Growing Sugar Apple in South Florida | 60 Tree Backyard Tour

Let's say, assume that there's a place called heaven. I think God will, will plant about 90% of his trees in heaven with sugar apple. Sugar apple. That's how delicious they are. How much bigger did they get than this? Hot-blooded. Check and see. Hello everybody. Welcome to Fruitful Trees. I'm here with my neighbor who lives real close to me. This is Hakim. Dr. Hakim. Akram. Dr. Akram Roghanam. All right. This is Dr. Akram. And he has an amazing property. And the thing he's specializing in is sugar apples. Right. How big is the property? How many sugar apples do you have? Two and a half acres. I have almost, you know, 65 trees of sugar apple and to be increased. Amazing. Not many people are growing sugar apples on this channel. So I wanted to get somebody who is. And I've been down to some bigger farms that grow sugar apples. But it is such a highly sought after fruit. And he has them for sale. I'll put his information below and near the end of the season now. But every August is when July and August. Third week of the July, fourth week. And then August. Now, like I said, this last weekend, I, you know, I almost sold every, you know, every piece of fruit I have that is ripe and mature. Yeah. All right. I'm excited about this one. Let's go check out the sugar apples and his other trees as well. So here we go. All right, everybody. Here we are today. This is Dr. Akram. But we'll call him Akram. He's amazing what he's done here. So we're going to do a tour with him today of his trees. When I first came here, this was newly planted. Right. And look at them now. This is all sugar apples. How many sugar apple trees do you have here? I have more than 60. I have on this side and on the other side. 60. Wow. More than 60. What color? Red and green or different? This is all green. I have bought some from Homestead. They're supposed to be red, but they turned out to be green. But I have now a few red trees that I'm going to also add. How long from seed did they take to get to be a fruit? When I first got these, they were in a seven gallon. I bought them all the way down from Homestead. And this has been like three years or is it the fourth or the third? Maybe three years. And now they're producing like crazy and people love them. They're coming and we're going to go now there. You'll see a lot of fruits. But they took all the ripe ones and they take the mature ones. What's the season for them? The season is end of July, third week in July and now August. And they stay till like September. Okay. So once a year. And besides sugar apples, do you have anything else from the Anota family growing on the property? No. Oh, I have Soursop. Only three trees. And I have Custard Apple. But I'm having issues with the Custard Apple. You could see the three ones in the back there. They're even the same age as these. But look, they're bigger and they're never producing. So I'm going to call Dr. Crane from IFAS and see what's going on. Okay. Well, let's take a look at your trees here. And the Soursops are really also hard to produce for some reason. But those sugar apples are amazing. And you water these sugar apples every day? No, I don't water them every day. They don't like a lot of water. So now that it's raining, I hardly water them. And between December and February, you don't water them at all. In February, they lose all their leaves and you have to trim them. And then March, the leaves start coming out. And then in April, I try to hand pollinate them as well. Oh, so you hand pollinate? Yeah. So with all the things to grow, why do you choose sugar apple? Because it's a delicious fruit. And honestly, if there is actually a heaven, I don't believe in heaven and hell. I think heaven and hell are here. And our duty is to experience heaven over here. But let's say, assume that there is a place called heaven. I think God will plant about 90% of his trees in heaven with sugar apple. That's how delicious they are. Now, what's the distance on your trees when you plant? They're too spread out. So 20 feet by 15. OK. And are you happy with that? I'm happy with that. I'm thinking towards the end, I'm going to add more maybe in the future. But I'm really happy with this. Now, do all your trees grow the same or some trees do better than other, your sugar apples? I think there are some trees that are producing more. But they're all about almost about the same. Are the ones that produce more of different varieties or they're all the same? They're all the Sartai. The Sartai. OK. Show us around here. Well, I mean, this one is, you know, you could see the fruit on it. But like I said, this weekend, you know, customers came in and I must have like, they must have taken about 500 fruits of these. So like this one is not ready yet. Sure. Let's see, whenever it's ready, these things will be spread out more and there'll be like a yellowish light green in between. So hopefully we'll see someone that's ready. But how many would this tree have if the customers didn't come? How many would you get of this in one season, do you think? This age, probably between 15 and 25. 