This Avocado Tree Grows 5 LB Fruits! (18 Varieties Tour)

Alright, this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com today with another exciting episode for you. I'm here in beautiful Puerto Rico, USA and I ran into somebody at actually at the local market today which is unexpected. I helped him haul some of his plants and I got his dirt stains on my shirt, but and then he invited me to his place and actually this is Frutales Gardial and the owner has been basically planting a grove of avocados probably like about 10, 11 years ago, plus he has also all kinds of other different fruits and besides just being a grove, the most important thing for me is that he makes these plants and some of these genetics available to you. You know it's rare that I go to a place that has 18 varieties or different cultivars of avocados and he has 18 varieties that grow and produce well here in Puerto Rico. I think 16 of them he has actually have full size trees in the ground, so he's experimented with all these different varieties of avocados to know which ones grow well, which ones produce a lot, which ones are nice and fatty or which ones are the ones like the Dominica that are watery that actually are Puerto Rican avocados and he also grafts these and makes these available to you guys at very affordable prices for grafted trees. You know that's what I'm all about is kind of getting these special genetics that are hard to find because if you just go to the local market to buy an avocado, it'll be labeled avocado and you never know the variety, but the variety can make a huge difference whether you succeed or whether you fail, right? Here in Puerto Rico at present time with all the varieties he has, you can have avocados that you grew yourself 10 months out of the year. He's currently missing two months pretty much, April and May. In June, the first part of June is a little bit dry, but then the later part of June you're in avocado heaven. So hopefully with some of my connections in Florida, I'm going to try to get some of those varieties that are in the off-season for here so we can have avocados 12 months during the year in Puerto Rico because what I think is incredibly sad is that the Puerto Ricans, they are beautiful, amazing, friendly people, but when they go to the grocery store to buy avocados, I was at two grocery stores yesterday, the avocados are imported, whether imported from Mexico or Dominica and you know what, that makes me personally sad because when I travel, I want to eat off the local land that I'm at and surely if you have your own avocado trees, you would not have to support imported Dominican avocados anymore and have your own fresh fruits and today we're just talking about avocados. He also has 30 varieties and 30 different cultivars of different kinds of mangoes including some of the zill varieties that he makes available here through his nursery that he's been running for the last four years as well as a lot of other different tropical fruiting trees and you know, okay, so here's the thing, I'll tell you guys, he does not ship these out of Puerto Rico, so you got to come visit him here, contact him, he may deliver in some local areas. We are here in Lares, Puerto Rico, it's kind of like more central in the island, but yeah, he has some amazing prices and all the trees because I'm taking home a bunch of from him that I got today, they look amazing. So what we're going to do in this episode, primarily we're going to focus on the 18 varieties of avocados that he is growing, he'll share with you guys some of his knowledge about that and we'll talk to you guys more about those trees as well as some of the other important tropical fruit trees and more importantly, tropical vegetable trees that he's selling here in the nursery. So let's go ahead and meet up with him and give you guys a tour of his amazing farm property here that is actually all fed with the spring water. So this is not using city water, he uses all spring water coming out of the mountain. This is some of the purest water that the trees suck up, they grow nice and fast and nice and healthy. All right guys, so now I'm here with Gardiel, basically the nursery man, the nursery owner who basically planted this orchard out, which has about this area because he has many different areas around his farm that I got a really amazing tour of and if you come here, make sure you see the Rose Apple Cathedral. I don't know if I'll get to show you guys that because that is one of the most serene places in all of Puerto Rico that I visited because I just, I just love that place anyways. In this orchard we have like 50 to 60 avocados and we're going to go over in this orchard and other areas and go over each of the avocados and he'll show you guys which one may be the best one for you here in Puerto Rico. So Gardiel, what is this avocado and you want to tell us more about this and how many of them you planted and how old this tree is? Okay, this tree is like 10 years old, something like that. This is a Simmons avocado. If I would have just one tree, it would be a Simmons. Why? It would be a Simmons. It's a small tree, it's always productive, always productive and the flavor is early. So what month? Tell me. The month, it's like from late June or early July until September. Yeah, so it's, by the way, it's considered early but that's why. It's pretty oily, you know, it's not watery so you miss the hurricanes. You know, if there is a hurricane or something, you ate them already, you know, that's why. So it's a really nice one. They are always, you know, they give always, always they give. The old years, there are some of those that one year they gave, the other one is less production, something like that. So that's why I really like this one. So it sounds like this one's going to be basically like dependable. So you could always depend on this avocado to have avocados every single year, you know, like maybe late June for, you know, till September pretty much. And then they also stay small and compact. So can somebody grow this maybe like in a container, like a big container if they have a patio space or would you recommend it in the orchard and then how much of the spacing? The spacing could be like, the small space that I could go give to a seamless is like 12 foot, something like that, but 20 is better, you know. You can put it in the pot but it should be like a 25 gallon or more, you know, something like that. All right, great. So this is, if you only picked one, this would be the top pick, right, if they're only going to choose one. Yeah. All right. Let's check out some more avocados. All right, guys. So