Best Fruit Trees for Small Yards Dwarf Coconut Mango Variety Tour

Alright, this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, today we have another exciting episode for you here in Punta Gorda, Florida, and we're at Peace River Organics, and they specialize in mango trees, and they can ship them to you. They also specialize in another thing that actually I love a lot that I'm going to mostly focus on this episode, although I will talk about the mango trees as well, which is the coconuts. And you can see behind me here, they basically have all these little pots with coconuts because currently they are experimenting with sprouting coconuts that have been husked, right, normally coconuts that have been husked, once they sprout, they tend to rot, so they're going to see if they can get around that and then start sprouting husked coconuts. In this episode, I'm going to share with you guys five different unique varieties of coconuts that they actually grow here, propagate, and then sell. These are very unique different kinds of cultivars of coconuts, most of the time when you just go buy a coconut at the store, if they're Thai coconuts, they're like the Nam Hom variety that are like super sweet coconuts, right, and if you just get coconuts like we got coconuts just at the market here in Florida, they're like $5, right, you drink it, it could be, it could be, you know, usually they're pretty good, but you don't know the variety, you don't know how tall the tree is, usually they're just landscapers taking down coconuts because they are a nuisance, but everybody loves looking at the palm. So in this episode, we're going to show you guys the best dwarf varieties and genetics that I've seen in any nursery in the country to this point, because he's gotten some special nuts from places around the world, as well as from the USDA with proven, like, resilient varieties. So let's walk around the orchard and show you guys what they do here at Peace River Organics. Alright guys, so the problem with most coconuts are that the trees get super tall, and when they're super tall, then you've got to either climb them up, or you've got to get a pole saw and reach really tall. I think this, this palm, which technically they're not trees, they're more like grass, stay short, and then you can harvest them just standing on the ground. Some of the trees that I'll show you guys have nuts literally touching the ground. So on this guy, you know, we can just take the nut, and we can spin it off, harvest it super simple, super easy, harvest the coconut safe on the ground, get our special coconut tool, pop the core out, never come to a coconut farm without your straw, straw in the coconut, drink, mmm, that's delicious. Let's go find some more coconuts that are easy to harvest. Alright guys, so what you're looking at now is the original mango orchard that Matt planted, and he basically planted like a hundred different kinds of mangoes on the farm. I think he has like 12 acres, and he found out the varieties that did really good, and the varieties that did not do so good. So he whittled down from all the ones he planted, he lost trees and whatnot, he whittled them down to the best 20 to 25 mangoes that performed excellent in this area. Once again, we are in Punta Gorda, near Fort Myers, zone 10A. And those are the ones that actually he grafts and makes available for you guys, and I'll show you guys in a minute. But meanwhile, let me take you guys down where he has the mangoes planted right across from the coconuts. In some cases, he puts coconuts in between the mangoes when he has, you know, smaller coconuts. But I want to show you guys the amazing thing about these coconuts. These are Fijian coconuts, or Fiji dwarf coconuts, and check it out. This tree is still super small and has lots of nuts. The coconuts for him here can produce anywhere from 20 to 80 coconuts a year, based on his past experience. That being said, coconuts in the appropriate and best climate conditions maybe could produce 100 to 150, maybe even 200 a year, best case scenario. But you guys can see here easily these coconuts are nice and small and can be harvested literally by just twisting them off, no ladders or anything. Alright guys, so now I want to show you guys why genetics in coconuts matter. So we're here in the orchard, and basically when he bought all these coconut palms, they're all supposed to be Fijian, or Fiji dwarf coconuts. And you can see for the most part, they all are. And these palms here are nine years old at this point. The challenge is, on this side, this is a true Fiji dwarf, and on this side, when they sold it to him, they said this is a Fiji dwarf, and when they're small in a pot, you can't tell what they are, guys, and so many people just say whatever for money. And you can see this palm here is also nine years old, but it's super tall, and he makes good nuts. But this, in nine years, how tall a coconut would normally get, and over on this side, you know, you can see how a dwarf tree grows, and let's explain that to you. So this is the dwarf Fiji tree, you guys can see it has really nice nuts here we could harvest. And the thing is, if you have a tree, a coconut, you can look actually at the rings. And the ring spacing should be very tight. That means these are growing right next to each