15 and 25. And how much bigger did they get than this? Just a little bit bigger than this. They'll get bigger than this. Let me show you a big one. Actually, I have pictures of like if you had come here like two weeks ago, you would see like really huge, big ones. But all the customers, even the ones like people, for example, like from Vietnam, that's their national fruit. And they're like, please, please, my, you know, my mother is leaving. She wants to take a gift. And they pick the ones that are not even ripe. You know, they're ripe and on the trees get much bigger. You want to keep them small. I want to keep them. What I do when I trim them, you know, I'll go like up to here, like so. That's what maybe no more than 12 feet. But you have to know how to trim them during, you know. We'll come back when you trim them and we'll see. Yeah, in February, that's where you do the trimming. Anything, any branch that's going to the middle, you take it out. You chop it from the top. And even these long ones, you go back almost one third. Well, soursop, lychee and sugar apple and maybe mamey are the most expensive fruits to buy. How much are your sugar apples? Well, some people tell me that I'm selling them cheap. Other people say, oh, they're expensive. So I sell the big one, which is bigger than this, for $5. And the middle ones like this, if it stays like this size and ripe, $3 for $10. OK, so the big ones, do you think they're a pound or less than a pound? I think it's a little bit less. It's between 12 ounces and maybe a pound. OK, so you're around $6 a pound, you're pricing. Yeah, yeah. Now, that is cheap. That's like half the price of what other people are selling them for. But, you know, I'm not here to make the money, honestly. I just I love taking care of these things and a lot of hard work. Like I got to weed this, you know, and fertilize. But, you know, I love it. And I like the fact that people, you know, like it and meet new customers. I had a person call me and says, OK, next year, don't advertise to anybody. I will just I'll take everything. I'll buy everything from you. And they're at this price, which I thought it was like a like a high retail price. But like you said, it's pretty cheap. Yeah. And I see we'll look around your sugar apple trees here. But in the back, he has the most amazing jackfruit tree you've ever seen. Yeah. He has some mangoes. If we have time, we'll look back there. But show us more around your sugar apple trees. You say you do fertilize them, yes? Yeah, I do. I follow whatever the, you know, University of Florida, IFAS, they're really good help. I do the 839, you know, fertilizer. And then I add the gypsum pellets, you know, to it. And I'll add the K-Mag at different times of the year. So probably this month I'll fertilize them. Probably that'll be it. In December to February, you don't even water them. That's why I don't have sprinklers here. OK, so when do you water them? During the drought season here, which is like, you know, like March, April. Then I'll maybe two or three times a week. That's it. How much property do you have here? Two and a half acres. And so this area, you're dedicated to how many sugar apple trees you said? About 60. There's about 45 here. There's about, you know, 15 there. And there's about 10 in the back. OK, what else do you want to tell us about the sugar apples? I don't know what else. Like, like you see here, the clients have grabbed them. I can't even. This is a you pick. They come here and they pick it themselves. Yeah, they'll show me the one and I'll, you know, I'll pick it for them. OK, OK. And what about you said you had some custard apples there. Now the custard apples grow much bigger, but you're saying there's no fruit on them. Uh, I've never, I've never had any turn into a fruit. So I got to ask, you know, why is that? I mean, I