next up we have the Wilson avocado here in Puerto Rico. So how did the Wilson come to be growing here in Puerto Rico and why is it like probably one of the favorites of Puerto Ricans? Okay. Wilson Popenoe is the name of the person that discovered this. He's from, he was from Kansas. I think that was like almost one century ago. And so this kind of avocados come from Florida, not from Puerto Rico, but it's the favorite one from Puerto Ricans. They like it. They call it guiro. Wilson are really long, are early in the seasons, just sometimes even earlier than the Siemens. The thing is that the Wilson tends to be, you know, like one year, many avocados, the other one maybe or less or no avocados at all. You know, that's why I like it. This flavor is really good. Everybody like it because it's creamy, sweet, sweet with rice is splendid with rice. It's incredible. But the thing is that it's alternate, you know, alternate years, so it's not productive every single year. So if you have extra space, yeah, plant one because it's going to be good when you get them, but then you might not be getting them every year. If you can live with a Wilson, get a Wilson. But if you want something with the same season, I would go with the Siemens. All right, up next, guys, we got the Pollock. So tell us about the Pollock. Is this productive every single year and why would somebody want to grow this one here in Puerto Rico? Pollock is from the mid-season. So it should be like from September to October, something like that. The Pollock is a very nice flavor, is sweet, is beautiful. They are clean always when you look at from outside, you know. So no disease. So they like look very pretty because they don't have all the spots and all the weird things. And the tree stays really small. This tree, I haven't... I didn't see any pruning yet. No, at all. It has like eight years right here. So this is an eight year tree. Yeah, it's a very nice size. Yeah. Really easy to take care of. So if you have a small space, a Pollock is a good one. But a Pollock, by the way, is a Florida variety. The thing is that this kind to be sometimes it doesn't give too much production. It was a production, a staple in Florida, but then they switched to the Simms. So Simms was the production one. So this one's not as productive as Simms because some years it might not give. Or give less. But the flavor is incredible. The flavor is really good. It's really sweet, even sweeter than the Wilson. Yeah. Wow. Really good. All right, guys. Next up, we have the Donnie avocado. So tell us about the Donnie and how it grows here in Puerto Rico. Okay. The Donnie is another Florida variety. The thing is that the Florida, this is the earliest. You can eat avocados from May if you grow Donnie right there. Here in Lares, Puerto Rico, something happened that is like early, but maybe July, August. Wow. So it's a lot earlier in Florida than it is here because the weather, of course, is different in the true tropics here in Puerto Rico versus like the more subtropical in Florida. Yeah. So the flavor is good. It tends to be like orange. The color is very different. Last, last year, this was the first one in the, in the season, and so last year it was, it was from June. Oh, June. You had a June. But, you know, you cannot, you cannot know, you know, it's really, yeah, the weather is getting kind of weird. And, you know, that's why, I mean, I encourage you, the weather is so weird. You never know what's going to happen, how the trees are going to react. And that's why you plant more varieties, then you're more guaranteed to have more avocados because some years this will not produce, but the other one will. And some years this will do good. The other one won't. Yeah. You know, if you always plant the same exact one, maybe this one this year, none of the Donnie's produce. You know, so I, I tell you guys, get one of every one and see which one works better for you in your specific microclimate and your soil and everything, because everything's always different. Right? Well, it's, it produces every year, not for us, not too much. But I know that in Florida, they, they produce like, like a lot, you know, I don't know if there is something with the climate or we are doing some changes with the fertilization this year. So to see how it manages, but it's regular production. So talking about the fertilization, like how do you fertilize your trees and how do you recommend people that you sell the fruit trees, the baby ones to, how do you recommend they fertilize? When, when a tree is established, I will use in the case of, of avocados, I will use something with a, with high nitrogen, you know, like a 15, 5, 10, something like that. At the beginning. Yeah. To get them established. At the beginning. Okay. And we do that also depending the date, depending the year. As soon as the season is over, we trim lots of, you know, bark or everything, you know, and then we put that kind of fertilization. After the pruning. Yeah. But then when, when the flowering, nothing, after the flower, you know, we put something with a lot of potassium, you know, so, so it, and low nitrogen, that's what we do. But to grow, if you want it to grow, you can do it like each three months, you know, when you're establishing. Yeah. That's it. And then when they are beginning to, to, to bear fruit. So then you do the, the other thing. Yeah. So if you guys are looking for like the organic version of the 15, 5, 10, then I would recommend like a fish hydrolysate, which is I use, it's like a 15, 0, 0, and then you could fill in with the other ones, you know, like some fish hydrolysates are balanced with other minerals. I would recommend the, the pure protein product actually at boogiebrew.net slash GYG. That's actually what I brought here. And then they have a kelp, kelp product too that's high, very low in nitrogen though too. But yeah, that's what I brought here in small concentrated form that I could put in water and then basically give my trees a lot of fertility and that's every trip. That's what I give my trees that I'm getting to establish here. But we did something before. That's what we're doing right, right now. But before we just did compost compost. Yeah. So a lot of compost is if here, like, like in each, in each tree, you know, sometimes you can skip fertilization for two years. Right. Yeah. Of course the goal is to build up your soil to have all the nutrition in there and all the bacteria and the microbes, especially the fungi that will break down the organic matter and turn it into, you know, nutrients for your tree without actually having to add additional