Hello, my dear hivers all over the world! This is simplybil again, and today I will unveil the different fruits from my locality, some of which I personally planted in my backyard.
We are not as progressive in the city in terms of livelihood, but province life is simple and inexpensive to live, and most of the food can be found in our surroundings.
As a teacher and a mother, I spend my time doing things that can contribute to my family's needs. Aside from cooking, gardening is another pastime for me, which I find very fulfilling, especially when I see them growing everyday. I always check them to see if they are surviving the weather.
I love cultivating and watering them before I go to work. They are my secret treasure because I know that somehow my family can be benefit from it. I encourage everyone to plant fruit-bearing trees so that you can have food to eat in the future. Here they are...
My Sweet Papaya
I have a variety of different papayas in my backyard. Some are round, and others are elongated, but both of them are sweet. They have many fruits that hang on the tree with different sizes. My type of papaya turns yellow when it gets ripe and green if it's unripe. (Hehehe) I think all papayas turn yellow when they're ripe.
Did you know that birds love to eat papaya? When I delay picking the ripe papaya from the tree, I should always expect that birds have already pecked the ripe sweet fruit, and I will let them continue pecking the fruit. For me, birds are also living things; they have life and they need food for survival.
My Dwarf Milky Coconut
I chose to plant dwarf coconut in my front yard so that if I want to pick the fruit, it is easy for me to get it. The coconut fruit has many uses; the milk from it can be added to vegetable soup, mixed into Maja, Biko, Bicol’s Express, and is used as a flavor in road ice cream.
The coconut meat can be eaten freshly or mixed into a fruit salad. Land owners planted many coconut trees so that they could have the dried flesh of a coconut, called copra, which is milled to obtain coconut oil.
Crunchy and Tasty Jackfruit
Our school is surrounded by a jackfruit tree. During tree planting, our children chose to have jackfruit seedlings rather than other fruits. These fruits are very common and abundant in our place. They come in different tastes: some are watery, sweet, and crunchy.
The seeds are enclosed in the jackfruit flesh and it is very easy to reproduce the seedlings through the seeds. I used to make jam from the leftover jackfruit flesh, and my family loves to fill the jam in bread.
Bignay ( Wild Berry)
During my younger years, I loved to eat Bignay without minding how sour it is. And I noticed before that I didn't get easily sick with colds and fever. You really love to look at the tree when it bears fruit because it comes in different colors.
This fruit has a lot of Vitamin C and antioxidants. It can do so much for our health, as it will completely nourish our immune system. You can extract juice from the fruit and make wine.
Soft and Creamy Avocado
Soft and creamy, avocado is one of my favorite fruits. When the season comes, the tree bears many fruits. I love to eat avocado without sugar, while others love to put condensed milk into it. Sometimes, I prefer to make an avocado shake for my family. They enjoy eating the shake together while my eldest daughter tells a story to her younger sister.
Nutritious Guavas
Guavas nowadays are becoming scarce, but I make sure that I have them in my surroundings. Children should eat guavas for protection against any diseases.
There are different varieties of guavas; some are big and some are small, which we commonly call native guava. I remember before we would climb a mountain to get guavas. We would put them in plastic bags, and surprisingly, one plastic bag was not enough to hold all the fruit.
There were plenty of dwarf guava trees in that mountain, that even one sack was not enough to hold all the fruits. Even though we ate so much, the fruits were still countless on the trees. Those were unforgettable memories that I had, and I always tell them to my daughters.
There's more, but I need to end it here. Thank you for spending your time with me.