want variety of these seedlings of a particular variety. Uh, I honestly, I don't know. When I bought these from, uh, from Homestead, I, I got these, these trees here. Uh, I don't even see any, any, uh, no flowers on pollinate. You know that these things you got to help the beetle pollinate. And if you want the beetle to come, just throw rotten fruit at the bottom and the beetle will, will show up. That's what I hear. Now on some of your trees, I see you keep the bottom clean and no weeds, but on some of them, there's no. I just started cleaning. It's such a tiring play and it's so hot. I got to do all of this so I can fertilize them. You know, a month ago, this thing was as clean as this and look at the grass. Wow. You're not even sweating. Yeah, right. I'm, you know, the song I'm hot blooded, hot blooded check and see. Okay. So these are the, are these the red or green custard apple? I don't know. Honestly, I don't know. And you know, like I'm, I'm feeling like I'm feeling guilty that I planted them because nothing is happening. No, they look beautiful. They'll, they'll, they'll come about. I hope so. They will. So if you want, we can go down that way. Let's follow you. Yeah. And, uh, and I'll show you, you know, honestly, they, they didn't leave any You know, people are calling like crazy to get them. You know, they're, they're all not, not even ready. They're not even mature yet, but they will be. So sell us up your favorite fruit. Yeah. This is my favorite fruit. The sugar apple. But you see this, you see this Jack fruit? Yes. It's the one that, that got me all the sugar apple clients because this, this tree had more than 50 pieces of fruit on it and they were sold, sold within three weeks. I said, I've pictured it before. And yeah, there's only, there's only one left. Absolutely amazing. He saved one for me. Thank you. I don't know if it's right. You can have it, Paul. I actually smell it, right. Something I smell. Maybe from this one. This is, yeah, this is, this was beautiful. Yeah. This is ready. You can have this. Okay. Now is it high latex? I don't know what this is. People that buy, they like both, but they like that one more for some reason. Okay. You know, like there's some people that come in here and buy like 10 at a time. Wow. And this tree, both of these trees were most amazing trees I've ever seen in terms of how loaded it is. And this, you built a beautiful box around it. Yeah. Beautiful. I mean, look, man, as far as I'm concerned, destroy all churches, mosques, temples, whatever, and worship the creator right here. Hug a tree. Go hug a tree. Let me see. If you cannot listen, I will. But if you cannot find God in a tree, you'll never find it in a book. Yes. I say fruits and flowers, a great sign of God, right? Yeah. Look at that. I love this tree. So what kind of jackfruit tree is this? Do you not know? I really don't know. But did you plant it? No, this was here when, when I bought the house. And, uh, it was smaller, but now like it, uh, I just got the testimony from honestly, out of the whole season, my wife and I, maybe we'll take one. It's so hard to cut, but I get people from India, from Bangladesh, from Vietnam. They all come back. Oh, we love your, you know, they love this tree. I don't, you see, let me tell you this. I have different jackfruits, but I got one jackfruit called a black gold, black gold. You don't even need a knife. Oh, really? Open it. And within one second, you can get all you need. Oh, wow. No, this is not a black gold. Yes. I know these are the harder varieties. Yeah. A lot of latex. So, I mean, so many, so many I've seen on this tree. Now, do you trim this tree at all? I trimmed that one. This, I'm going to trim the top. I don't want it to go higher anymore. Yeah. You don't want it. I want it to, uh, but that one, I trimmed the top and it didn't carry as much for some reason this year. So, Paul, you know what? I needed your help. Like, this is a mango from seed from my other house. I wanted to, uh. Top work it. Not top work it. I want you to help me, uh, graft it. That same thing. Yeah, but, oh, top work it. Yeah. This is a, uh, this is a Maha Chinook. Maha Chinook. Everyone loves that. This one. And this year it had two. That's, uh, the regular old avocado. Regular old avocado. What kind of avocado? I don't know. Let's see. It's very round. Okay. And that one is a really great avocado. Lula. Best avocado. Which one? That one. You see the avocados on it? Excellent. Excellent variety. This is, I