so-called fertilizers. All right, let's check out some more trees. All right guys. So the previous avocado you saw in this episode were from Florida brought to Puerto Rico. So they may not like, you know, they're going to grow good and it's sometimes better than I noticed, but this tree was born here in Puerto Rico. Born here as a Candelaria. So tell us about that Candelaria avocado. Candelaria is our second favorite or first favorite. The thing is that they're never, the Simmons and the Candelaria are like the top two. Yeah. But they're never considered in this season. So we never tried them, you know, the two at the same time. So for when this is fruiting, this is the favorite. When the Simmons is fruiting, it's the favorite. But what is, what is this season? When is it? This season is late. Well, so that one's early and this is a late, so it's always good to have both. Yeah. If I would have two, it would be Simmons and Candelaria. Candelaria is the other one. Candelaria is from November to January. Wow. Something like that. So late. Yeah. It's late. It's, the fruits are clean, really oily. Really oily. Super rich. Better, more than like a Haas? More oily? No, no, no. Not that. But, but close, but closer than it has, you know, and, and the tree stays, also stays really small. Oh, so how old is this tree? This tree should be like 10 years, something like that. 10 years. Wow. So if you want something really, really nice, Candelaria. And then does it make fruit, you know, dependably every single year or does sometimes it skip a year? Yes. So it's very dependable. It's not, not only productive, it's productive and you, we, sometimes we don't care some, some of the Candelarias, we neglect them and, and they always give, you know. So it's really nice for people in the houses that, that don't know if, if they can manage a tree, Candelaria is a good one. So like for people that want to do a low maintenance fruit tree that's avocado, the Candelaria here in Puerto Rico is it. I mean, I always talk to you guys about that. Like some trees will get more bugs and disease. You might have to spray or deal with them. Some you might have to put more fertilizer and do all that stuff. But this one, you plant it, forget it, and you're basically going to have avocados every year. Yeah. Right. And then do you know any of the history of the Candelaria or where from Puerto Rico it's from or? I don't know. I know that University of Puerto Rico has a list of avocados from Puerto Rico and this is one and it's been there for decades. So I don't know much of it. All right. Let's go to the next one. All right guys. Next up we have the Marcus pumpkin avocado. I guess it looks like a pumpkin because of the shape is a little bit different. And tell us about this one. Well this one is from Florida too. The season is semi-late. So it's from October to December, something like that, you know. So the shape is really weird. It's not the most productive tree in the grove anywhere. The Marcus pumpkin are not productive anywhere, but they're really nice. You know, if you have, if you want a variety, you can have a Marcus pumpkin. You know, there are some people that really loved it. It's pretty sweet and it's pretty oily too. So it's really nice. And the other thing is that these, this tree is unlike the other ones. This one gets really tall. He planted this smartly actually at the bottom of his property and it's still really tall. It's tall as some of the ones that when he's planted up on the hill, the same height, right? Yeah. So like this one, I would imagine you don't really prune because it's already really too tall or barely pruned it. No, I pruned it. You pruned it? Yeah. They grow. So yeah, if you don't want to do the work to prune it and to manage it, this thing is going to get huge. And then the avocados when they're high up are very difficult to pick. Yeah. That's true. Oh, so since we're talking about avocados and picking avocados, tell everybody out there how to pick, to tell them when to pick their avocado because like, oh, I see an avocado there. Is it ripe? Can I pick it? How do I, how do I know when it's ready? It's just a small one, right? Yeah. First, you know, you need to know the season, of course, because right now they're going to be throwing, the tree are going to be throwing the small ones that they don't want to work with. Right. But as soon as, that's what I do, as soon as one, the tree drop one and it's ready. The full size. Yeah. I begin picking them up. But what I pick is the one with no, no shine. No shine. So they get dull. Dull. So the dull ones tends to be the more mature, but the, the avocados do not mature the fruit in the tree, you know? So you never going to find, you know, a soft avocado in the tree. They mature out of the tree. And when you harvest, do you recommend cutting so you keep that little, that little nubby thing in there? Because otherwise they tend to rot. Yeah. We cut it and then we leave a little bit of the, you know, the stem, we will cut it here. Of course, this is a baby, but like this, yeah, right here. All right, guys. So we're walking on the way to the next avocado to share with you guys, but I want to stop here real quick because, you know, the farmer talking about this stuff, basically the limestone. So like a lot of his property is like rocked. So don't think, oh, I got rocks in my property. I can't grow anything. Basically he found places that he could dig. He planned the avocado and they do great. Right. He told me that the avocados love like the limestone. Also the breadfruit, also another, another tree of a huge one that will grow great with your limestone. You just got to get a place. They can find their way, get them set in the, guess what, man, the tree roots will basically break up rocks and find their way to grow and then thrive like they are here in the orchard. All right, guys. The next avocado we got is the avala and it's right here behind us. This one actually has been pruned. There's one down there that doesn't look like to me it's been pruned as much. So tell us about the avala fruit. The avala is from Puerto Rico too, and it's mid season. So let me tell you something. If I would plant several types of avocados, I concentrate in the earliest and late because when it's mid season, there's a lot of avocados everywhere, you know, but this is a really good, long avocado from Puerto Rico. It fruits every time, pretty good contents of oil. So there is a, there are two varieties of avala, avala, normal avala and con de avala. There is even bigger. So longer, longer neck. Huge. It could be like five pounds and sometimes, but this one