This is John Kohler with GrowingYourGreens.com delivering another exciting episode for you!
We’re here in Davie, Florida to check out a 1 acre residential property where he’s
growing lots of fruit trees.
So instead of like his neighbor on the other side, he has a nice large lawn, and no food
growing.
Mike over here has been growing 1 acre’s worth of fruit trees, densely planted about
10 feet apart.
But not only is he growing food and a lot of fruit trees here, he’s also making them
available to the public.
So what we’re going to do today is visit Benders Grove, so let’s head on over and
check it out.
When you’re driving down the street and you see the sign “Tropical Fruit Trees For
Sale, Mango, Avocado, Lychee, We Have It All, Benders Tropical Grove, 954-471-0763”, you
know you’ve arrived, but when you’re looking at the place, you’re like “Hey!
That’s just a standard residential house!”
Well, yes, Mike runs his business from his home.
Now, how this started was that Mike just got into growing fruit trees and started growing
a few fruit trees here and just like many of us, the hobby of growing food consumed
him.
And he started a nursery where you can now buy these very fruit trees that he loves and
so many different varieties.
Now these varieties are meant for growing in South Florida and he does not ship.
So if you don’t live in South Florida, you can just watch this video and learn about
what you can do in your area and grow some fruit trees in your yard.
In any case, let’s go and head inside and check out what’s growing on today.
So now I’m just about to enter Benders Tropical Paradise which is A Proud Florida Agri-Business.
Now there’s not much Agri-Business going on in Florida anymore, especially these smaller
type businesses like this, that I wanna encourage you to support.
But because he runs this from his home, this is basically his hobby that turned into a
business on a part-time, so he’s only open 2 days a week which is currently Wednesday
and Sunday between 10 and 5, so check his website and contact him through his website
if you need to come at another time.
Now on his website, you’ll also find a list of all kinds of fruit trees and he has a really
wide variety of fruit trees.
I haven’t seen this kind of variety in like barely any places.
He has ones that I don’t even know of and I know a lot of tropical fruit, so trust me.
He has a lot.
So, I have a list here but you can also download this list on his website and before I go in,
I wanna mention that his prices are really great, because he has low overhead, he an
pass the savings onto you.
So, I’m excited to be here, to show you some of the fruit trees he’s offering.
Plus, his home orchard offers 1 acre.
So, let’s go inside and check it out.
So, now we’re in Benders Grove and besides just growing a lot of fruit trees in his 1
acre, he’s literally maximized his acre he has to grow, like a lot of fruit trees.
He also has a nursery and the nursery is literally in his driveway here and he has all these
potted plants that you can buy.
Now, he has one of the most extensive collections of fruit trees that I’ve seen anywhere,
nonetheless in his driveway.
So, we’re gonna take a look at some of the fruit trees here that he’s offering, plus
we’re also gonna walk around his little home orchard, where he’s growing a copius
amount of fruit.
So, let’s take a look at some of the varieties he’s offering here in the nursery pot
He has things like mangoes and papayas here and a strawberry tree.
He even has pineapples, jabuticaba fruits.
I mean, all kinds of different things.
There’s a fig tree, oh and behind up there is a pomegranate tree, I don’t know if you
can see the pomegranates up there.
You can even grow pomegranates here in South Florida.
I think I see an avocado tree.
Oh, here’s one: chicozapote tree, I love this one a lot, known as the brown sugar fruit
or a Sapodilla.
Let’s see, more mangoes, I mean, this thing…
This place is just packed with all kinds of fruit.
Now, he also has avocadoes, but when you think avocado, you may think “harsh avocadoes”
but there are many more varieties than just the harsh variety of avocado.
Actually, some of these are flowering right now.
And some will fruit in the winter, some will fruit in the summer and they all have different
tastes and textures.
Some are more buttery, some are more creamy and some are more watery actually.
But here, at Benders Grove, he has all different kinds of fruit trees to meet all your needs
and you can even grow fruit trees in containers, like that one right there.
Here’s one of my favorite foods and favorite palms to grow.
This is a coconut and you can be successful in even growing a coconut in a container in
northern climates.
