Soon to be a Fruit Forest of Aratiles or Montingia Calabura

Growing up, our backyard was a food forest where the choices were there on what fruit to pick, what tree to climb and if we were lucky, those extra fruits we sell to our classmates in grade school. Of course, it's occurence was just once but I remember it clearly as day. My cousin and i sold a single guava for 50 cents, my allowance for a day was one peso so back then, we were rich! Who would dare do fruit picking in the middle of a storm?

On sabbatical leave and been home in the province for a couple of months now, coupled with my fascination to our @naturalmedicine group, I have combed every corner of our backyard checking for every medicinal weed, plants, fruit trees among others. Getting excited on finding seasonal fruit seedlings and planting a few, one that's noticeable is a kind of fruit tree seedlings that are sprouting everywhere...along our backyard wall, in between the trees and in some pathways.

Funny enough, though we have had loads of fruit trees ages ago, we never have this tree manzanita or aratiles in the Philippines. Other names would be Jamaican cherry, Singapore cherry, Strawberry tree and many more.

One or two trees would be enough, with half a meter gap in between. Ideally. Although in some parts have a few single sprouts, many spots in the backyard have riots of seedling sprouts.

I swear there's more of these.

Planting some in pots so I can move them around, a few have wilted already. Although a friend did agree to have a couple for their farm, most of them will be pulled out. Some also are sprouting inappropriately so they will need to go. Or i'll put more in pots to give away.

Some people in our hometown are not fond of this tree as the dry leaves can fully cover the ground and considered a mess. Probably this was the reason why there's not much of them in town. I can only remember a couple of trees while growing up in the neighbourhood. Even those are long gone for whatever reason. Also, these trees aren't sturdy and can't withstand a strong typhoon.

Shot in Bayawan City last June.

Accordingly, benefits are not only from its' fruits, the leaves too can be made as tea. An article listed some benefits, namely: anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, anti-hypertension, anti-gout and a few more. For its' antioxidant property, accordingly, it is being studied for Cancer treatment.

Having vitamins and minerals, what intrigued me the most is its' anti-hypertension effect for being rich in nitric oxide, a vasodilator causing a lower blood pressure. I will need to do further research on this one.

What happens when people will just check in their backyard when sick or hungry? There is a number of people now wanting to have their own food forest, what more if these trees are also beneficial healthwise? That would be so cool, wouldn't it?

Times like these aren't new anyway. In fact, we have had times like these while growing up. We wake up, go to the backyard for some fresh bananas in the morning, climb any tree for other fruits during the day, not needing money. Veggies? My mom had loads where even our neighbours benefited. We got sick, had simple cough, we harvested and brewed some lagundi leaves. As for sickness, i've never been hospitalised while growing up.

Life was that simple.

All images were taken with my Samsung Galaxy S7.