other. This is nine years old, once again, I can still stand up here and harvest it, even at ten or eleven, twelve years, I'd still be able to stand here and harvest them, because the nuts, because they're so heavy, would droop down, you could just grab them. So nine years old, I can still harvest them, and the spacing is really tight. Also these are very tight, and the other thing about this, if you want to know if it's a dwarf coconut, one of the indicators is that the petiole, and the petiole is the space between here, and then where the first leaves start, right? The petiole on dwarf coconuts will be shorter instead of longer, okay? So yeah, this is a true dwarf, nine years old. And then let's go across the way, and this was sold to Matt as a dwarf also, nine years old, and this is maybe some kind of Malaysian hybrid, and I mean they're good nuts, but you can see here, the spacing between these are a lot larger. So that means, you know, the spacing is more, and then the tree grows a lot faster. So then on this tree, you know, instead of just standing down and being safe, now you have to have a tall ladder to get up there, or even a pull saw to drop them down, and when the coconuts drop, they may break. So we're just going to go ahead and climb this tree here, and now on the ladder we can harvest a coconut. Now once again, we're going to go ahead and open a coconut. Alright, let's taste test this coconut. Definitely good flavor on that one. I mean, some coconuts, some of the genetics may be a little bit sweeter than others, but to me, I really like the variation of them, but the main thing is safety and how fast the coconut grows. Some people want like tall coconuts because it looks prettier, because they want the taller trees for landscaping, but if you're actually harvesting them for your personal use, then of course you want trees that grow shorter, so that's why the Fiji dwarf trees are so important to grow. Like on my property in Puerto Rico, I've only planted the dwarf and smaller coconuts instead of the super tall ones. This makes it a lot easier to harvest for me and other people in the future. Alright guys, the next coconut I want to show you guys, I wish he had one that is ready, but he doesn't. This is called the Macapuno. This is eight years old. It actually originates from the Philippines, and you can see he's got some nuts just starting to form, some little baby ones. Hopefully this year is the first year that these will actually produce nuts for him, and this is a very unique coconut palm, because unlike regular coconuts that are used for the water, these ones actually don't make any water. When you open it up, it's basically all like jelly. It's like a jelly goo meat stuff, so like I've never, I mean I've seen them online, but I've never experienced one myself, so it'd be interesting to see when he gets these, but you know I'm all for genetic diversity, and I know this has been a very popular topic for like videos going viral, oh I opened a coconut, it's all jelly meat, and I mean imagine coconuts that just have all nice jelly meat to eat instead of the water and the meat. So yeah, he has those here, a whole bunch of them, that are just about producing nuts, and then basically through all the nuts, which basically are the seeds, he'll be able to basically grow them up and then sell them and spread them out to more people, because some of these coconuts such as this one are extremely rare. Alright, another coconut variety he is growing is the Panama Tall, and you guys can see these ones are not yet nutting out either, this is probably in too much shade, because we're like underneath the shade of a big tree, and once again I want to share with you guys the length of the petiole on this is quite long, and the spacing on these are a little bit more wider, so that means the tree's going to be a little bit taller, and look at these nice fronds going all the way out. Alright, so for size comparisons, here's another kind of smallish tree, this is the Green Nino, that is seven years old, and you guys can see, depending on the rack size, like this rack had only a few coconuts, they're going to be a lot larger, and this rack has a lot, so they're going to be a little bit smaller, so yeah, the Green Nino. I think that's what he's actually propagating in the little pots that he took the husks off of. Alright guys, so I want to share with you guys another unique coconut I've never seen before in my life, you know, Matt collects all the rarest genetics, and this is known as the Spicata, this is a seven-year-old coconut palm right here, once again, still dwarf, nice and small, and you can see the nuts are right above me. But what makes the Spicata special is that actually there is no stem on these coconuts, they grow directly off of the main shoot, so you see as the nuts form, they're literally directly on here, and they just form next to each other, normally on a coconut there's like a little piece that hangs that the coconut will be suspended from, but on these, the Spicatas are just totally directly connected. So this is like a pro and a con, like the con is that you're going to get a lot of smaller nuts, right, but they're like so tightly packed in there you get a lot more nuts, so smaller nuts, tightly packed, no stem, so that's really interesting