Now, that being said, everything I’m gonna pretty much show you today should probably
only be grown in South Florida because it’s grown here!
And some of these tropicals will not grow well in northern climates because they don’t
like the frost, so if you live where there’s a frost, they’re probably not gonna grow
well, unless you build a heated greenhouse, because I have some people from Maine telling
me “Hey John, can I grow that?”
Well, yeah, if you build a heated greenhouse and have a heater and air conditioner in there
to keep the temperature just right where the plants want to.
That being said, I’ll highly discourage you from doing that unless you’re a millionaire.
You wanna probably just buy the fruit trees that are gonan grow well in your area.
So, if you’re in the South Florida area, you definitely wanna visit Benders Grove to
visit Mike here, because he’s the expert but if you live in another area, you wanna
visit a good nursery.
And hopefully a locally owned and small business nursery that can help you out with all your
fruit tree needs.
Next we’re gonna go ahead and tour Mike’s orchard and show you some of the things he’s
got packed in to his 1 acre to grow lots of fruit here.
Here we are in Benders Grove and once again, Mike runs his business out of his home and
all around his yard is literally filled up with fruit trees like mine is filled up mostly
with vegetables.
Now, fruit trees can make an excellent addition to your yard and they’re definitely easier
to grow fruit trees than growing vegetables because they require much less care.
Basically you need to plant them right, feed them right and make sure they’re watered
regularly, and you will get bountiful harvests year after year.
So, I’d highly encourage you to plant some fruit trees in your yard along with your vegetables
so you can have both fruits and your vegetables.
But you can see here in his yard, I mean, this is densely planted out.
This is a backyard orchard here and everybody could do this, especially if they don’t
wanna grow vegetables ‘cause there’s too much tending.
The fruit trees are very easy to manage and take care of.
Once you have it set up right, I’d highly encourage you to contact somebody like Mike,
to er, help get it set up right.
Plant them every ten feet and you can have literally fruits every month of the year.
So here’s just one of the trees Mike is growing.
This is actually a macadamian tree and macadamians are probably my number one favorite nut.
They won’t actually mess up your omega 3 to 6 balance, and nonetheless, I’ve come
at the right time of year because they are currently flowering.
Actually, they’d be coming at a better time of year if they were actually fruiting to
produce the nuts and the only problem Mike has with these guys is that you gotta fight
the squirrels for ‘em.
Here’s yet another example of making all of available use of space.
You can see we have a nice, maybe, mango tree next to me and another mango tree where the
camera’s sitting.
And just in this space, it’s actually nice and shady, but some trees can actually do
better in the shade at maybe some part of the day.
This area also gets some sun, so even if you’re pretty shaded out with a nice canpoy above,
you can still grow something like a papaya tree right here.
These things in Florida literally grow as weeds.
And papaya trees are literally one of the fruits, that you can grow, that actually use
froma seed to harvest, actually very quickly.
Sometimes, fruit trees require extra protection, just like your vegetables may require extra
protection.
Er, so,a round this abiu tree…
Have you ever had an abbiu fruit?
I have, and the way I like them most is when they’re chilled, they’re chilled a little
bit cold.
Man, they’re just, I can’t even describe the flavour, it’s like a cross between a
banana and pudding and a star fruit.
They’re just insane.
They only grow in the tropics though, but it looks like thid guy needs some extra protection,
which you can easily do with some T-Posts and some galvanizing fencing wire.
The fencing keeps unwanted animals out so that this abbiu can grow and bloom into a
nice big fruit tree that gives delicious fruit.
In this area, Mike’s growing another really cool fruit that will not only grow in Florida
but also in California where it stays warm.
Now, I don’t think these plants like frost too much but I’ve seen these grow really
well in southern California, also here in South Florida.
These guys are one of my favorite fruits, they’re called the Dragon Fruit or Pitaya.
And, er, you can see he’s just growing these in containers here, so container culture for
trees and other plants highly possible.
As you can see all the nursery plants, that we just looked at are all in small pots.
Of course, if you want them to breed any significant amount of yield, you wana put them in the
largest pot you possibly can.
