Jackfruit Tree

I went to the Manatee County Extension office's Rain Garden workshop this morning and while there took a tour of their more newly established education gardens. The Manatee Rare Fruit Council had gifted several unusual trees to the Extension office for their educational gardens. The jackfruit is one of the most unusual for me. The fruit is about the size of a large ham, and they say it has a taste that is kind of like a pineapple custardy apple fruit. I will be watching the website to see when they harvest for a tasting to follow. I worked for several years with the Master Gardener program and learned so much about plants, trees and Florida Friendly landscaping. I continue to use it as an education tool to learn more for my landscaping design business! The Rain Garden workshop also helps me personally as I have some water retention issues that create my own natural rain garden at times. Fortunately we have sandy solis so the water percolates down pretty quickly after hard rains. The build up in neighbors easement areas over the years has created blockages of drains set in place years ago. The county drill the pipes out sometimes, but then roots re-grow and clog it up! We re-grade our property years ago to help the situation, but anything that can help hold the water so we don't have pollution run-off will help our waterways. It's the right thing to do to keep our waters clean.