Species for non-fruit-tree forest garden...

I have had some health issues after moving to the tropics, due to consumming too much "good healthy local in season" fruits. So I want to change for not-so-sweet fruits, and other uses of trees.
Ideas?

I am interrested to dive into refering/listing what trees can be planted that are not for producing our dosis of fructose! Until I started a proper list, I thought I had planted "almost nothing"!

I have found/planted for my climate:

- chestnut (starch but less fructose)

- almonds, walnut (other than macadamia give too much omega 6 in the diet but who says to eat that many nuts?)

- macadamia and avocado as a good fat

- olive

- tagasaste and pigeon pea (perenial legume)

I still need more ideas for ANIMAL food:
- carob
... ?

Then for me... I want "fruits that we see as fruits but not so sweet":

- lemon

- lili pili  (even fit in a salad)

- natal plum

- kai apple (quite sour!)

- coffee (there is a cherry around the seed! )


Others:

- I  have a eucalyptus citriodora that grows fantastic and smells so good!

- guama. the "cotton" inside was supposed to be edible, but there was nothing interresting to eat in my first pods last year.

- moringa. Guinea pigs hardly want to eat it...

- cinnamon


So I am looking for more ideas, also medicinal and animal food.

I'm a big fan of leaf crops from trees and shrubs, but with little experience of your climate. Will the Chinese toon tree grow in your climate? And what about saltbush (atriplex halimus)

Honey locust could be a fodder crop

Inga edulis for food and fodder

Pistachio, if yor winter temperatures are low enough

Lime aka Linden aka Basswood Tilia species - edible leaves

Elm Ulmus species - edible seeds, both green and mature

Rose Rosa species - edible flower petals

Redbud Cercis species - edible seed pods

Honey Mesquite Prosopis glandulosa - edible pods

Palo verde Cercidium or Parkinsonia species - edible flowers and seeds

Gosh I had even forgotten to mention some plants I already have!
I wrote with a imaginary scan of the land and did not "see" some trees!

Tomas Remiarz wrote:I'm a big fan of leaf crops from trees and shrubs, but with little experience of your climate.

It is exceptional... meditarranean for sure, winter rain. oceanic, with 70% humidity right now... and subtropical.

Will the Chinese toon tree grow in your climate?

I hesitate.... I think it needs more water. I have but prefer to limit.
I think I thought I could try, but did not locate a source.

And what about saltbush (atriplex halimus)

Also difficult to source, and also there are different atriplex to choose from, and there might be some endemism here from this familly!  Thanks for reminding me the job to search more about this.

And I have sugar bush!

Honey locust could be a fodder crop

I would have to check invasion potential

Inga edulis for food and fodder

This is GUAMA!
They sold it to me as such, but the pod "fur" was not tasty at all. Fodder? Guinea pogs do not even eat the young leaves. I will bring some to goats and will see.

I might have ANOTHER INGA!

Pistachio, if your winter temperatures are low enough  Maybe not, 10-12ºc with some nights at +8 mini mini. They sell it, but important from inland Spain, and they sell comercial varieties meant to be irrigated....

I have 2 trees of local pistachio though! I think the p. atlantico . It might be possible to graft?

Thanks Tyler!

Tyler Ludens wrote:Lime aka Linden aka Basswood Tilia species - edible leaves

Elm Ulmus species - edible seeds, both green and mature

Rose Rosa species - edible flower petals

Redbud Cercis species - edible seed pods

Honey Mesquite Prosopis glandulosa - edible pods

Palo verde Cercidium or Parkinsonia species - edible flowers and seeds

Yes I remember investigating ulmus and cercis! I think they would grow here.
I do have a local rose bush.... the fruit is just a bit smaller and it gives less.

I would love mesquite! I am still not sure about which to choose, and never found seeds for sale of any. I think palo verde is from the same area and somehow similar?

Great, more to investigate...

I was going to forget this one!

CHAYA!

An edible euphorbia you propagate only by stem cuttings. Edible cooked leaf.

Pic: behind is avocado tree. Front is a small guandul.

2 chayas: the first one is actually dead and rot from too much water in winter. It grew some leaves from the stem reseerve!
Full leaves behind. It looses leaves under 12ºc. Big production of leaves when almost nothing gives you tasty leaves.

A nice mix: in the center is a macadamia I planted in a protected area, at the foot of a wall.

Avocado on its side.

Behind/above, from left to right:
mango, peach and orange trees on the upper terrasse.

Then there is vine, that I grow mainly for the guinea pigs so that oidium does not spread, and anyway the fruits would be all for the lizards! In the middle there is a green branch which is a verode, good flower for bees. It is an endemic and has grown in the wall.

What you cannot see is the blackberry plant on the ground, and a pitaya cactus starting to climb the wall.

cinnamon tree.

And some practical philosophy!

Sweet-fruited trees attract wild-life! Actually, if I grow fruits, I hardly eat anything without having to fight:
- birds (black birds migrate from here after the last wild cherry...),
- lizards even climb trees for juicy fruits and tomatos,
- not to mention rats of course. They preferably eat avocados and almonds but also apples and oranges, papayas, and of course mangos and chirimoyas! I collect the bananas when they attack the first ones...

This is a big issue when you grow stuff in a place with almost no edibles around! At the same time, we have to admit that contrary to our first thoughts, we can benefit to wildlife, and that they would not thrive sometimes without us. They would not have thrived. crows, ravens and the local graja have all been prosperous thanks to cereal cultivation. Here it is also the case of the canari bird, as I can hardly collect any of my sorghum seed! And as you can see, granivores do not mind about their qualification, and love persimmon!

Leaf Crops:
Edible Chrysanthemum
Corn Salad (Lambs Lettuce)
Black Palm Kale

I am really interested for olive and moringa also!

I have a lot of greens that self-seed, but much less animal food during our dry summer.

Maxene Dee wrote:I am really interested for olive and moringa also!

Olives are great, and also the leaf is medicinal.

I have become more in doubt with using moringa... if guinea pigs hardly eat it, it means it has a lot of toxins and is more a medicine than a food, imo.
My climate is too fresh and they do not reach more than flower stage and then the pod falls.

After reading Matt Walker about solving digestive issues with meat diet, and seen it works for me as well, I just produce too much fruits, and not enough animal fodder!
This is the goal of RE-DESIGNING my place!

And I think we under-estimate plants' toxicity... Even goat keepers cut some branches in advance for their goats, so that some poisons dissolve through drying. (almond and a local sonchus come to my mind) May it be the same? That we can cook with some dry moringa but should not eat much of the raw leave?

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Chufa/tigernut (Cyperus esculentus var sativus) might do well in your climate, Xisca. Unless it's too dry?