is the regular one. It's really nice. If you want, like, if you're going to plant like five kinds of avocados, avala could be one. And then what's the flavor like? It's sweet, not as sweet as the candelaria or the Pollock. Pollock is really sweet or the Wilson, but it's really sweet. All the avocados that are from this kind of race, the race of Antillean race, are kind of sweet, you know. I see. And then this one gets pretty big, right? So it doesn't stay super compact. Yeah. It grows. It's not like the, for say, fuchsia that we're going to see later. It's not like a fuchsia, but it grows, it grows pretty big. And it grows, I don't know why, it grows up. Straight up. Yeah. Straight up and not wide. Unless you prune it. All right, guys. Next up, we have the condi avala. So it's this guy right here. You can see the fruits are being really long. And so this one's like literally in English, it's count avala. Yeah. All right. So tell us about this one. So this is like the same name of the last one that we were talking, the avala, but we're calling the beginning. But the thing is that the tree stays smaller. I don't know why. More compact. Yeah. So maybe a seedling, you know, that off the other one, and then now they have a new variety that has similar, but different. Yeah. But at the same time, they're huge. Huge too. Yeah. Up to five pounds. Yeah. Up to five. But for me, the quality is more watery, at least here in this grove, are more watery than the avala. Ah, I see. Yeah. So you take, you eat a lot, but it's not better than the other one. Well, it depends if you're looking for fatty, but maybe if you're on a weight loss diet, you want less calories, less fat, then you can have a more watery avocado. That's true. It's true. And it's more compact if you don't have a lot of space and you don't mind that it's most people really like the fattiness of the avocado. But besides the fattiness, I really love the flavor, you know, like how sweet is it? And maybe combining like two different avocados, like a fatty one with one that has more flavor and sweetness, you know. Yeah. At the same time, to make like a guacamole. There are people here that when they order, they go on the avala because they are big, just because that. Because they're big. Because they want to eat a lot, you know. One huge avocado. Is this the biggest avocado that you grow? Yeah. This and the Don Ramon. Those are the biggest. But this is the biggest one. Yeah. It's really big. The fruit's big, tree stays compact. Yeah. All right, guys. So, now we have the biggest, but not the oldest avocado, because this thing grows super fast. It's called the Fuchsia. So, tell us about this one. Fuchsia is from Puerto Rico, too. It's a very big avocado. It's late, bumpy, really thin, thick skin, and the shape is like a breadfruit. A breadfruit. Yeah. Like really oblong and kind of big. And really big. Really big. It's a really good quality. It's not as good as Candelaria, but it's really good. When you eat, it's like this, the meat that you eat, you know, so much, because it's really good. But the tree likes to grow, so it will grow really fast. It's difficult to control, so you need to give it space. And if you prune it too drastically, it will not fruit that year. That's the problem. So, maybe not the most desirable, but if you live at the top of a hill and it goes straight down, you can plant the bottom so that when you just go outside, it's right there because it's so tall. Yeah. If you have space for it, you know. A lot of people grow them because they sell very well. Oh, because the fruit is so big. The fruit sells, I saw this kind of fruit in $7 each one. $7 each. Wow. Per avocado. It's because the season is late and because it's really, really big. So it's a late, large fruit, which, you know, most of the fruit season is mid-season is what people have. So they're running out and like, oh, a big one. I can still get it. And then they're going to pay the money. Yeah. That's why. So it's really popular because of that. All right, guys, next up, we got the Don Ramon avocado right behind us. Another huge tree. So tell us about this one. Don Ramon is mid-season too. They're the second ones that grow really, really big. The fruits are very big. Yeah. I found fruits from like four or at least five pound fruits. Wow. One avocado. Four to five pounds. Yeah. Watery, at least for me, at least here. We found them watery, but a lot of people like them. You know, so today I sold a tree, a Don Ramon, because someone likes them, you know, so maybe because of the size. But the tree also is difficult to control. If you have space, you can plant them, but you should know that it wants to grow. Yeah. You can see there's, you know, he's been pruning the ones in this area a lot because they just keep growing. So, I mean, that's where you got to determine, like, what's more important for you? Is the fruit? Because this is the fruit you maybe had as a child and you want to eat it now and you don't care the size. Or maybe you're like one of like, I don't want to have to do that much work. I don't want to prune. I don't care what avocado I have. I want to get a smaller compact tree that's more productive. Even if the fruits aren't large, you know. So yeah, it's up to you. And that's why I love people, you know, that grow many varieties so that you have a choice because, you know, if you go to the grocery store and buy avocados, in America especially, you don't have a choice. Avocados are always the Haas avocado. Did you even know there's like 18 varieties that could be grown right here in Puerto Rico that you can fruit for 10 months out of the year? Probably not. All right, guys. Next we have a very in-demand avocado tree. It's called the Pico Godreau. So let's learn about this avocado tree that everybody seems to be wanting to be buying right now. Yeah. A lot of people are asking for the Pico Godreau trees. I don't know why, but it's a really nice kind of avocado. The tree doesn't, at least for our experience, doesn't grow so fast. It's not compact, but it's like medium growth and it's late. But the thing is that all the late varieties tend to be roundish and this one is long. It's long like the Wilson, bumpy, of course, like all the late seasons, the skins is bumpy, but it's really compact, the flavor, and it's really oily. Really oily. Yeah. So is this the highest oily fruit, you think, of all the ones? Almost. Yeah. Between this and the Candelaria, they are like the oiliest. And the other thing is that the flesh is like thick. You know, it's like, I don't know, dense. Dense. And what's the color? Like light green or darker