April 2, 2013

Entirely edible, pickle-able, and marmalade-able, the finger lime has seen some culinary success down under in the last decade. Each globe of the finger lime’s “caviar” is actually a vesicle filled with juice. And that sounds kind of strange up until you realize how well this would work as a topping for fruit salad, frozen yogurt, certain cocktails… Australia, how do you feel about exporting samples to a certain set of citrus-starved New Yorkers? —MN

plant-a-day:

Photos courtesy of Green Life Studios, idtools, and garden at heart.

Citrus australasica aka Australian Finger Lime and Caviar Lime.

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Filed under: Citrus australasica Australian Australia Finger Lime Caviar Lime fruit food plants botany tree citrus 
January 31, 2013
Pandanus tectorius, a.k.a. the thatch screwpine. This is one of those economic boon plants useful for so many things. The fruit is edible raw, and the leaves can be used for flavoring, sweetening, or fashioning all sorts of stuff. Warranted you’re on a Pacific island like those of Hawaii and Micronesia, you might even get to try out this vegetal supernova yourself! —MN karaokay: Fruit of the Hala or Puhala Tree seed pod WOW

Pandanus tectorius, a.k.a. the thatch screwpine. This is one of those economic boon plants useful for so many things. The fruit is edible raw, and the leaves can be used for flavoring, sweetening, or fashioning all sorts of stuff.

Warranted you’re on a Pacific island like those of Hawaii and Micronesia, you might even get to try out this vegetal supernova yourself! —MN

karaokay:

Fruit of the Hala or Puhala Tree seed pod

WOW

(Source: your-maj3sty)

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Filed under: screwpine hala puhala fruit plants botany Hawaii Micronesia food 
January 17, 2013
Fruit, what are you?

Sometimes even the experts get stumped and are lead astray by a rumbling tummy … ~AR

wcbotanicgardens:

image

Today, while walking through the Tropical House, I found some mystery fruit. It is not uncommon to find fruit, even edible fruit, in the Tropical House; many times there will be ripe bananas or coffee beans or figs. This fruit, however, was atypical:

image

WHAT ARE YOU?

Read More

(Source: wcbotanistas)

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Filed under: Plants Fruit Botany Botanical Gardens Mystery Plant 
November 23, 2012
Because fruit-powered nightlights would be awesome. Except for the whole ants and mice thing … ~AR archiemcphee: This surprisingly lovely little orange is being illuminated from the inside by a lightbulb powered by the orange itself. That’s right, it’s an orange battery: “The electricity powering the lightbulb inside the orange is generated through a chemical reaction between citric acid and the zinc nails inserted into each wedge.” The beautiful orange battery was built by photographer Caleb Charland (previously posted here) as part of an ongoing project using pieces of produce and other objects as light sources for his long-exposure photography. Pretty awesome stuff.  “…but before you start work on a bunch of orange lights to keep on the nightstand, the light generated was so dim this particular photograph required a 14 hour exposure.” Visit Caleb Charland’s website to view of his wonderful photographic work. [via Colossal]

Because fruit-powered nightlights would be awesome. Except for the whole ants and mice thing … ~AR

archiemcphee:

This surprisingly lovely little orange is being illuminated from the inside by a lightbulb powered by the orange itself. That’s right, it’s an orange battery:

“The electricity powering the lightbulb inside the orange is generated through a chemical reaction between citric acid and the zinc nails inserted into each wedge.”

The beautiful orange battery was built by photographer Caleb Charland (previously posted here) as part of an ongoing project using pieces of produce and other objects as light sources for his long-exposure photography. Pretty awesome stuff. 

“…but before you start work on a bunch of orange lights to keep on the nightstand, the light generated was so dim this particular photograph required a 14 hour exposure.”

Visit Caleb Charland’s website to view of his wonderful photographic work.

[via Colossal]

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Filed under: Fruit Science Geekery Nature Awesome 
November 12, 2012

My coworkers are always lamenting my prison-like cubicle. I’d probably be less austere about accoutrements if they bought me stuff like this for the walls. —MN

propaedeuticist:

Photorealistic Paintings of Illuminated Vesicles (1, Sunburst) - Dennis Wojtkiewicz

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Filed under: art plants fruit citrus painting photo-realistic 
October 5, 2012
These phenomenal images of fruits, veggies, and flowers scanned by an MRI really drive home how physics affect the shape of things. The broccoli in particular blows my mind. Look at it. It’s like watching the universe form, or watching neural pathways in the brain, or zoning out to a fractal-based screensaver. I’m just waiting for someone to set these to music. Volunteers please! Thanks to AMNH for pointing these out on Twitter. Update: Thanks to the Internet we now know these images were taken by Andy Ellison. You can find many more on his excellent website Inside Insides. (via What do fruits and vegetables look like inside an MRI? Short answer: “Whoa.”)

