It's Mango Season in Central, FL
- Sam Gordon
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
Mangoes:
Mangoes are a popular fruit and because they also enjoy Central Florida’s climate… except for winter cold snaps, they rank in my top 10 fruit trees for Orlando.
Purchasing:
When purchasing mangoes you likely will want a grafted tree for two reasons: it will fruit years earlier and grafted mangoes have well known and exciting varieties such as: ‘Kent,’ 'Valencia,' and ‘Coconut Cream'
A 3 gallon tree could produce a couple mangoes in 2-3 years. (source)
Planting:
Some farmers swear mangoes enjoy neglected soil. I’ve seen mangoes grow 10 yards from saltwater in white sand and in the limestone rocks that hide just below ground level in S. Florida. And they thrive there.
Mangoes, unless heavily and meticulously and pruned are big trees. It's hard to keep mangoes small. Probably up to 50 feet tall and 40 feet in diameter. So putting mangoes on the North side of your garden will allow your other plants to get light.
Like all trees, plant your mango trees high and tight (better to have the tree slightly above ground level than below it and make sure the soil around it is re-compacted)
Water it in heavy, this helps re-compact as well.
Pruning:
The fruit grows off 1st year growth. So “tipping” your tree can increase your fruit yield by increasing the amount of branches. The branch that you tip must be have no lateral shoots and be at least 3 nodes long.(Nodes look like the elbow part of a branch.) (Lateral shoots are the same as lateral branches.) On mangoes, nodes are where the new branch shoot connects to old growth. Branch splits occur at nodes. So do it like this, find the tip of a branch, identify the last branch fork, then as your count towards the tip of the branch, identify the next node, then count two more. In between the 2nd and 3rd node cut the branch, cut the branch 1/2 an inch from the second node. What we hope happens is because the branch can’t continue to grow off that main branch, it will produce another fork from the “second” node. You can do this technique from July-October, so maybe 2-3 times a year. You don’t want to do it the rest of the year as the tree gets ready to flower, flowers, and then holds fruit.
Flowering:
Flowering happens usually happens in late December, but I think we’ve had mangoes flower as early as late November.
Flies pollinate mango trees so throwing scraps near your flowers can attract pollinators.
Fruiting:
Fruits are usually start getting ripe about halfway through June.
Other important notes:
Be careful of mango sap on the tree and peels. Poison ivy, mangoes, and cashews all are part of the same tree family. This tree family notoriously produces a skin irritant chemical called ‘urushiol’. It will irritate your skin if it gets on you when you prune your tree or if your scrape your lips on the peel or seed. “Mango mouth” is a rash thet comes from eating mangoes.
My family likes to make mango salsa for chips and tacos, here’s a recipe:
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