Persimmon

Prunes: Love 'em or hate 'em, they're good for you.

Loganberry; Crab Apple

LOGANBERRY is a cross between a blackberry and a raspberry. It has vigorous prickly canes and ruby-red, blackberry-shaped sweet berries that turn purplish I autumn when fully rips. Tie the plant to a support or along wire to limit its trailing habit. CRABAPPLE trees of the Golden Hornet variety grow less than 2 metres high and are ideal for potting. Another good variety is Jack Humm, which produces scarlet fruit about the size of a small chicken egg. Birds only like eating the fruit when it is soft.

Silvanberry; Raspberry

SILVANBERRY, or American brambleberry bush, bears glossy dark red to black berries that are very juicy and sweet from early December to January. Like most berry fruits, they are high in vitamin C and quite fragile when fully ripe. RASPBERRY plants have arching stems that grow to 3 metres tall, producing white flowers in spring or summer followed by fruit. Put them in slightly acidic, well-drained soil – plants are often killed by poor drainage. Separate varieties by about 2 metres.

Ripening Bananas

THE AMAZING BANANA

After Reading this, you'll NEVER look at a Banana in the same way again! Containing three natural sugars -- sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fibre, a banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy. Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world's leading athletes. But energy isn't the only way a banana can help us keep fit. It can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses and conditions, making it a must to add to our daily diet. Depression: According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel happier. PMS: Forget the pills -- eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood. Anaemia: High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of haemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anaemia. Blood Pressure: This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt, making it the perfect way to beat blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke. Brain Power: 200 students at a Twickenham (Middlesex) school were helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at breakfast, break, and lunch in a bid to boost their brain power. Research has shown that the potassium-packed fruit can assist learning by making pupils more alert. Constipation: High in fibre, including bananas in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the problem without resorting to laxatives. Hangovers: One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system. Heartburn: Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body, so if you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief. Morning Sickness: Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness. Mosquito bites: Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation. Nerves: Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the nervous system. Overweight and at work? Studies at the Institute of Psychology in Austria found pressure at work leads to go raging on comfort food like chocolate and crisps. Looking at 5,000 hospital patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to be in high- pressure jobs. The report concluded that, to avoid panic-induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours to keep levels steady. Ulcers: The banana is used as the dietary food against intestinal disorders because of its soft texture and smoothness. It is the only raw fruit that can be eaten without distress in over-chronicler cases. It also neutralizes over-acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of the stomach. Temperature control: Many other cultures see bananas as a "cooling" fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional temperature of expectant mothers. In Thailand, for example, pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a cool temperature. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): Bananas can help SAD sufferers because they contain the natural mood enhancer tryptophan, like in turkey. Smoking: Bananas can also help people trying to give up smoking. The B6, B12 they contain, as well as the potassium and magnesium found in them, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal. Stress: Potassium is a vital mineral, which helps normalise the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body's water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, thereby reducing our potassium levels. These can be rebalanced with the help of a high-potassium banana snack. Strokes: According to research in The New England Journal of Medicine, eating bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the risk of death by strokes by as much as 40%! So, a banana really is a natural remedy for many ills, and it tastes good too. When you compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrates, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals. It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods around. So maybe its time to change that well-known phrase so that we say, "A banana a day keeps the doctor away!"

Selecting a Mandarin

Pomegranate

Jostaberry; Loquat

JOSTABERRY plants produce a delicious, dark tart fruit that tastes like a cross between a blackcurrant and a gooseberry. This thornless, mildew-resistant plant needs an occasional deep watering in summer. Avoid feeding it with nitrogen-rich fertilizers. LOQUAT trees are one of the most versatile of all fruiting plants, growing happily from the subtropics through to Tasmania. The golden fruit can vary from grape to plum size and is borne in clusters. Drought resistant, they grow in most soil types including clay.

Red Currant; Black Currant

REDCURRANT berries are small, round and firm with a slightly sour flavour. Pick as soon as they turn red and cook them with raspberries. Cur branches back by a quarter to induce new side shoots. In summer, place mulch around the plant to cool it. BLACKCURRANT bushes produce yellow-green flowers in spring and berries that are packed with vitamin C. Pick in clumps and remove single berries from the stalk with a fork. Cut old branches back to the ground to stimulate new shoots from the roots.

