I recently picked some pecans from the tree in my garden. What have you picked from your garden, lately?

I used to grow mangoes in my front yard. A kind you could never buy in grocery stores, because they have no fiber in them at all. Bright luscious orange flesh, and you could eat them with a spoon, like custard. I used to eat about 6 a day.

Excuse me, I’m going to go weep now.

Dwarf Pomegranites. I love my little P tree!
I also have harvested next years 10,000 Morning Glory seeds that are hybrids of several different varieties.

@zensky It’s 30 degrees F. Anything I picked would be iffy.

@zensky I loved picking pecans and eating them. Regretful when I have to buy them and not just because of the 12 dollar a lb thing.
@bookish1 I love mangoes they are hands down my favorite fruit. I have never seen a mango tree.
@Coloma pomegranetes are nice but it takes me an hour to eat a quarter.
@Adirondackwannabe. I completely understand and am in the same boat. Can’t wait to go ice fishing though.
The last thing I picked this year was cranberries. Highbush. Excellent jam material.
I do however have some herbs growing in the house. I have chinese parsley, lavender, basil, and cat nip.

Right now, I’m picking weeds.

However, in the past, I’ve had an apple tree in my backyard (Montana), an orange tree in the front yard (Florida), a honeysuckle bush lining the property (Alabama, and yes I sucked those blossoms) and had a tomato vine for several years.

One year in Minnesota, my son decided to grow 30 jalapeno plants. He swore only 10% would survive. 100% of them did. I had more jalapeno peppers than I knew what do do with.

@zensky My bad. Four hours to my SE the New York City and NJ people are still digging out.

The last thing I picked was basil. Then there was a frost and it shattered all my dreams of making and freezing pesto. :(

I picked a tick off my cat last night. lol

This is a picture of the last batch of peppers we picked from our garden, back in late September. The only thing left in our garden right now is an old rotten cucumber and some weeds.

@zensky I am jealous of your pecan tree. Gardening is over for the year here in Chicago.

But here is my anecdote from warmer weather.

My garden is three clay pots outside my window. Big ones, 18 inches across. Space may be limited, but I am going to have the biggest garden possible.

The “plots” hold:
1) Banana peppers
2) Basil
3) Dill

For lunch I carry to work a cold salad with red beans (or white beans or black-eyed peas). Plus corn, chopped red pepper and soy beans (Soycutash for those who shop at Trader Joe’s).

And in the morning I lean out the window and gather a little harvest. So my lunch includes fresh hot peppers, basil and dill straight from my garden.

Thanks again, @zensky, for bringing up the topic.

Please enjoy a pecan in my name!

@jonsblond Awesome array! Beautiful. I once made a wreath of Habaneros and hung it on the fence to discourage the damn deer. It was so funny, this one doe took a bite, stood there chewing and then, leaped into the air bucking! haha

I haven’t picked them yet BUT there are bananas growing and peaches! I can’t wait. I just have to beat the possums to them. They usually win…

Do you put them in individual paper bags, @Bellatrix>

Back home (in Cape Verde) we used to pick tamarind fruits off the trees in our school’s yard (which doubled as the playground) and would eat them as is and then take some home to make tamarind juice. We would save some of it in liquid form to drink on especially hot days and freeze the rest in ice trays and these little plastic baggies that we would suck on on the way to school. Date trees are also abundant there and line the sidewalks on most streets and during the summer months they fill up with fruits. Date trees are pretty tall, so we would walk around throwing rocks at them and picking the fruits off the cobblestoned streets once they fell. Oh, and also, one of our neighbors had almond trees in their backyard and they would let us kids go there and pick them off the trees and we would eat the fleshy part and save the nuts in their shells to throw at one another lol Gosh, it’s all coming back to me now, all the things we used to pick and eat from trees growing up: tamarind, dates, almonds, mangoes, guava, passion fruit, sugar cane, coconuts…

@Bellatrix I’m so jealous, I love Banana trees but it is too cold here for them to survive. Boo Hoo. When I traveled in Asia a couple years ago I sat in the most amazing grove of Banana trees out in the countryside of Taiwan. I wanted to build a little house and live in that Banana orchard. :-)

@jordym84 How wonderful!

@Coloma It really was…I miss it a lot.

I don’t have a garden but on the way to the shop there is this tree. With the strangest “things” growing on it. They look like little red pumpkins. I saw everyone crowding around eating them for days. And a few ‘splatted” into the ground. I asked someone what they were? They said “cherries” how odd. They don’t look like cherries to me. Maybe none of the cherry eaters survived I don’t know.

@jordym84 : Sounds lovely :) I used to grow guava, passionfruit, papaya, citrus, pineapple, and jakfruit as well.

@Shippy: Did they look like this? I know them as Surinam cherries. My neighbor used to grow them. They are quite edible but they are extremely sour! Great source of vitamin C.

@bookish1 Yes!! Thank you, wow, so I should eat them? I could do with some vitamin C.

@Shippy : Yes, enjoy :)

Those are so cool, miniature pumpkins indeed!
I discovered a source of Japanese Satsuma plums last year at a local farming co-op and community garden. My grandmother has a Satsuma plum tree when I was little, the BEST plums on the planet and you NEVER find them in the stores. I was so excited to eat them again after 30 something years!

@Coloma Well it was a good enough description clearly as @bookish1 knew straight away! One learns so many things every day here on Fluther!

@Shippy : I actually forgot the name and thought they were Barbados cherries at first. But those didn’t have the right shape. So I just googled “tropical cherries” and found a picture of Surinam cherries :)

@bookish1 I kind of adore you right now!! I have been trying to figure out what these fruits are called in English for the past 9 – going on 10 – years now to no avail!! Growing up I used to eat them a lot right off the tree (they’re delicious in jam form, too) but I haven’t had nor seen them since moving to the US. I wanted to include them in my list above, but I didn’t know what they were called and since we don’t refer to them by their actual name back home (we call them “azedinha” which roughly translates to “little sour/tart ones”) I couldn’t even do a Google search in Portuguese and then find the English equivalent. Not knowing what they were called has been a great source of frustration for so many years lol You’re my new hero! And now that I know what they are, I’ll know what to look for and hopefully have them again after so many years!!! I love Fluther.

@jordym84 : Awesome, glad to help man. Tropical Fruits 4 Life.

I hope you can find them. They can be grown in south Florida and doubtless Hawaii, but I’m not certain about anywhere else.