Mango Love? How to Grow Your Own

I have been working on my food forest for years. Enjoying mangoes, papayas, limes and pineapples from the garden. It has been a challenging and rewarding experience. I had not really had a good mango (except on Maui) prior to living on the Treasure Coast and fell in love with the fruit. I had no idea how to grow tropical fruit, learned – the hard way, by trial and error, then found new pleasure in creating foods from fruit grown in my garden – mango filled cupcakes with mango buttercream frosting anyone? those are long gone!

Tips for Growing Mangoes.

Place the tree in a sunny, well drained location. Make sure there is enough room for the mature tree, mango trees have a tremendous size range from less than 5 feet tall to 100 feet tall. Realize how long it will take to get fruit, 5 to 7 years is the usual time necessary to get any significant amount of fruit.

The trees generally flower early in the year and bear fruit in early summer. There are varieties that bloom later that can extend the mango season if you wish. Keitt, a very tasty, large green fruit, is the latest to bear fruit, usually July through September.

It is best to let the trees establish for a year or two before letting them produce fruit. This is accomplished by cutting the flowers off. My trees received daily irrigation while establishing and have not been irrigated since. Mango trees are quite drought tolerant once established and produce fruit well. If it is extremely dry in summer I will water them if they have fruit on the branches or the leaves are curling. Buy a bag of fertilizer labeled for mango and follow the directions. It is that simple.

My Mangoes

There is a group of mangoes called Condo mangoes, these are dwarf trees that can be grown in a container (at your condo!). I have one, a Pickering, it is almost 4 feet tall and has produced a few fruits every year. This is its seventh year and it is covered in flowers. I am looking forward to a bountiful crop this year. Below is the Pickering mango.

The Glenn Mango planted 5 years ago has been the most prolific with fruit. I have one more, a Nam Doc Mai, a Thai dessert mango, planted 6 years ago. I bought this one as it was advertised to have the potential to produce four crops a year. This has never happened. I get one crop a year, slightly later in June than the others, but the fruit is coconutty deliciousness with little fiber and a very flat seed.

I have no fear of too many mangoes. Friends love them as gifts. They are also great to cook with – anything from sweet dishes, breads and cakes to savory salsas to serve alongside fish and pork. If there are leftover fruits they can be chopped, placed in freezer bags and frozen.

I am really ready for mango season now. They say 100 days from flower to fruit, start counting!