Generally, the more room the roots have to grow out, the more productive it’s gonna
be.
In this area, like I said, he’s growing some pitaya or dragon fruit and he has 1,
2, 3, 4, 5 different varieties, a yellow one, a mera yahan B, markasome.
But you know, there’s all different varieties of all these different kinds of fruit, so
we commonly know, that if we go to the grocery store, you’d find Granny Smith apples, Red
Delicious apples, Fuji apples, Rome apples, Pippin apples.
But when you go to a store to buy other fruits like naval oranges, you usually just get naval
oranges.
You don’t generally get Kare-Kare oranges or red navals or other kinds, although you
know, this generic diversity in nature and these pitayas or dragon fruits, they come
in all shapes and sizes.
And some may grow better in this area than others and also some may have a better taste
than others.
Some may better yield more than others, so I’d encourage you to come to a place like
Benders here and talk to Mike because he truly knows the fruits and what’s gonna do best
in the area you live.
Another things that grows really well here in the tropics is the pineapple and the pineapple
is a bromeliad plant and you can see he has several pineapples in this area.
It’s really very easy to propagate or start a pineapple from the crown or a pineapple
you actualy bought in a store.
In most cases, they will sprout into a new pineapple plant.
So, just in this area 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 pineapple plants and these are basically the understory
of these fruit trees.
You can see here, there’s a fruit tree there, fruit tree there and these are just kind of
underneath there.
So, definitely, pineapples are a good way to fill in this base below and it looks you’ve
molded this area, so it looks really nice too.
So, you might wana think twice before you cut down that old tree that looks like, this
probably old fruit tree here, that didn’t make it.
He planted a new one to replace it next door, this is a Catalina avocado next door, but
this tree, he bascially just left the stump in the ground up to about 6 feet.
And that’s because he’s using it for a very important reason: to grow the dragon
fruit, so you can see here, he has some T-Posts.
These are continuing to grow the Dragon fruit and the Dragon fruit is just growing up the
tree.
He’s using the tree as the trellis to stabilize the dragon fruit, because this can get quite
heavy and this thing looks very nice, so, what better use for an old tree, than to support
a dragon fruit.
Mmm, I love dragon fruit, especially when they’re nice and sweet.
So, I was talking to Mike about diseases and pests down here in South Florida and he gave
a good statement to me.
He says “You know what, if you don’t want bugs, don’t plant any fruit trees”, because
you know what, bugs and nature happens.
So, if you plant fruit trees, you know that bugs will eat your leaves, but he got a really
good thought on this, like I would agree, he said “You know what, the bugs are gonna
eat the leaves, they’re probably not gonna damage the fruits”.
He only grows naturally here and uses organic controls in order to control pests whenever
possible.
So, you can see here, the conversation came up, because this plant actually has black
sooty mold and this is the sooty mold, that actually sometimes, citrus gets in my, um,
my tree college kit.
So, you can see on this here, just this black film and you know, it’s not necessarily
bad unless you got it all over your tree.
So, you know what, stuff happens sometimes and you know, unless it’s taken out of your
tree, you’re probably good with just letting it be and letting nature do its course.
Now, there are many biological controls you can also use, that are natural, that may fight
this stuff off, but generally, if you have a sooty mold problem, there’s some other
reason for that, like avid sap or something like that.
And next, we’re gonna look at the Asian guava and you can see this thing is in a 3
gallon, and oh, it already has two large fruits on it.
These things grow like weeds here in Florida.
And the one thing you wanna remember is that fruit you grow at home is gonna taste multitudes
better, not even like double as good, like ten times as good, especially guavas.
When guavas are picked and sold and traded, they gotta pick ‘em real hard and firm and
they basically have no flavor.
But if you grow them at home and pick them whe they’re obviously ripe, man, it’s
like, it’s like eating perfume.
Guavas are so delicious and so good, so, not only with guavas but every fruit that Mike
sells here.
If you pick it at your home, I will guarantee you that it’s gonna taste better than the
stuff sold in the grocery store and in my opinion, we should all become our own farmers
and grow as much of our own food as possible, and especially if you live here in South Florida.