to learn about the Spicata that he also, at some point, will have available for you to buy. Alright guys, so we're here in the mango orchard, once again, they're currently in flower here in January, they have lots of flowers on them, and if you've ever smelled mango flowers, it kind of smells like it has a bread-like aroma, and you know, as I said earlier, Matt grows like 20 to 25 varieties that are really productive for him, have been disease-resistant for him in his zone, and you know, micro-climate here, and you know, does very well, and I'm surprised to see this tree right here, this is called the Lemon Zest, and honestly guys, this is one of my top favorite mangoes in the world, it tastes amazing, but there's other people online that make videos about Lemon Zest and say, Lemon Zest, it always gets disease and stuff, right, and like, that has not been Matt's experience here, so you know, I always encourage you guys to experiment, to find out in your specific situation, climate, you know, location, how mangoes will do, and I mean, if it was me, I would definitely plant a Lemon Zest, I mean, I brought Lemon Zest back to Puerto Rico, to plant in Puerto Rico to see how it's going to do, because the flavor is completely amazing, Lemon Zest is like the baby of the Lemon Meringue, another one of my favorite mangoes, but the Lemon Zest was even better, and then another baby was the Orange Sherbet, so any of those three mangoes are completely amazing. Next up, let's go ahead and go to his little nursery, where he actually grafts the trees on site, and sells them to you guys, and he can ship them all across the United States. Alright guys, so these are his shade houses, where he does a lot of the propagation and grows the mangoes out, he has a lot of different trees, and besides mangoes, he sells a few other things, such as bananas, he has bananas in here, but most of these all have the mangoes, because that's been the really successful crop, and mangoes are kind of creating a re-emergence, you know, people are really getting interested in mangoes, especially here in Florida, where they're having problems with growing citrus, and you can see here, the amazing thing about the mango trees here, that Matt grows, is that every one of these mango trees that you see in front of me, was grafted by Matt himself, he doesn't employ people to do it, right, to make sure it's done right, he does it himself, so he's grafted every single one of these mangoes. We got Phoenix, we got Bolt, we got Pineapple, Pleasure, we have Sassy Love, Fairchild, there's my Lemon Zest I love so much, there's more Lemon Zests, Venus, Honey Kiss, Lemon Meringue, another really good one, Little Jim, Guava, I think one of his favorites is the Sweet Tart he loves so much, but you can see he just has nothing but the mangoes here, ready for you to ship, if you're local, you can pick them up, and he has quite a selection, once again, he's grafted all these himself, which is a lot of work, so I really gotta give my hats off to Matt for doing all this work to make sure it's done right, and create more mango trees, and make them available to you guys. So aside from just the mangoes, as I showed you guys earlier, he really specializes in coconuts, he has like, I think, over 200 different coconut palms planted in the ground, as well as like 200 different kinds of mangoes in the ground, I mean, that's what he has majority here, he has other random fruit trees and stuff planted in here, bananas and other things, but bananas and coconuts, when I came here, is a thing that he really specializes in, he's basically sold out of coconuts right now, these are the last, I guess, maybe seven he has in pots that are available, you know, he'll ship coconuts maybe up to three gallons or larger, the mangoes he only ships when they're one gallon, he ships them to Hawaii, he ships them all over, you know, if you guys aren't local, to pick them up like I am. So yeah, the coconuts, I'm glad he's promoting the coconuts, especially the special genetics, because if you just normally buy coconuts, it's just going to be some tall tree, and so he regularly makes the dwarf coconut palms available. Alright, it's getting dark, so let's go ahead into the barn, and I want to show you guys a special coconut tool that he also has maybe a few left available for sale that I've seen only online, and I'm going to get to use it the first time myself. Alright guys, so now I want to show you guys an amazing tool that he uses here that's custom made, he actually has these custom made, he doesn't sell these online unfortunately, I wish he did. He does have a few here in person, so if you come here in person with cash, he will sell you one, I think he only has a handful left, but yeah, this is an amazing tool that I've seen only online, I've never seen it in person or even got to use one myself, so I'm so excited to use this tool, basically it's a coconut husking tool, I know people normally like impale coconuts on like a stake, and then twist it and do it, but this tool makes husking a mature brown coconut the easiest, so all you literally do is you're going to basically impale these little spikes on the coconut near the stem end, all the way down, and then you're just going to simply take this lever and pull down, and then I want you guys to