Logee's New Fruit Book Launch on Martha Stewart TV

Our fruit book "Growing Tasty Tropical Plants in any home, any where" will air on Martha Stewart TV (Hallmark Channel) this Friday, Nov. 5th. We travel to New York City on November 3rd to tape the show and the fruit plants that we have chosen for the show are pictured below.

First, our Black Olive plant (Olea europaea 'Arbequina'). The plant pictured is two years old and is a 5 foot tree with unripe olives (green) and ripe olives (black). Growing an olive tree is easy as long as you have nighttime temperatures in the winter down to 40˚F. It is the chill down that brings on flowering and ultimately the fruit.

Next, our five year old Dragon Fruit(Hylocerus undatus) plant that is in fruit. The pink fruit when sliced open has a delicious custardy center that can be scooped out and eaten. If you just want to order the fruit and not the plant go to From the Farm, a tropical fruit grower in Florida does a really nice job of growing and shipping the fruit.

Our amazing Dwarf Starfruit (Averrhoa carambola 'Dwarf Maher') is an abundant producer of sweet juicy fruit. When cut in half a five-pointed star is created. Fruit starts forming at only 2 feet in height. Give plenty of sun, and water when dry and you will have your own starfruit in no time.

The Flower of chocolate. The ripe Chocolate pod.

Chocolate is a must and our Chocolate Plant (Theobroma cacao) will be featured on the show as well. Of course, the previous blog just talked about all the in's and out's of growing chocolate. We will be showing how to make chocolate nibs from the cocooned chocolate fruit. Basically, the chocolate beans need to ferment for a week and then roast and dry them. Then, you can eat the beans or use a mortar and pestle to crush them into chocolate nibs. Delicious. From the Farm also offers the roasted chocolate beans for the daring and curious fruit connoisseur.

Our Passion Fruit (Passiflora edulis 'McCann') is slotted to travel to NYC with its golden yellow fruit that is as sweet as they come. Passiflora is grown for its amazing flowers and delicious fruit. It is vining so needs support but is relatively easy care. Passion Flowers in their native habitat grow in poor soil and at time drought like conditions.

Finally the last plant is a pineapple that we will show how to cut off the top of a pineapple and put it in a pot for easy propagation.

All of these fruiting plants and many more can be found in our new book Growing Tasty Tropical Plants, which is available from Logee's or your local bookstore.

Our shipment of books arrived and we learned today that it was voted in the top 10 for the Best Book in Craft and Garden for the 2010 year.

Growing Tropical Fruit Book in the Works

Growing Tasty Tropicals in Any Home, Anywhere (pending publication by Storey publishing, fall 2010) has been in the works for a long time. Byron and I have been collecting exotic and tropical fruits for well over a decade and have finally taken the time over the past year to write all the interesting fun facts and cultural tips on how to be successful with potted fruit. The title page (pictured to the right) plus 160 other pages were sent to us this week for our review.

We recently had our illustrator, Beverly Duncan, visit us to get a

first hand account of the plants. Byron explains to Beverly the growth habit of our Black Olive (Olea europaea 'Arbequina'). Later she shows us her sketched olive tree.

Our category of citrus in the

book needed clarification. Here Beverly has the fruit of an Australian Finger Lime (the small

green fruit) and she is comparing the color of a Tahitian orange and the Myrtle Leaf orange. Both varieties

are miniature oranges but the color

distinction is subtle unless side by side. The lighter colored orange is the Myrtle Leaf Orange pictured here as a bonsai tree.

Another interesting fruit that we showed Beverly on her visit was our "Brown Sugar Fruit" (Manilkara

zapota Sapodilla 'Silas Woods'). This is a rare and tasty fruit that when mature will produce egg shaped fruit that can be cut in half and scooped out. The brown sugar taste and custard like texture is a delectable treat. Sapodilla plants are also known for their ability to produce chicle, a natural latex used in chewing gum.

Lastly, Beverly needed to see how Dragon Fruit (Hylocereus species) grew. It is shown here growing up a support and once the vines get a little bigger the red dragon fruit will appear.

Recently, I was in Florida collecting plants and I couldn't help but notice a local nursery that had neat rows of Dragon Fruit Trees cultured like standards. If you look closely the central stem is simply a pole that the vines have wrapped around. Impressive!