These phenomenal images of fruits, veggies, and flowers scanned by an MRI really drive home how physics affect the shape of things. The broccoli in particular blows my mind. Look at it. It’s like watching the universe form, or watching neural pathways in the brain, or zoning out to a fractal-based screensaver. I’m just waiting for someone to set these to music. Volunteers please! Thanks to AMNH for pointing these out on Twitter.

Update: Thanks to the Internet we now know these images were taken by Andy Ellison. You can find many more on his excellent website Inside Insides.

(via What do fruits and vegetables look like inside an MRI? Short answer: “Whoa.”)

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Filed under: Awesome Flowers Fractals Fruit Geekery MRI Science Vegetables Nature GIF Tech 
August 11, 2012
Purists Sniff as Stink-Free Durian Fruit Seeks a Fan Base You could call the durian the dividing line of the fruit world. On one side, you have its proponents, die-hard devotees who can’t imagine giving up its soft, mushy flesh. On the other side, those who consider themselves casualties of this spiky wrecking ball’s unfathomable reek. Now, one creative Thai hybridizer is walking the dividing line with a durian sans stink, soon to hit shelves in southeast Asia. And aficionados are turning up their noses at Dr. Songpol Somsri’s creation. “These durians are for people who don’t like the smell or haven’t had durian before,” he says. “This will create a new market. The old market will not go away.” But experts see the shadow of modern agriculture’s hiccups—cardboard tomatoes among them—in Somsri’s ambitions. Click through for the full read. —MN

Purists Sniff as Stink-Free Durian Fruit Seeks a Fan Base

You could call the durian the dividing line of the fruit world. On one side, you have its proponents, die-hard devotees who can’t imagine giving up its soft, mushy flesh. On the other side, those who consider themselves casualties of this spiky wrecking ball’s unfathomable reek. Now, one creative Thai hybridizer is walking the dividing line with a durian sans stink, soon to hit shelves in southeast Asia. And aficionados are turning up their noses at Dr. Songpol Somsri’s creation.

“These durians are for people who don’t like the smell or haven’t had durian before,” he says. “This will create a new market. The old market will not go away.”

But experts see the shadow of modern agriculture’s hiccups—cardboard tomatoes among them—in Somsri’s ambitions. Click through for the full read. —MN

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Filed under: durian fruit plants hybridizing 
May 5, 2012
In Praise of the Misunderstood Quince “Cutting into the obdurate flesh practically takes a katana,” writes Michael Tortorello, regarding a once-renowned fruit that has since slid down the slippery slope of history’s forgetfulness. Few Americans have even seen a quince, much less tasted the fruit. And with perhaps good reason: it’s not easy to eat. But despite its curmudgeonly reputation, there are those trying to restore the classic pome to its former relevance, even right here in New York. —MN

In Praise of the Misunderstood Quince

“Cutting into the obdurate flesh practically takes a katana,” writes Michael Tortorello, regarding a once-renowned fruit that has since slid down the slippery slope of history’s forgetfulness. Few Americans have even seen a quince, much less tasted the fruit. And with perhaps good reason: it’s not easy to eat.

But despite its curmudgeonly reputation, there are those trying to restore the classic pome to its former relevance, even right here in New York. —MN

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Filed under: quince trees fruit horticulture 
July 15, 2011
Summer's superfruit challenged: Latin American blueberries found to be 'extreme superfruits'

Researchers have found that two species of wild blueberries native to the tropical regions of Central and South America—the New World tropics, or Neotropics—contain two to four times more antioxidants than the blueberries sold in U.S. markets.

This finding is the result of an analysis of the compounds contained in neotropical blueberries grown at The New York Botanical Garden.

The study was conducted by Professor Edward Kennelly, a biologist at Lehman College in the Bronx who is an expert in medicinal plants, and Paola Pedraza, Ph.D., a botanist at The New York Botanical Garden whose specialties include South American blueberry species.