just, uh, thought, you know, I just trimmed it. This is a Kerry. Kerry. How'd he do this year? Not that well. And behind it is lemon zest, which tastes good, but doesn't produce that much. You don't, okay. It doesn't produce too much. You don't get the black spot. No, no, they're all good. But you recommended CAC and M4. CAC and M4. So I'm still waiting on you to bring me some scions. Yes. Yeah. I planted here a mamey. That one. Yes. From your friend, Julian. Yes. I bought it. There's two mameys there. No, one. The other one is, uh, is, uh, pansy pansy. Okay. This is an old, older, uh, what is my call it? Uh, Soursop. Okay. And it gets fruit? Every once in a while it gets one or two. I don't know what the problem with this. Well, I have to tell you something. I don't know if I've told you, but I've told my wife and I've told people. For a setup, size-wise and house-wise, out of every property I've ever been to, you're number one. I like yours the best. Oh, thank you. I love this. You know, I love it. We used to live in a community, brand new house, high ceilings and all, but your neighbor is right next door. You know, I'm here. I work, you know, like now I don't work as much because it's so hot, but, but it's, it's, it's really very therapeutic. Everything. Here's my chicken. Your chicken. Everything. And there's some bananas. Yeah. Everything from the location to the property size, to the houses. This is number one. This is, uh, Oh yeah. I recommend it. Yeah. If I win the lotto, I'm going to buy you out. Yeah, no problem. Actually behind us, there used to be a farm, 20 acres. They sold it to some developers and they want to put townhomes there, but the whole neighborhood here fought them and said, you got to have like one house per acre. And, uh, so that's what, uh, so, uh, you know, they tried to buy us out and we, we, we didn't. So what are they going to do? They're going to build houses? No, they, for now they're just waiting until they can bribe someone. I believe. All right. Back to the trees. This is your lemon zest. Yeah. Wow. Very nice. I have to say, I like the way you trim them a lot. Yeah. You have to. You did a great job. Folks. This is it. This is a good example. Yeah. This is nice. Very nice. And what this is, is mulberry. Mulberry. You keep that trimmed as well. Yeah. This is amazing. Like in April, every morning I'm here underneath eating mulberries. This is, you know, and I, I, uh, I grew up in the mountains of Lebanon and this is, you know, part of our, you know, life and culture. Um, I had some pineapples over there, but now the grass overtook them. And, uh, delicious pineapple. Another mulberry. What's that? Oh, that's called wax jambu. Oh, wax jambu. Oh my God. So much fruit. The problem with it, it just drops. They, they, it has a lot of fruit and then out of a sudden they're all on the floor, but they're delicious. If, okay, let me show you, I have a picture of them if I can show you. That tree gets loaded. Oh my God. When is that? When is the season for that? Uh, like this was maybe a month and a half ago. Let me see if I can find the... We'll add the picture later. Finish showing me around. Oh, wow. Look how beautiful. Is it sweet? Yeah. Oh yeah. And crunchy. Wow. I have, uh... Do you sell that also? No, I just have my customers come and eat it whenever there's so many of them. This is... Fantastic fig. This is a, uh, I'll also show you a picture. It's the only fig, but I got to clear up here. That's a tamarind over there in the back. Okay. Sweet tamarind. Yeah. That's, remember you told me go to the, where they have the sales and everything. That's two, three years ago. That's not where I bought that from. Okay. And here's another sugar apple. Yeah. Another sugar apple. Nice, you can keep them so small. Yeah. And, uh, I have a bunch of plants here. This is, uh, uh, Choquette avocado. Okay. Those are a disaster. They had the lychee mite. Okay. They used to be okay. And then, and now I keep trimming them. I don't know. Maybe I should just cut the whole thing. This lychee, because once you have the lychee mite, it's very hard to recover. You could see it's back. It's a lot of work. Yeah. Got some bananas here, some dragon fruit. This dragon fruit used to be on a post, but the post fell. I have dragon fruit over there too. They're delicious. And this is the, uh, loquat. Loquat. This is good, but these are even better loquats. Now, were they from seed or? This I bought from Zills. Those other two. This one I bought from