavor very slowly continues to improve, reaching a peak at perhaps 18 to 25 years. From a 2 year old tree they are bland and watery; from a 6-7 year old tree they pretty much taste like how they do at the supermarket; from a 25 year old tree they are packed with flavor, almost like the best mandarin variety you can find. I know mandarins and mangoes are like apples and oranges (hahaha, get the joke?) but I am just making an analogy. With mangoes I have read it generally takes 4 to 7 years for the fruits to develop optimal flavor (from the time the plant is a seedling).