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What is in your tropical food forest?

 
Posts: 338
Location: North Coast Dominican Republic
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I just read this thread asking advice about what to plant in a tropical food forest, and the few answers essentially said that there is lots of easily-searched information.

Okay. So let me ask a somewhat different question: those of you who already have tropical food forests, what do you have growing in them? What was the reason you chose each of them? Which were good choices and which not-so-good, in your situation? I will return to add mine later in the thread.
 
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Mangoes
Moringa (animal food, human food, medicine, helpful to nearby plants? Fast growing, but very soft wood, plant easily from cuttings, will regrow from stump so great chop and drop)
Mongo beans (nitrogen fixer, easy fast grower, great fast cooking flavorful bean for split pea soup)
Cashews (nitrogen fixer, food, fruit)
Indian plums (abundant fruit, canopy)
Chocolate, coffee (because, yum!)
Bananas (easily obtainable, abundant when they get settled in)
Sugar cane (looks like it was for animal food because it's not enough to bother trying to extract use, the kids here like to chew on it)
Napier grass (extremely abundant animal feed, 8ft tall, grows fast, doesn't seem invasive yet.)
Star apples (nothing like apples) because they are delicious. I imagine a valuable cash crop as well.
Mangosteen (delicious, medicinal, expensive, though I doubt we'll have enough to sell)
Kalabash (miracle fruit) bad choice. Tastes like crap. Must be cooked to extract edible juice. Valuable fruit. I'll gladly sell to anyone willing to take them off my hands.
Goji berry, like a cranberry. Idk if we'll find a use. Slow/medium growth shrub.
MULBERRIES!!! Love love love!!! Berries are vitamin accumulators for your other plants, super foods, and I had no idea these ain't shrubs but BIG fast growing BIG trees that bear in a year or two after planting a cutting. And bear abundantly.
Tamarind
Chico, canopy, sweet brown round fruit. Goats love it so protect. Try to grow this before it becomes more rare.
Coconuts (maybe a couple dozen already)
Ipil-ipil, crap tree but useful for fairly strong skinny branches (if you're building trellises, perhaps?) Rumors goats like it. No luck so far.
Avocado
Santol (cotton fruit) tree. Looks abundant and big. The leaves sometimes randomly turn a beautiful red corvette red.
Calamansi bush/small tree (replacement of lemons, definitely marketable here)
The other kind of miracle fruit. Grew 2" last year and a half. Poor placement?
Pineapple
Some tree that reminds us of elderberry. We don't know what it is.

Sweet potatoes, I regret growing them too near baby trees, but they grew great and we're beautiful.
Taro!!! Grow tons of this. It's our potatoes and the leaves can be prepared correctly to make them edible in a delicious spicy dish.
Tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, garlic, ginger, turmeric, onions, carrots, bok choy (pachay) however no luck with lettuce, comfrey, or strawberries yet.
 
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Posts: 537
Location: Ban Mak Ya Thailand Zone 11-12
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If you live in tropical areas try:

Spanish Lime (Genipa)
Marula Tree (2000-9000 Fruits per year)
Tahitian Chestnuts
Akai (Superfruit)
Bunya Pine (Quite a Character but brings definitely a hotspot in tropical forests where pine trees not grow)

... I prepared now about 120 (edible) trees from all around the world ready to plant when we start our food forest.
 
I remember before the flying monkeys became such an invasive species. We had tiny ads then.
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