Pineapples Ready To Harvest

ALL ABOUT PINEAPPLES

The pineapple is the leading edible member of the family Bromeliaceae which embraces about 2,000 species, mostly epiphytic and many strikingly ornamental. Now known botanically as Ananas comosus Merr. (syns. A. sativus Schult. f., Ananassa sativa Lindl., Bromelia ananas L., B. comosa L.), the fruit has acquired few vernacular names. It is widely called pina by Spanish-speaking people, abacaxi in the Portuguese tongue, ananas by the Dutch and French and the people of former French and Dutch colonies; nanas in southern Asia and the East Indes. In China, it is po-lo-mah; sometimes in Jamaica, sweet pine; in Guatemala often merely "pine." The pineapple plant is a terrestrial herb 2 1/2 to 5 ft (.75-1.5 m) high with a spread of 3 to 4 ft (.9-1.2 m); a very short, stout stem and a rosette of waxy, straplike leaves, long-pointed, 20 to 72 in (50-180cm) 1ong; usually needle tipped and generally bearing sharp, upcurved spines on the margins. The leaves may be all green or variously striped with red, yellow or ivory down the middle or near the margins. At blooming time, the stem elongates and enlarges near the apex and puts forth a head of small purple or red flowers, each accompanied by a single red, yellowish or green bract. The stem continues to grow and acquires at its apex a compact tuft of stiff, short leaves called the "crown" or "top". Occasionally a plant may bear 2 or 3 heads, or as many as 12 fused together, instead of the normal one. As individual fruits develop from the flowers they join together forming a cone shaped, compound, juicy, fleshy fruit to 12 in (30 cm) or more in height, with the stem serving as the fibrous but fairly succulent core. The tough, waxy rind, made up of hexagonal units, may be dark-green, yellow, orange-yellow or reddish when the fruit is ripe. The flesh ranges from nearly white to yellow. If the flowers are pollinated, small, hard seeds may be present, but generally one finds only traces of undeveloped seeds. Since hummingbirds are the principal pollinators, these birds are prohibited in Hawaii to avoid the development of undesired seeds. Offshoots, called "slips", emerge from the stem around the base of the fruit and shoots grow in the axils of the leaves. Suckers (aerial suckers) are shoots arising from the base of the plant at ground level; those proceeding later from the stolons beneath the soil are called basal suckers or "ratoons." ORIGIN and DISTRIBUTION: Native to southern Brazil and Paraguay (perhaps especially the Parana-Paraguay River) area where wild relatives occur, the pineapple was apparently domesticated by the Indians and carried by them up through South and Central America to Mexico and the West Indies long before the arrival of Europeans. Christopher Columbus and his shipmates saw the pineapple for the first time on the island of Guadeloupe in 1493 and then again in Panama in 1502. Caribbean Indians placed pineapples or pineapple crowns outside the entrances to their dwellings as symbols of friendship and hospitality. Europeans adopted the motif and the fruit was represented in carvings over doorways in Spain, England, and later in New England for many years. The plant has become naturalized in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Trinidad but the fruits of wild plants are hardly edible. Spaniards introduced the pineapple into the Philippines and may have taken it to Hawaii and Guam early in the 16th Century. The first sizeable plantation 5 acres (2 ha)—was established in Oahu in 1885. Portuguese traders are said to have taken seeds to India from the Moluccas in 1548, and they also introduced the pineapple to the east and west coasts of Africa. The plant was growing in China in 1594 and in South Africa about 1655. It reached Europe in 1650 and fruits were being produced in Holland in 1686 but trials in England were not successful until 1712. Greenhouse culture flourished in England and France in the late 1700's. Captain Cook planted pineapples on the Society Islands, Friendly Islands and elsewhere in the South Pacific in 1777. Lutheran missionaries in Brisbane, Australia, imported plants from India in 1838. A commercial industry took form in 1924 and a modern canning plant was erected about 1946. The first plantings in Israel were made in 1938 when 200 plants were brought from South Africa. In 1939, 1350 plants were imported from the East Indies and Australia. but the climate is not a favourable one for this crop. Over the past 100 years, the pineapple has become one of the leading commercial fruit crops of the tropics. In 1952-53, world production was close to 1,500,000 tons and reportedly nearly doubled during the next decade. Major producing areas are Hawaii, Brazil, Malaysia, Taiwan, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa and Puerto Rico. By 1968, the total crop had risen to 3,600,000 tons, of which only 100,000 tons were shipped fresh (mainly from Mexico, Brazil and Puerto Rico) and 925.000 tons were processed. In the period 1961-66, imports of fresh pineapples into Europe rose by 70%. Soon many new markets were opening. In 1973, the total crop was estimated at 4,000,000 tons with 2.2 million tons processed. The increased worldwide demand for canned fruit has greatly stimulated plantings in Africa and Latin America. For years, Hawaii supplied 70% of the world's canned pineapple and 85% of canned pineapple juice, but labour costs have shifted a large segment of the industry from Hawaii to the Philippines. Because production costs in Hawaii (which are 50% labor) have increased 25% or more, Dole has transferred 75% of its operation to the Philippines, where, in 1983, it employed 10,000 labourers on about 25,000, mostly rented, acres (10,117 ha). Pineapples were first canned in Malaya by a retired sailor in 1888 and exporting from Singapore soon followed. By 1900, shipments reached a half million cases. The industry alternately grew and declined, and then ceased entirely for 3 1/2 years during World War II. The Malaysian Pineapple Industry Board was established in 1959. Thereafter there has been steady progress. The pineapple, was a very minor crop in Thailand until 1966 when the first large cannery was built. Others followed. Since then processing and exporting have risen rapidly. In 1977-78 many farmers switched from sugarcane to pineapple. Of the annual production of 1 1/2 million tons, 1/8 is canned as fruit or Juice. South Africa produces 2.7 million cartons of canned pineapple yearly and exports 2.4 million. In addition, 31,000 tons of fresh pineapple are sold on the domestic market and 500,000 cartons exported yearly. As in many areas, pineapple culture existed on a small scale on the Ivory Coast until post WW II when cultural efforts were stepped up. By 1950, annual production amounted to 1800 tons. By 1972, it had risen to 200,000 tons for shipment, fresh or canned, to Western Europe. Cameroun's annual production is about 6,000 tons. In the Azores, pineapples have been grown in greenhouses for many years for export mainly to Portugal and Madeira. They are of luxury quality, carefully tended and blemish free, graded for uniform size and well padded in each box for shipment. As of 1971, the ten leading exporters of fresh pineapples were (in descending order): Taiwan (39,621 tons), Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Ivory Coast, Brazil, Guinea, Mexico, South Africa, Philippines and Martinique (5,000 tons). The ten leading exporters of processed pineapples were (in descending order): Hawaii, Philippines, Taiwan, South Africa, Malaysia (Singapore), Ivory Coast, Australia, Ryukyu, Mexico, Thailand (10,500,000 tons). In Puerto Rico, the pineapple is the leading fruit crop, 95% produced, processed and marketed by the Puerto Rico Land Authority. The 1980 crop was 42,493 tons having a farm value of 6.8 million dollars.

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