Excalibur. Okay. And there's some of my plants there. Now, if people do want to buy fruit from you, I'll put your contact information below. And people can contact you that way. You don't have fruit all year, but when you do have fruit. Yeah. And they can contact me and it's just, uh, you know, by appointment only. What's that up there? What's that? Oh my God. That was a disaster. This tree was shading. This house was going all the way. That's a, that's a, like a rubber tree. It's like a fig and it basically eats up the whole thing. And two years ago I had to, to trim, trim it really drastically. Cost me like more than $3,000 to do it. Why did you get rid of it? It's, it's even cost a lot more to get rid of it. Yeah. But it's nice when it's like has a nice canopy and shaded, but, uh, you know, it's, uh, too much. Yeah. So we go this way. Cause I got to show you on the other end. I love this property. It's so beautiful. I mean. Thank you. Like one of these pine trees to me is worth a mansion. Really? You like the pine trees? Yeah. But you, you know, you sit underneath them. It's a nice breathe and stuff like that. It's a combination of the fruit trees and the pine. This is fantastic nature. You know, some people say, Oh, come on, cut those pine trees. I'm like, are you crazy? You know, those pine trees are amazing. So on this side, I have also sugar apple. The reason I didn't plant here, I was gonna put like benches and have plants, you know, for sale here. That's a, uh, Barbados cherry doesn't have any on it. And that's another sugar apple. And this side is watered. You could see like a lot more grass. See, they're not ready. Even because this weekend, I must have like sold like, I don't know, three, 400 fruits. Bananas, more sugar apples and more sugar apple. Here's the, uh, soursop. This sugar apple. Yeah. No, no, this is sugar. Yeah. I know this is sugar apple. I was going to show you this also. But this is, uh, actually this may be, no, it's not even ripe. I was going to give you something ripe so you can try it. They're delicious. Uh, this is the, uh, guanabana and you see like, this is a flower, but they, they're not materializing for some reason. It's like two or three flowers on this one. I've had some varieties like that. And I've had, I have around my house. That's always loaded. Really? Yeah. I should get that variety then. Get the budwood and top work it. Oh, oh, you can top work this one as well. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. Some people come and I give them the leaves. They said they boil them, they drink tea. They say it, uh, you know, good for cancer. Yeah. That's what people say. Yeah. So very good. Yeah. Bananas still over there. That's, uh, the cabin dish. And this is the, uh, the, uh, blue Java and then, uh, Namua. Which one is the Namua down there? And you still have more room to plant. Yeah. The reason I didn't plant sugar apple here is when it really rains hard, this, this is a wet and they don't like wet areas. Yeah. So what I'm going to do is get a load of dirt and plant them on mounds here to continue. Why don't you plant something there that doesn't mind wet areas? Like which ones? Uh, I mean. All these plants, they don't like too, too wet, but like now it's dry, but when it's really, really heavy rains, it's, uh, I can divert the runoffs. And so it's not as bad, but, uh, but I'm going to plant here. So it's two and a half acres where you got. Yeah. Amazing. I have, uh, one acre for ag exemption, but it didn't help much. So I'm gonna plant more and stuff and apply for at least another half acre or an acre. All right, everybody. There it was. That, that, that's a Dr. Akram. Broganum. Yes. Don't call me the boogeyman. Okay. And, uh, the contact information, how can people contact you? I'll put the information, but what's the best way if they have questions? The best way, you know, let them call me and if they want to come and visit, we can schedule a visit. All right. I'll put that information below. Thank you so much. Thanks so much, Paul. Put your comments and questions below. Thank you for watching. And let me know if there's some more places you want me to visit here in South Florida or anywhere. And I'll do my best to get there. And if you have a farm and you're growing trees or just a yard and you're growing trees, you'd like me to come out and feature on the channel, my contact information below as well. Thank you for watching. Thank you for having us. Have a great day and keep growing.