All you gotta do is plant a tree once, give it some care and it will grow and produce
fruit and if you don’t like the fruit, feed it to your neighbors.
Next, we’re gonna look at another tree here that Mike sells and this is actually called
the Pigeon Pea.
So, it’s actually got beautiful little flowers, kinda reminds me of, like the runner beans.
Really beautiful.
Oh, they actually smell pretty good too.
But these make another food, it makes the pigeon peas and this is from Puerto Rico and
the Puerto Ricans use the beans to cook them up.
And in addition, besides the food aspect of this crop, this is also a nitrogen fixer and
I have seen this in Hawaii, where they actually plant this in their orchard to actually help
build the soil up.
And Mike offers them for like 5 bucks in 1 gallon and they’re already fruiting and
producing food for you.
Next, let’s talk about one of my favorite fruits, one of my favorite fruits in the world
and many other people would agree because it’s actually one of the best selling fruits,
it is the mango.
Now, you can’t grow mangos unless you have a tropical climate like here in South Florida,
but if you decide to grow mangos, you have many options as Mike here has 40 varieties
of mangos that you can choose from and each one has a unique flavor and growth habit and
texture.
I mean, some are stringy, some are not, most mangos produce one crop a year, except this
guy right here.
This is called a Choc Anon or a Miracle Mango and it puts on 2 crops a year.
So, one in the summer, one in the winter, although one crop may be a bit lighter than
the other, so you can get more fruit off one tree.
And don’t fret if you live in a condo, you can still buy a mango tree and grow it in
a container.
Next, let’s go take a look at a mango he’s growing in a container, that’s yielded 150
pounds of fruit or almost 150 pounds of fruit last year.
Now I’m standig next to a Malika mango tree and this is just in a big pot.
It’s like a 25 gallon, but you’d also use something like a wine barrell, like a
wine barrell to grow this thing.
This thing, as you can see, it’s super tall and this is known as a Condo mango because
you can even grow it even if you have a condo, in a container, such as this one right here.
This one produced almost 150 pounds of fruit for just a mango tree in a container.
Now, you really need to go to somebody like Mike to learn about all the different types
of varieties.
I mean, he like, knows way more about mangos than I do, because he’s been growing them
for so long.
He’ll tell you exactly what type of variety you need for your specific criteria, whether
you wanna grow in a condo, whether you wana grow one two harvests a year, whether you
want the stringless, whether you want the strings.
Whether you want a large crop or a small crop that tastes mucho good.
He’ll help you out there.
So, next let’s take a look at the few varieties of mango trees that Mike offers to you here
in South Florida.
And here are some of the varieties of mango, I mean this one is a Num Doc Thai mango and,
I mean, all different kinds that he has here, once again, each, you know, a different growth
habit and they all taste different.
Oh man, here’s one I really have to try.
This one is actually called the Coconut Cream mango, so can you just imagine that, the name
of that mango just elicits creamy deliciousness and just “oh so sweet”.
There are even more mangos in here, here’s a Grand mango and you can see it’s flowering
and you might be wondering “Hey, John, are these gonna fruit this year or what?”
I mean, well hey, when it’s flowering, that means the fruit are not far behind.
All the mangos that Mike sells are basically, basically, gonna be fruit in this year.
So, you but it now, you could have fruit within the year, so that’s definitely amazing.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode here at Benders Grove and once again, Mike is growing
an incredible amount of fruit on just 1 acre and he makes these plants available to you,
if you live in the South Florida area.
So, you wanna visit Mike’s website BendersGrove.com.
Give him a call and get down here in Davie, Florida.
If you’re in the area, you can come by, he’s currently open 2 days a week, but check
his website for more information and to contact him.
Once again, he’s definitely an expert in the area of growing fruit trees in South Florida
and I’d recommend him highly for all his expertise and to buy your fruit trees from.
Because he runs a small business and runs his business from his home, he definitely
has low prices, so you can afford more fruit trees to plant in your yard.
Once again, my name is John Kohler with GrowingYourGreens.com, encouraging you to grow fruit trees and vegetables
too.
We’ll see you next time.