Mango Madness! Weird tradition and planting some Mango Seeds! (Also, wanna win 1 SBD?!)
Almost every weekend, my husband and the kids share a little tradition. The glorious EATING OF THE MANGOES.
Yeah, I know, that's kinda weird. Here's the thing. My husband is from Florida. Apparently mangoes abound there.
I am convinced that he was raised on mango juice rather than milk... At any rate, he loves the things!
I have a confession for you guys. I do not like them. I KNOW, I KNOW! Horrible right?! I can totally understand if you wish to unfollow me now...
It's just that the taste and the texture is pretty blech to me...
He has, however, passed this afinity for mangoes on to his spawn. That's right, the kids are mango monsters.
One weekend, once upon a time, I bought a few mangoes for them. Of course, they wanted to eat the darn things. I told the kids, 'wait for Dad to get home, he can cut them up and you all can feast on them.' (I'll be honest, I just didn't feel like doing it.) They did this, and naturally, LOVED it! It was special, Daddy-mango time. Good for them.
You know how sometimes, when you do something once with kids, just once, it magically becomes an essential tradition?
This, apparently, was one of those things. Now we NEED to get mangoes especially to eat with Daddy on the weekends. He cuts them up a special way and they all have a sticky, drippy feast, complete with the obligatory 'ragging on Mom for not liking mangoes' comments. It's glorious.
Well, about a month ago, they did the usual mango madness.
They didn't have the regular green/red mangoes at the store, but they DID have these smaller, bright yellow ones. Of course, we got them. The kids were happy that the fruits were of a good size to each get their own mango, rather than sharing.
Apparently these were especially delicious mangoes, because after they finished up, they all got to talking about how great it would be if we could GROW them!
One thing led to another, and they ended up saving the seeds. I asked WHO would be planting these seeds, and the answer I got was pretty wishy-washy with lots of mumbling...
Well, three or four weeks later, they were still sitting on my counter, looking pretty dry.
I decided to go ahead and plant them. I mean, it's spring, there are giant seeds on my counter, and I have soil and pots! I couldn't resist any longer. (Part of the kids' dastardly plans, I'm sure...)
I did a little research, and found on this site that some kinds of mangoes are polyembrionic, meaning they have multiple seeds in each pod! I decided to cut them open and find out!
After carefully snipping off the end of the seed with a pair of pruning shears, I cracked it open to see this:
They are a little difficult to open, considering you have to be careful not to squash the seed inside. After pulling it out, I found what looked like a giant bean!
Only one.
I went ahead and opened up the next pod. I discovered another, single bean inside. This one had decided to go ahead and start growing. Why bother waiting on being planted?!
Since mangoes are perfectly capable of sprouting inside their hard cases, I decided to leave the last two seeds intact. I just snipped off the end of each pod to make sprouting quicker.
After this I headed out to the greenhouse to plant these guys!
Yes, I used pre-made peat pots. I know. I am ashamed. I had all these plans for making these cool folded-paper sprouting pots from reused paper, but I never had time for that, and these peat pots are SO convenient! I love how you just plant them in a bigger pot come transplanting time! No messing with roots or stressing the plant!
The two on the right are the ones in the pods, the lefties are the beans. I am pretty sure the beans will come up quicker, but time will tell.
I ALSO planted some mystery seeds! No, they are not a mystery to me, but I thought, how fun would a guessing game be?!
Here's the deal. If you made it all the way down here through my rather windy post, you deserve a prize! The first person to guess what I planted gets one SBD!
Here are some clues:
- First, the photo of the seeds before I poked them into the soil:
- Second clue: I am growing these specifically with my goats in mind. This would be fantastic forage for them!
- Third clue, this is NOT something people normally TRY to grow. Quite the opposite!
I think Ill leave it at that. If no one can guess it, Ill add more clues later on.
Good luck! As always, thanks for reading!
♥
I added some additional clues in the comment section!
Editing to add that @minismallholding has made the only guess, which happened to be the correct guess!
The answer was KUDZU! Thanks for guessing, @minismallholding! You've been sent 1 SBD! ♥
![DQmbj7aFc4KUTeZutepodkoLfk8RQpX8bmZR1UxNQmeJQ7X_1680x8400.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmcJsC9s4Zbv899cg93p91Z8iRSxYk24inkQBm1gQTXx5X/DQmbj7aFc4KUTeZutepodkoLfk8RQpX8bmZR1UxNQmeJQ7X_1680x8400.png)
![DQmWanpr4tr3184ecNVLjHGyoLuS4zVRwgUBUbFzNWfq7Nq.png](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmP7Y2Vv4cBR5c12QNtRXq1yMzBVitNkW4VZhpg8a5bkg6/DQmWanpr4tr3184ecNVLjHGyoLuS4zVRwgUBUbFzNWfq7Nq.png)
![DQmXncjfgxpSbXutHSRAPCjVUq7ddoA5SHsLPe7EoNrVfhC.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmeWqA6yJVz4NwCpj1PwPSYxEdRnfKKcJUpF3aSxn5QhYc/DQmXncjfgxpSbXutHSRAPCjVUq7ddoA5SHsLPe7EoNrVfhC.png)
badges courtesy of @daddykirbs
I can't for the life of me think of what those seeds might be! But that was interesting information on mango seeds! I would have never known.
Glad you enjoyed! :D
The seeds are tricky. I'll probably have to add a couple hints here in a day or two...
I do not like mango either. But last week my wife got dark chocolate covered mango from Costco. They are amazing;)
Chocolate covered mangoes sound like they might be pretty okay... ;) Chocolate covered anything is generally pretty good. I might have to try it if I ever find any!
My hubby never liked mangoes, but he's not too fussy on them now. Some things just take getting used to I guess.
Okay, I'm taking a wild guess at the mystery seeds, because I'm not in the US, so I'm not familiar with illegal plants there. I'll go with kudla as it seems to crop up most often as a favourite for goats.
Yay, someone made a guess! :D
Okay, I am wondering if 'kudla' was a typo... I am googling it and no plants are coming up...
Is there another name for this plant?
Lol! Yes it was meant to be kudzu! There's a suburb near us called Kudla, so I either had a senior moment or my Swype keyboard recognised it as that.
Heyyyy! The only person to make a guess gets it right!! LOL!
Yep, it is KUDZU! There is a lot of controversy about growing it on purpose due to its invasive nature, but it is wonderful fodder for goats and I want to give it a try in a very controlled setting.
Ill send you an SBD here in a sec. :D
Congrats, haha!
Oh! I was sure I must have been wrong! From what I searched goats seem to eat most invasive species, including poison ivy! I was pretty sure you wouldn't want to plant that though. 😨 Here they are used for clearing bramble. They are classed as an invasive species themselves though, so some areas ban them due to their escape artist nature! Lol!
Well, my goats are well contained, haha, so Im not worried about it. In my particular area, kudzu is not an issue, so I feel confident in being able to grow a small amount without it getting out of control. We shall see how it goes. The seeds havent even come up yet. :P
Thank you for the prize, btw. I always seem to misplace my manners...😳
You're welcome. ♥
I love mangoes but hate cutting them! You got me at the mystery seeds..It can't be tomatoes because people grow tomatoes! I give..
I hate cutting them too! (Hence the initial pawning off of that job... haha!)
Nope, not tomatoes!
What a nice and educational read, thank you for making my rainy evening smarter 💚
Haha, thanks! Glad I could help! ;)
Additional clues for anyone interested:
In case anyone figures it out and has a problem with it, dont worry, I have a plan to grow this only in controlled areas, in a very controlled manner, so it cannot escape.
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