green? It's darker green. Darker. Maybe that's why people really like associate the avocado with like a darker green, like the Haas style fruit. And then like the more one that's like the watery type that's more like light green. Yeah. So it's really dense and it tends to be a little bit more, you know, less soft to the word. Oh, firm. Yeah. The more firm. Yeah. So. They store better probably too because they're more firm than soft. So it's a really nice variety. If you're looking for something that is late and it's long, it's big, it's easy to maintain, the Pico de Odro is a good one. And then how big is the fruit? How many pounds? Like two pounds. Almost three. Could be two pounds. All right. Yeah. All right, guys. Next up, we have the Semil 34. And if you ever go to the grocery store and buy like Dominican avocados, it's probably a Semil 34. So you may have even already had this fruit. So tell us about this fruit. Semil are the Dominican avocados. They call it Dominicano here in Puerto Rico, but they are from Puerto Rico, from the barrio Semil in Villalba. There are several of them, Semil 43, 20 something. There are some numbers. They tend to be late. 34 is a floracion, the flower is A, but the 43, the flower is B. And when you put flowers B type with A type, they tend to pollinize easier and it's good. So for example, the Pollock, Pollock is B, so it helps the other ones. And in that case, the 43 is a B type flowering and the Semil 34 is the A, that is more common. The thing is that it's late, incredibly productive, incredibly productive. Every single year. Yes. And it's really nice. It's a really nice variety, very oily. The season is really long too, from late November to almost, sometimes almost March. Wow. Really long. That's why they chose it. That's why they chose, yeah, they chose that avocado and they sent us here to Puerto Rico, our avocados, but the thing is that they pick up sometimes too early and the people say, I don't like the Dominican Republic avocados. It's not because of the tree. It's because of how they send us, they put it in refrigerators and it come here and when you open them, they're black inside. Yeah. That's called damage. Yeah. That's why. They pick up early too, so, but if you, if you want one avocado that is incredibly good, this is one thing. So when you, and you, if you pick them once again, right, and you go to the store or you pick them off your tree, right? You don't want them shiny. You want them dull. And so I challenge you to go to the store and try to find one of the Dominican avocados that's dull because when I've seen them, they're always shiny and guess what that means? That means they're picked too early. Right? So they're sending us junk. If you see a Dominican avocado in September, it's not ready. You know, they picking it too early and they do some tricks with the water and, and some things like that to, to take, to have a really long season there. But I mean, they are our brothers, my brothers, okay. But they're sending us our avocados and they are not ready sometimes. And so another thing you mentioned in this part of the segment, you mentioned about A and B type avocados, you know, I know what they are of course, but many people do not. So you want to explain this in a very simple terms so that people can understand because generally you don't want to buy one avocado tree because you need two for the optimal ideal pollination, an A type and a B type. So what are these exact types in like a layman's term? So a person who never knew this before can understand. The easier way that I can explain is that the flower, the same flower opens at morning male and after the afternoon, it is the other sex. So male and female. The B is, if this is, if this is male at the morning, the B is a female at morning. Ah, I see. So it matches. Yeah. So it's like some people only like to, you know, get busy in their bedroom at night. Right. And some people like to get busy in the bedroom in the morning. So you want to match. Are you a nighttime person, get busy or a morning person. So you can't get together with a person that likes it at night because you're ready in the morning and they're not ready. And then they get mad at you. And then maybe that's why you're in a fight all the time. So you want to get the night and the morning person matched up in the avocados and with the people with your partner. But without the sex, just the pollen, but now you'll never forget the A and the B type of avocado. All right, guys. So up to date, we basically been showing you guys 10 to 11 year avocados established and productive here in Puerto Rico. Now we're getting to some of the newer plants. This newer plant is four years old here, hasn't made the fruit yet. And so tell us about this fruit tree, the butler, which is looking amazing. And how long does it take for avocados generally to produce fruit from the time you planted from like a nursery tree that you would buy? Well, it depends the variety. When is, for example, the Simmons and the Wilson, they tend to fruit early. The Fuchsia, if you plant it like today, a tree, it can take like four or five years. And what about the other ones, the quickest ones? Two, three years. Two to three years. Three years. Yeah. And this one is flowering. It flowers last year. It didn't want to fruit. It flowers this year also and it doesn't want to fruit. But I don't know why, but the quality of this one, the butler is really good, but it's mid-season. Another just very common mid-season fruit. Yeah. And then why did you plant this amongst all your other ones that are, you know, mostly early and late, of course? Because I want to eat all the time in this case. And it's one that a lot of people ask for, you know, so it's pretty popular. And you haven't had a fruit off your tree, but you have had other butler fruits. And what do they taste like? Really good. And they're really smooth and oily. Smooth and oily. Yeah. So it's a pretty good fruit. That's why a lot of people ask for it. And then where, do you know the history of this, the butler? I think it's from Puerto Rico. From Puerto Rico. Yeah. Because the list of the University of Puerto Rico has them, has the butler for decades, right? So, so it must be from here. All right. I don't know. Most of the time it's the last name of some person, yes, that discovered it or something like that. All right, guys. So now we're down at the North Forty and we had to like trek through like literally the jungles to get here. So like he's just growing like in nature, right? With just weeds all around and this avocado is still quite resilient to grow. This is the Monroe. So