watch right here what's going to happen. What's going to happen is these are going to spread apart and it's going to spread the fibers because the fibers run up and down on the coconut, this will spread them apart so then it can get open. And the old-fashioned way I do this is you soak the coconut in water, you put it on the ground, and then you take a heavy rock and drop it, and then basically compresses the fibers in this direction, then you can get it open without any tools, but this tool is going to make it super simple, look at this, look at that guys, oh my gosh, that's so satisfying to know that I literally just got a whole piece off the coconut, and then we're going to go ahead and do it again, spread it again, look at that guys, open it right up, super simple, super easy, drop it on there again, and all we got to do is one more time, look at that guys, and now we can just literally rip this coconut apart, the whole husk comes off simply and easily. I love the amazing tools that I find on all my travels, I need one of these for my place in Puerto Rico. So next up we're going to go ahead and interview Matt with Peace River Organics and learn more about what he's growing here at his nursery in Punta Gorda. So now the pleasure of introducing you guys to Matt from Peace River Organics here in Punta Gorda, Florida, we're going to ask him some questions so you guys can get to know him and his nursery and what he's doing here on his farm. So Matt, the first question is, why did you start the farm here? Well I started the farm really as kind of an overgrown hobby, and kind of my joke is that I like to dabble really hard. I see a lot of dabbling outside, trust me. So I started in a small home, we did a food forest permaculture style, and then I had the opportunity to buy the first plot, the seven acres, and slowly we grew and here we are today. Cool, and then you started the first plot like about ten years ago at this point, right? Yep, yep. And then over the last ten years, what did you learn the most from that first ten acre plot that you grew? I learned a lot. I tried everything, I did a lot of experimentation, I lost a lot, I had a lot of failures, I've had a lot of storms, but one of the big takeaways I've come up with is to stick with dwarf and short species, especially here in Florida or anywhere that's hurricane prone, just because the taller it is, the bigger wind sail it is, and the easier it is to break off. So what are some of the best dwarf size, I mean you could keep mangoes small of course, but of course some grow faster than others also. Yep. So what are some of your favorite dwarfs for keeping small that'll still be very productive you know when they're smaller? I have a lot of favorites like that, that come to mind off the top would be Pickering for early, Sessilove, Orange Sherbet are pretty small, Andew's a pretty small one, I mean I can go on and on and on, but it kind of, I usually ask more questions than that if I'm trying to help someone pick a tree because there's the size, there's the disease resistance, there's the flavor, it goes on and on. There's so many different factors that you should take into consideration when you buy a mango tree before you invest your hard-earned money into a tree, because that tree is going to be with you for like a long time and produce mangoes for you every year, and I mean I'm buying fruit trees years ago, I didn't know the exact variety, and then I'm like kicking myself today, you know it's like I shouldn't have planted the brown turkey, you know it doesn't do well in my area, and I don't particularly care for them too much. For sure. So yeah. And I've been through a bunch of varieties of mangoes that I've gotten rid of too, just because they weren't performing, top worked them to something else. That's another thing I've learned is that it's kind of permanent, but if you know how to graft or if you have a little bit of horticultural skill, you can really make a lot of changes, and over the years you can really recover from big setbacks or big mistakes along the way. Wonderful. So these days you focus on 20 to 25 varieties of mangoes, you know I know you start with a lot more, but why did you whittle it down to just that many varieties? There's a number of reasons. One of the main ones is customer feedback. We do tastings on the weekends here at the farm, we do a tour tasting. I love to hear what people like and what they didn't like, so the taste is obviously huge, and we have so many that are available right now. Another one has been disease resistance, and then size. Can it be managed? I have a few in the grove that outgrew their spot, and I couldn't keep them in that small of an area, so I've had to top work that tree and then replant the variety in another area where it had more space, but yeah there's a whole bunch of different things that go into it. For me, the other thing that I don't do here is I don't spray anything, so a lot of mine, my production has been, you know, flowering and fruiting through whatever environmental stresses there are, whether it be powdery mildew or anthracnose or, you know, sooty mold or anything like that, so the ones that have not performed through that have all gone. So you don't spray even any organics like copper or anything, you're just like not in the field. In