A fruit growing friend of mine is moving from near me in zone 7 North Carolina to south of Orlanda, zone 9B. I don’t think he knows much about growing fruit/nuts in Florida besides the obvious citrus. What can he look forward to, both common fruits/nuts and any good backyard fruits/nuts that may not be grown much commercially for whatever reason? What would you be most excited about if you were making the same move?
Figs would be the first thing I would plant. Then I would look into citrus, after researching the citrus greening disease. Then would look into pomegranates and longan fruit.
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Central and south Florida are challenging for figs because of root knot nematodes. @growjimgrow just shared a video where someone in central FL grafted figs onto a different species that is nematode resistant, then Youtube served me the follow up video that I watched yesterday. He talks about a lot of different fruits, with papaya being his best producer. He said they sell some plants and give tours.
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Some of my folks live in Kissimmee, right by Orlando. They grow papaya, custard apple, bananas, mangos, longan, lychee, mamey sapote, kaki, dragon fruit, starfruit, and pomegranate. I posted some pics a few months back of their yards.
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If it were me, I’d go for loquat and mangosteen. But I bet they have way more options than I’m even familiar with. It might be worth it for them to drive to just fruits and exotics for one of their tastings to see what really appeals to them.
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Loquats, jujubes, some mulberries, bananas, pomegranites, passionflower, muscadine grapes, southern highbush blueberries…and the obvious citrus, come to mind.
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