Not sure if everyone is seeing a steady trickle of exotic fruits in the stores though we are in Kansas. Last week I tried passion fruit and this week mangosteen. Where are these exotics coming from and who’s growing them? Are these just showing up in Kansas?
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A year or two ago,one local grocery store started selling Cherimoya.I bought one,just to get a taste,but $10 a pound is a little pricey for me.Brady
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They are very expensive. This one fruit was nearly $3 but like you I wanted a taste of an exotic fruit like this since I had never tried one.
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Well, they aren’t exotic to folks here… but having not taken up the growing of Apricot-Plum interspecifics, I have been keeping an eye on the local grocery store for them. (I doubt most would survive our IA winters, and I’m not about to start dragging containers to and from the garage.)
Anyways, I picked up what are most likely Flavorosa Pluots from the local grocery last night. They are good. Nice flavor and very juicy. The grower/marketer even has a cheat sheet to make a guess at the variety.
I should note that it is kind of interesting that the store was using Plumcot rather than the Zaiger Pluot, even though this is a Zaiger variety.
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I can usually get Plumogranates from a grocery in Summer.I’ll try to grow the seeds.Brady
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Brady just curious how is Cherimoya and Plumogranates?
Levers,
Were they pricey or affordable for the Pluots? I’m hoping more people will be growing exotics soon and they will become as common as an orange. The orange was nearly considered an exotic when I was a kid growing up in Kansas. The first orange I had was wonderful and I still love them today! Grapefruit were our favorites as children. It’s interesting that they don’t grow here and modern living has made it possible to enjoy them.
Cherimoya is sweet but very seedy,sort of large ones though.A lot of people like the fruit,but I’m not sure about buying another.I like Pawpaw better.
Plumogranates are very good,rich and sweet.A coworker that I introduced Flavor King to,said he liked Plumogranates more.Brady
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Just as an FYI, I have had Geo Pride, Flavor Supreme, Flavor King, Splash, Dapple Dandy, and Emerald Drop survive the worst winter since I’ve lived here (2 winters ago). They were all too young to produce at the time, but everyone of them made it through with no die back outside the normal small side branches. I get the more die back on my peaches than I did with these.
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I think pluots can handle -20F…at least some of them and still fruit.
I’ve noticed passion fruit and dragonfruit at my grocery store. I’ve never seen mangosteen or durian. I think i saw lychees once.
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Arizona can grow some amazing exotic fruits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bcRUESwD08 so I wonder if some of the fruits we see later could come from there.
Last year I bought some rambutans at my local grocer but we’re nothing to brag about.
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Clark,
Did you like the taste and texture of Mangosteen? It is one of my favorite fruit, nice combination of sweet and sour. Most tropical fruit are just very sweet.
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mangosteens and other exotica usually come from thailand and malaysia.
good news is that mexico is now delving into asian tropicals at a rapid pace. Manila mangos were quite expensive back in early 2000’s, but are now sometimes being sold(in vegas) at 6 pcs for a buck!! evidently the trees south of the border have grown bigger, and more fruitful with time.
among asian tropicals, grafted mangos grow and get very productive relatively quicker compared to mangosteen, lychee, rambutan, etc, which probably explains why the latter fruits are still not as readily available from south of the border(and if ever, still too expensive), but evidently there’s this trend that is gaining a great deal of momentum http://www.transitionsabroad.com/listings/travel/articles/mexico-fruits-exotic-fresh.shtml
That was a dead link when I just tried it.
it should work now–i hope.
And how we can talk about exotic trooical fruit without mentioning King Of the Fruit.
Just found out that our local Vietnamese grocery store is selling fresh, as opposed to frozen durian. I bit a bullet and paid $36 for it. It was $6.99/lb. it is worth it for me.
I left it in the garage a day or two before opening it up to eat. I was not allowed to bring it in the house 
it had very strong smell. Frozen ones don’t smell much at all.
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here’s a pic of the weekly hispanic flyer which i enjoy reading. At 6 big manila mangos to a buc, that is just so much cheaper than most fruits being grown in continental usa, and absolutely delicious! They usually are sold semi-ripe, and you could eat at that crisp, not so juicy but tangy stage, or wait until fully ripe when it is dripping with juicy-sweet flavor unique to the variety
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