the nursery I do, because the nursery is more important, it's more of a, you know, more of a business, but out in the field it's more evaluation. It's big evaluation, and now that I've done my initial set, now I'm expanding that into the new groves. I see. And then what's your belief around sprays, like you just want people to, because most people are not going to tend to their mangoes and spray when necessary, is that the reasoning why you don't want to, you want to sell, you know, disease-resistant trees that don't have to get sprayed and they're still going to fruit and not have a problem? Ideally. Yeah, ideally. It does depend on where you are, how far inland you are, how far north or south you are, what your elevation is, what your soil is like. There's a lot of things that go into it, but what I want to do is give people the best opportunity. For success. Yeah. Absolutely. And producing good, tasty mangoes on your own land. So that's what you're going to get here. And so, is it true that you graft every single mango that you sell yourself with those two hands that I'm looking at? Absolutely. And you don't leave it to anybody else to do the work to make sure they're going to have a, you know, the best quality tree possible? Currently, it's just me. In the future, I'll be training, I mean, I've started training my daughter already. She's seven. Well, family. But no, I will be training a staff in the future. I see. All right. It just takes a while. Great. So, I mean, a lot of my video today that I focused on, I didn't really focus on mangoes too much. I focused really on the coconuts. So why are you so excited about coconuts? Because you have as many coconut palms planted actually as you have mango trees. Yeah. Coconuts have fascinated me forever. It's one of my favorite plants in the world. It's got so many uses. And you know, when we moved, when I moved to this town, I realized I could grow them because there's old ones growing around the neighborhood. I was just super excited. You know, most of the time we have a few varieties you'll find in most nurseries that are available now, mainly because they've survived the last few flushes of lethal yellowing or whatever diseases we've had in the past, usually the maypen and the dwarf Malayan. But as I got into it, as with mangoes and everything else I wanted to collect, I went through what I call the Pokemon phase. You got to catch them all. So I went into it and got some of the other species that were available and I had access to the USDA's collection down in Miami and it's just grown from there. And how many varieties did you grow at the peak and then you probably lost a few or whatnot because they once again weren't strong enough to make it here. For coconuts, I probably have about seven distinct types. I've lost a few, but it hasn't been like all of one type. I've only had a few that have actually died. And I think that was actually damage in the crown from hurricane or we had a category five hurricane hit us a few years ago. But yeah, I've got some favorites. I've got some that I'm still keeping my eyes on and, and we've got some that I'm getting ready to start sprouting and hopefully have those available in the nursery too. And then, so what's your favorite variety that you promote and sell the most of? My number one is the Dwarf Fiji is just a striking stout, beautiful coconut. It produces down low and it stays short for a long time. So it's easy for the homeowner to use. I have another one called Spiccata. I don't know if you got to see that one. I showed that. Yeah. For ornamentality and color. That one's a really striking one. It's got that really bright, vibrant orange color. There's a few other ones, but I'm still evaluating, so I can't really push them out into the public yet, but hopefully in a few years. So currently you're selling the Dwarf Fiji right now is the main one you're offering. That's the main one I offer. I mean, I have customers that ask for other types and I can source other ones, but those are the ones that I produce here on the farm. All right. Great. And then those you could ship also to people. Cause I have a friend that actually grows coconuts like in Las Vegas and he like, he grew one. It was like super tall, but then like he covers it and then like he went on vacation and then he wasn't there to turn the heater on and gone in one day and I'm like, dude, you should be growing a Dwarf one. You could actually bring it in and he's just getting any random one. So you could ship Dwarf coconuts all over. You can. The thing is, even the Dwarf coconuts have a big crown on them that have a short trunk, but a big crown. So unless you've got a really tall greenhouse, you know, it's really going to be tough. I would probably, I've had a lot of people ask for that. I usually try to steer them into something else besides that, even though I love, I want to sell it obviously, but it's not going to really produce for them one day. They can maybe keep it as a nice house plant and say they got a Dwarf coconut or whatnot. Yeah. And I don't want it pushing up into their plastic of the greenhouse and poking a hole in the middle of the winter. That'd be a bad, bad situation. So let's talk about mango care, Matt. Like how do you take care of your mangoes? Like I know some mango farmers will