tell us about this avocado and more importantly, why'd you decide to plant it like literally middle in the middle of the forest without like all the nice trim grass around it? Well, the grass is because we, we didn't have time to trim. So it is not usually that day like this, but Monroe is a variety from Florida too. It's a really big avocado, very productive. And right now we are not selling them because we are just doing tryouts, you know, trials to make sure it's going to be productive in Puerto Rico because this, you know, the genetics originally were from Florida and not everything from Florida will grow in Puerto Rico. And it definitely, a lot of things that will grow in Puerto Rico won't grow in Florida. Yeah. If they, if they need some chill hours, they won't do well here. That's the problem. So we are just in the evaluation, you know, part of it, it has like four years planted and has no flower yet. So we are just checking this one and, and two more that are in that evaluation trial period to prove to you before you start to sell them to people, because if you sold them and they didn't make the fruit, they would get mad at you and you don't want that. Yeah. So this and the next one are just like that. All right. All right, guys. Next up we're standing underneath the canopy, so I'm glad for that. This is actually the same age as the one you just saw. This is once again, four years in, under trial still to see if they're going to be productive here in Puerto Rico, Oro Negro or black gold in English. Yeah. Another variety from Florida. And in this case it's named black gold because when it matures, it turns black. Ah, it turns black like the husk. Yeah. But it's supposed to be, I haven't tried it yet, but it's supposed to be very oily and very rich. So, and late. Late. In the season. Yeah. So we are just hoping, you know, for it to flower and to, and to give something so we can then a year after that, then we see how it manages the climate and everything. And then you can start to propagate it and make it available to you guys. Yeah. But he's not going to do it until he knows that it's going to be good for people in Puerto Rico. Yeah. That's true. So that's why you shouldn't order your fruit trees from Florida and get them shipped here because they may or may not do well. Yeah. And plus you want stuff that is locally grown, you know, it'd be always the best. And of course, buying things from your local nurseryman is always going to be less expensive. And I want to, once again, go ahead and put in the disclaimer. He does not ship his fruit trees to Florida or anywhere in the US. You have to come down and buy them directly from him here in Puerto Rico. I mean, of course, like some of my trees could end up back in the States if they went, well, they couldn't actually because they check them at the agriculture. Yeah. That's your problem. But I can take avocados back with me because I've done that before. Oh really? Yes. I've taken avocados off my tree back to the States. It's on the exclusion list. Ah, that's nice. It's very nice. So maybe one day if your avocados are picked nice and firm, you could actually ship them to the States for people to try some of these amazing varieties that, you know, in the States, I think it's incredibly sad that you go to the store, you always get Haas and nobody's ever tasted all these unique varieties that have that sweetness, that flavor that you just don't get in Haas. Yes, Haas is fat and oily, but it doesn't have that, like the sweetness, the flavor or like the flesh, you know, the thinness or the denseness, the creaminess, the crudeness. Yeah. Really good. Yeah. And we cannot ship, we cannot ship like trees with the soil. That's a problem we have from here to the United States. And you've got to get certified to do that and all this other stuff that costs a lot of money. And there are places that do that. I was actually at one yesterday that does that, Tropical Plantay, but their prices are insane if you try to get stuff shipped to you. They sell them cheaper if you show up. All right guys, so now we're in the nursery. Now these are super new, not even in the ground yet. And so which one is this? That one is Miguel. It's a variety from Florida. It's supposed to be just like the Simmons, but the season is later. I mean, it should be like mid-season. Oh, mid-season. But it should be very productive. Very productive. And smaller tree. Yeah. So this one is the Miguel. Miguel, we are going to be planting it in 25 gallons like this, and then it will wait right here in there, you know, so we can control better. We are not sure about the chill hours or anything like that. We're going to see. All right. So yeah, under evaluation, not yet available. Yeah. There is, by the way, there is another one just in one pot around there. The name, we are going to put a name of that one, and you could do that, you know. If you find a really nice avocado or really nice fruit that is from seedling. Yeah. A local tree that you could get the, you know, the scion wood from. And it's extraordinary. And you say this deserves to be, you know, propagated or something. You could name it. So you found one. So tell us about the avocado tree you found locally. Yeah. In this case, a friend of mine told me about a tree that is incredibly productive and is all year and the fruit are really big. We went there in Arecibo, close from here. And when I checked it, I was really impressed. It was, it has, it had more, more fruit than leaves, more fruit than leaves, at least in that time. And then the name of the place was Paraíso. So I'm thinking about naming it Paraíso. But we had to check it. I know that it's from Puerto Rico. But even, even though it's from Puerto Rico, we had to try the production, how it behaves after grafted and everything like that. Yeah. Right. But that's a, that's something that you can do. Yeah. You name your own variety, plant some seeds or find old grow trees that aren't something else already. Okay. All right. And I think we got one more to show you guys today. All right, guys. So I'm going to show you guys part of the nursery. So you know, while he does grow avocados and mangoes and that's his primary focus, he has many other types of fruit trees. I guess right now they're all in pretty much one gallon pots. He has like between seven to eight hundred different kinds of fruit trees in total. And I know I seem like the name here. He has cacao. He has like the seedlings that he's going to actually do the grafting from. He has many different kinds of fruits. I think I'm picking up a purple Surinam cherry from him today and guavas and