Learn more about Paola and her research in this series of posts from the NYBG blog, Plant Talk.

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Filed under: Paola Pedraza-Penalosa NYBG Scientists Neotropical Blueberries Fruit The New York Botanical Garden Research 
June 3, 2011
Making Dried Strawberries

It’s nearly strawberry season in the Northeast (that is if you can keep the squirrels, bunnies, and raccoons away from them). Here’s a neat way to preserve them that doesn’t require boiling vats of jelly, and tons and tons of sugar. How do you preserve spring’s bounty?

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Filed under: Strawberries Fruit Spring Dried Fruit 
May 6, 2011
Harnessing Spring’s Bounty

The Kitchn has a series of really great recipes that harness some of the more overlooked vegetables of spring.

First, radishes. But not the fleshy roots. Nope, they’re talking about radish greens which are peppery and delicious and meltingly tender once cooked, despite their prickly visage when fresh.

Stinging nettles can literally be a pain to pick, but they’re really tasty. Learn more about this misunderstood spring perennial, and how to cook it with these eight great recipes.

Elderflowers are lovely and delicious. Indulge in a centuries-old tradition and make your own elderflower cordial and then use it in a wide assortment of recipes that go beyond the standard beverage.

The delicious French dessert clafouti is generally associated with summer and sour cherries, but why not indulge in a springtime version with another tart treat; rhubarb?

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Filed under: Spring Fruit Vegetables Spring Cooking Stinging Nettles Elderflowers Rhubarbd Rhubarb Perennial Vegetables 
May 2, 2011
"Brooklyn gardeners, for instance, grow lots of callaloo, a Caribbean green. In the Bronx, someone was actually growing sugar cane. (“Some gardeners get away with growing warm-weather crops here because of the urban island heat effect,” Ms. Gittleman explained.) Gardeners at West 104th Street in Manhattan coordinated their peach weigh-in and recorded 135 pounds in a single day. The East End Community Garden in Brooklyn “might as well be a farm,” as Ms. Gittleman put it; a grower there recorded 51 pounds of corn in one weigh-in. In the Bronx, a beekeeper added his 362 pounds of honey to the study."

— Quantifying the output of produce from New York City’s community gardens: The New York Times - Concrete Farm Grows Chard (Callaloo, Too)

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Filed under: Urban Farms Community Gardens New York City Vegetables Fruit urban bee keeping 
April 28, 2011
"

Scientists are calling the “neotropcial” blueberries extreme superfruits - and say that with up to 11 times the antioxidant oomph of ordinary blueberries, they could afford even more protection against heart disease, cancer, and other ailments.

What’s the catch? Neotropical blueberries are hard to come by in the U.S. Study co-author Dr. Paola Pedraza-Penalosa told CBS News that she was aware of only one source - a blueberry-containing Ecuadorean chocolate bar that’s sold only in specialty grocery stores.

"

— What’s healthier than blueberries? Say hello to “extreme” berries - NYBG Scientist Paola Pedraza-Penalosa on her area of research, the neotropical blueberry on CBS News.

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Filed under: Paola Pedraza-Penalosa NYBG Scientists Science The New York Botanical Garden Blueberries Fruit Neot 
April 16, 2011
We got a little ribbing on twitter for posting these silly little Japanese soda cap planters. Our original stance on these remains, however: they’re simple, they will help kids learn about germination, and they’re a thrifty way to recycle something mundane into something kind of cute. But even cuter, and possibly even a little more ridiculous, are these citrus peel planters from the blog My Roman Apartment. It seems that they would only be feasible after using a fruit for juice (unless you are a really accomplished orange dismantler). What do you think? Thrifty good fun, or silly, frilly twee-diculousness?

We got a little ribbing on twitter for posting these silly little Japanese soda cap planters. Our original stance on these remains, however: they’re simple, they will help kids learn about germination, and they’re a thrifty way to recycle something mundane into something kind of cute.

But even cuter, and possibly even a little more ridiculous, are these citrus peel planters from the blog My Roman Apartment. It seems that they would only be feasible after using a fruit for juice (unless you are a really accomplished orange dismantler). What do you think? Thrifty good fun, or silly, frilly twee-diculousness?

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Filed under: Planters Seed Starting On the Blogs Citrus Fruit 
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