put some fertilizer on it. Some mango farmers say don't fertilize nothing. They don't like nitrogen. You know, what's your practices here so that people, once they buy a tree, they can, you know, have success. Well, my main focus, if you have a mature tree is just to focus on the pruning part. If you can get the pruning right, I think you're more than halfway there. I usually try to get good airflow and a good sunshine into most of the canopy. I use all my trimmings as mulch. So I'm, I'm used, I'm constantly trying to build up the soil. In my particular situation here, we do a lot of agroforestry, so we're growing other things to produce the biomass to feed back to the soil. The supplementation that I have done in the way back in the past, or when we do a new grove, usually we'll correct the pH. So it'll be either sulfur or lime, depending on which way the pH is mixed up. We'll do azomite for micronutrients, and then we'll do an organic fertilizer just to get things started. But usually I tell people you're only trying to grow the tree for the first couple of years, and then you're trying to fruit the tree. So you can get off the nitrogen and just go into just supporting fruit production. Wonderful. And then on the coconuts, what do you recommend for, you know, nutrition, if anything? The coconuts, in my case, they get kind of the same treatment because they're in the same grove. I have gone out there and put sea salt or baking, what is it, what's the other stuff? There's the Epsom salt. Epsom salt. Sea salt or Epsom salt, just to give them a little bit more minerals. I could grow my coconuts and my mangoes bigger and better and faster if I did fertilize, but that's not my goal here. What is your goal here? My goal here is to produce food that I'd be happy to eat myself and to sell to people that I know is going to be healthy. It's not going to be full of chemicals. It's not going to have any trace weird stuff in it. It's the same thing that I would want for myself. That's what I'm trying to produce for other people. Wonderful. So, you know, during the season, if you have a massive amount of mangoes, you actually make them available for people, you know, just to sell by the pound. But you know, otherwise you use it all, you know, for your family, depending on the year and how much you have. But the other way you use it is actually if they want to come down on the weekend, they could get a tour, actually taste test the mangoes and then, you know, find the right trees of the mangoes they love to taste. So I want to tell people about that whole experience that you're offering and how that works. Yeah. So, you know, we'll either announce it either on Instagram or on my website. We'll have a thing where you can sign up for a small group tour. I try to keep it small so it's an intimate experience and everyone can kind of have a seat at the table. What we'll do is go around for about 45 minutes toward the farm. You can see how the trees are growing. You can understand how we pick them, what we do to determine ripeness, you know, when and why and where and what, and then we'll come back to our picnic table by the pond and we'll sit down, cut open some mangoes. Everybody gets a taste. We go around. Everyone tell me what you like or don't like about it. Move on to the next variety and, you know, we can kind of get a consensus. By the time that's over, it usually comes around to when the actual fruit stands open. So people that come to the tour get first access to the fruit stand and the nursery and then we're open the rest of the morning for the public. Wonderful. And then how many different mangoes are they going to taste at one of the tour tastings? Minimum eight. Yeah, eight to ten. Usually it can be a lot more. We've had a lot of times where people are full. By the time we're done, they don't want any more mangoes. That's a good problem to have. All right. So that's probably the best idea for locals to come in. And when is that happening? Like what months? Usually it's going to be June, July and August. This year it could be a little early. So I would just follow me, get on my website and follow me and figure out because I usually make an announcement about a week or two ahead of time because I don't know what I'm going to have until we get closer to that time. This year it could start in May, but probably June. All right. Great. And then now for most people that are online, right, you're probably not going to be here in Florida local or you're not going to fly in for one of his or you could fly in for one of his tastings and tours. But for most people, you know that you will actually ship them the trees. So you want to talk about your shipping process and how all that works and where they could order it online. Yeah. I've got a website, PeaceRiverOrganics.com and we specialize mostly in shipping the one gallon fruit trees. They're grafted. They're easier to transport because they're lighter and smaller. We ship them in a in a tall box. They've got wrapping around so the soil doesn't spill and got a bamboo stake so it doesn't tip over if it flips over. We've got all of our certifications to do that. We've even got certification to go to California, which was a big deal. A lot of people were asking for that last year at the mango event in West Palm. So yeah, just