all kinds of different things. But I want to show you guys real quick. Like one of my favorite basically vegetable trees or shrubs that you can grow year round here before we continue on to the nursery and show you guys his actually is amazing prices on his avocados and mangoes that are grafted. All right, guys. So this is one of my plants that if you guys come here, I want you guys to request and take one home. It's going to be very inexpensive. They're basically propagated by cuttings. But this is a very valuable plant and you should not underestimate it. This is known as katuk. And he says katuk. He likes it growing underneath the shade. We're literally at the big trunk of an old school tree, like old growth tree. That's like huge. But it's like really right at the bottom. And you can see this is one of the most lush katuks that I've ever seen. And the katuk basically makes all these leaves are edible. If you grow a fruit tree, the fruit tree has to make all the leaves and the leaves basically, you know, then give fuel to the tree to make the fruits. But with the katuk, you could literally just pick even the baby tender leaves and eat them. So when you eat these, it tastes like it tastes like nutty. It tastes like you're like my friend says, it tastes like you're eating peanut butter. I don't know if I'd say peanut butter, but I would say these are a nice nutty leaf you could eat raw. And, you know, once again, you know, when I go to the grocery store here in Puerto Rico makes me really sad that I see people buying lettuce that's imported from the States that's all wilted and old. When if everybody grew a katuk right outside of their house, right, you could basically come and strip all the leaves just like that. Add all this to a salad, chop it up, put some dressing on there and you get an instant tropical salad right from your front yard that is basically free. You make a one time investment to buy this plant. You grow it and you have salad every single day of the year. Once it's established. I mean, look at all these leaves guys. I could just go, I could just go strip, strip, strip, strip, look at this salad to eat for days. All right guys. So I wish I had time to show you guys a whole nursery, but I'm late to my next appointment. But I did want to show you guys this. This is basically an example of what $17 gets you here in Puerto Rico. You know, like I go to South Florida a lot and I mean every time I go to Florida, I mean I know those guys in Florida are doing their job to make trees available to you guys, but they're at least two times more money than I could buy trees here in Puerto Rico. And that's one of the reasons of many that I decided to buy property and grow here in Puerto Rico because the cost of living for fruit trees anyways is a lot less. So basically this is an example of a nice grafted avocado. He also does graft mangoes and right now he's grafted about 20 different varieties of mangoes including some of the zill varieties and I get to get to show you guys in this episode. But he also has 12 varieties. Many of the ones that have been proven here in Puerto Rico that we showed you early in the episode available for the $17. And you know, one of the things I commented on is like, man, you are basically grafting it pretty high up on the stem, which is interesting to me. I mean, number one, you're just going to start off with a taller tree that could reach for the sun and then you just want to make sure that all the bottom growth doesn't outgrow because then you're just going to have the seedling, you know, genetics on the bottom. But he says once they get established, pretty much there's not a lot of growth out of the bottom. So that's quite interesting. But yeah, I kind of like it that they're already kind of tall because it actually makes you seem like you're getting a much taller tree. And the other thing I want to do for you real quick is I want to show you guys the root development on here. Look at this. These guys are ready to go in the ground. This is like really nice root development. They're not like root bound or anything. These are just ready to get put in the ground and then explode on your property to make you plenty of avocados. And depending on the variety, it could just be in as short as three years. So yeah, this is probably the best place I found in Puerto Rico to get your fruit trees because I've been to a bunch of nurseries. Actually, just yesterday I went to three different nurseries and you know, some of their prices may be a little bit less, but you know, most places I go to, they're not grafting trees. So you guys are going to get the special genetics. You're just going to find basically seedling varieties, which then is like a roll of the dice. And so I always encourage you guys, you know, to just buy plants once, buy them right, buy ones that are going to be healthy, ready to go so that you guys could have more fruit to eat in the short term instead of wasting more money in the long term. All right guys, so that's the end of the tour. We're finally sitting underneath the shade structure house, which is basically where all the main propagation and the trees are growing out, right? He has so many different kinds and some of the ones actually I'm bringing home today. So we want to ask a few final questions, you know, so it looks like to me that you put a lot of time, effort and expense into your nursery operation and also just, you know, growing your farm in the fields from trimming everything to make it look really nice to all the genetics that actually you import. You know, I learned about some of the actually a special Puerto Rican citrus fruit that actually you didn't even get local genetics because you don't trust the local genetics. You actually got it from the University of California, brought it back and then grafted it on, which actually I'm getting one of those babies myself. So you put a lot of time, effort. Why do you do all this kind of work, man? Like what keeps you going to keep, you know, propagating, getting these fruit, rare fruit trees out to people and growing all the trees on your property? Because I want to survive. You want to survive. Yeah. And we have, we had Maria here and after Maria, you know that you can die. It's very easy that everything collapse. You need to survive. And I want that for the other people too. You know, I want to give the people the opportunity and I'm really passionate about this. You know, this is my life. This is what I think. This is what I live. We have this to sell, but the rest of the growth is for my family. What happens if we don't, if the boat doesn't arrive to the island, you know, so that's what I always tell the other people, what are you going to do? What do you have your patio for, you know, for grass? You know, you need to survive. You need something. If you have a neighbor, you can plant avocado, the other plant carambola, you know, you can work together also. That's why. All right. Yeah. So to survive, I mean, basically after the hurricane, you know, most Americans may not be familiar, basically like no boats came in. The store shelves ran empty. If you're not growing your own food, then you're basically not going to eat. And so, and so you live through a hurricane here. And so what fruit trees survived your hurricane? Because you know, people think, oh, the hurricane comes and everything's just decimated. But you know, many of your trees did make it. The thing is that we are in the hole, you know, the people that are watching this can't see the mountains, but around us, we're around in the mountain. So most of the trees survived, you know, even in the last hurricane, there was Fiona. Most of the planting and everything survived, you know, because of the mountains. Ah, so if you buy a place, then pick it that's surrounded by mountains. So you have protection. Yes. And I have no neighbors. And so, oh, so then tell us about, tell me about the citrus that I'm bringing home today myself to plant on my property that is originated here in Puerto Rico. What is, what is that? The name is Chiroja. Chiroja is the mix, the word of Toronja, grapefruit, and China, the name that we give in Puerto Rico to the orange. Oh, so it's a grapefruit orange mix. Yeah. Oh, wow. So a person called Moscoso, like 20 or 30 minutes from here, saw in a grove that was in 1940, 47, something like that. It found that kind of fruit. And when you try and when you ask the other people, it got classified as a different variety. So in this case, I wrote the people of University of California, Riverside, they have a clonal protection program. They have a huge citrus collection. Yeah. And it's protected. And I found that Chirojas right there. I trust them because sometimes here in Puerto Rico, they say Chiroja and it's seedlings. And if you have an orange tree and it's from seedling, you're going to wait a lot of time and it might be something different. Yeah. In this case, what I'm giving you is the Chiroja. I'm sure that is the Chiroja from here, from Utuado, Puerto Rico. Wonderful. And then I'm also taking home a sweet lemon. So I mean, more common in the U.S., especially in the Hispanic markets, you can buy sweet limes, but sweet lemons I've had only a few times, they're even more rare. But tell me about the sweet lemon that I'm taking home that you have one amazing tree that has survived the hurricane and is amazing. Yeah. And that tree, I don't know why it doesn't get sick. So it's really resilient. I'm using it as a rootstock because of that. It's really sweet. The fruit is really big. It's easy to peel. You know, I have family that come here just to eat the lemons. So it's a really nice tree. I'm sure that is a different variety and it's from seed. So as you said, it rolled the dice and it was a really nice tree in that case. And then I've also eaten some berries that are actually right behind us here. So tell me what these berries are, because they are a tropical berry that look amazing. And as you guys know, berries are super nutritious. What's this, what's this berry called? And do you make these plants available for people? Raspberries. These are not normal raspberries. These are not American raspberries. No. They're from Puerto Rico. These are Puerto Rican raspberries. Yeah. The name? I don't know. Oh, you don't know the name? They just grew in the mountains of Puerto Rico and they were all over the place. Right now there are less, less, and less because they are trimming. So I brought them here to the nursery and we have propagating right now. Wow. They're delicious. Yeah. I love them. They're in season right now. Good time to visit. Yeah. All right. Cool. So, I mean, the final question is, you don't ship anything. So don't try to call and say, Hey, you ship me something. He won't do it because it's like, you know, the USDA and all this stuff. But if you come here, you could buy the plants yourself. So how can somebody get ahold of you to get your price list and to find out, you know, what you have available and the prices? They can call me at 787-362-5963, Frutalescadiel. They call me, I send them or write them, write me, and I send them the list of the trees that I have available and the prices. All right. Wonderful. So yeah. Call or text him at? 787-362-5963. All right. Wonderful. Well, I got to run to my next appointment. I've had a great time here. Thanks for hanging out with me and showing me everything today and actually share with all my viewers all the amazing avocados that you're growing here in Puerto Rico. Once again, you get all these different kinds of avocados. You'd be eating avocados 10 months out of the 12. And my goal is to find those avocados for that shoulder season that they don't have avocados here. Maybe something from Florida will fit the bill. So if you guys want to order the trees, call him, link his phone number and information down below. If you guys enjoyed this episode, want more videos where I visit at this nursery and the amazing property he has here, thumbs this video up and more importantly, share this with other people that live in Puerto Rico so that they can learn about one of the best places I've found to buy fruit trees at an affordable price, good quality from a man that is just trying to help the country out to be more sustainable and not be literally a food desert or a food island literally in the middle of the Caribbean. Also be sure to click on the subscribe button right down below so you don't miss any of my new and upcoming episodes. I've got five to seven days. You never know when I'll show up, what you'll be learning on my YouTube channel, what new amazing farms or people I'll be visiting and learning about. Make sure you click the little bell so you get notified as my new videos come out. And finally be sure to check out past episodes, past episodes are a wealth of knowledge. Over 800 episodes at this time on this channel dedicated to teach you guys how to grow your own food. And I'll put some of my favorite links, some of the videos I've made here in Puerto Rico while visiting my property and some of the other amazing people that live on island. So with that, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com. I'll see you next time and until then, remember, keep on growing.