look me up on the internet. That's where. And then you offer 20 to 25 varieties, the same ones you would offer here in person you would ship. Yeah. I've probably got more than that in the nursery. I've probably got 50 or 60 varieties in the nursery, but I kind of focus on my core 20 or 25. I see right on. Cool. Is there anything else you want people to know in YouTube land about Peace River Organics? I just want to encourage any of you guys that are out there that are getting new into farming and not sure what to do or where to go. I was in the same position that you're in now and I figured it out and I'm not saying that it's been all roses and sunshine, but you know, you can find a way if you're creative and you're hardworking and you don't give up, you can make it wonderful. And I would say, you know, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. And one of the things, you know, that I talked to Matt about and that we would both agree with is that, you know, if you're starting a farm, right, the first thing is to see what your neighbors are growing, find out what they're growing, what they are successful with, right? If you're in the same climate zone, the same area, like down the street, you plant the same things on your property. And guess what? Unless there's something weird, you're going to be successful because those genetics will do good on your property, right? Don't just go out and randomly buy a hundred different new trees that you don't even know if they're going to do good and plant them because they could all lose their lives and you've invested a lot of money that's gone to waste. So we both would agree that like plant 80% of the ones that are local that you have friends and neighbors that grow that, you know, people in your local garden club that grow because you know they're going to perform well. And then maybe take a 20% chunk of new varieties and new genetics and new different kinds of fruit trees and things that you don't know if they're going to do good and experiment because that's the way you truly learn, you know, so that's something that we would both agree with. Plant tried and true but also plant some new things so you can get some variety and most more importantly learn as you grow because I mean we both learned as we've been growing food. He's learned so much planting and losing, you know, thousands of dollars of fruit trees by hurricanes. And now like I was surprised like why don't you have any jackfruit? He has like one left because like, you know, there are two, they blew over the hurricanes and lost and they got too big and they didn't want to grow them again, right? I mean. Yeah. So it's like, you know, success leaves clues is what one of my friends say, Josh. And I mean follow the clues, follow the successful people in your specific climate zone and area so that you too can be successful. So Matt, what are all your different social medias and websites and whatnot for everybody? Yeah, the main one is PeaceRiverOrganics.com. You can find all my other links through that. On Instagram you'll find me as pro underscore agroforestry and that's where I do most of my posts. All right. Cool. So his website and Instagram. So check him out there. Also sorry. I also have a YouTube channel I haven't posted in a while but it's What's Ripening. That's my YouTube. What's Ripening. His YouTube channel. I'll put all the links down below in the description so you can easily access his content and learn more from Matt at PeaceRiverOrganics here in Punta Gorda, Florida. I've had a great time today. So thanks Matt for having me out. Absolutely. It's been amazing. And I hope you guys enjoyed this little visit where I really got to highlight some of the more unique varieties of coconut cultivars and lesser on the mangoes obviously because it's not mango season. But all these amazing flowers he has in the orchard and some amazing genetics he has. If you like this video and want more like this in the future, please be sure to give this video a big thumbs up and more importantly share this video with other people that are in the Fort Myers, Sarasota, Punta Gorda area so that they could learn about one of the best sources of grafted fruit trees that are going to be successful right here in this area. I mean, that's the main thing. You could get fruit trees from Miami and whatnot if you live here, but you know, they're likely going to have some issues. You might have to spray them more and do all this stuff. Just get the ones that are tried and true for this area that Matt has already done the hard work to figure out, spent thousands of dollars and lost it because the trees died. So buy what works and be successful. Also be sure to click that subscribe button right down below so you don't miss out on new and upcoming episodes. I've committed five, seven days. You don't know where I'll show what you'll be learning on my YouTube channel and make sure you click the little bell so you get notified as many videos come out and finally be sure to check my past episodes. Past episodes are a wealth of knowledge over 1700 episodes at this time on this channel dedicated to you guys, how to grow your own food at home. So with that, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. We'll see you next time. And until then, remember, keep on growing.