Growing Tasty Tropical Plants in Any Home, Anywhere:

by Laurelynn G. Martin, Byron E. Martin

Imagine a cup of coffee brewed from beans grown right in your own kitchen. Or juice from an orange harvested from the living room. A salad sprinkled with olives plucked from a tree in the dining room. It's now possible in any climate, with "Growing Tasty Tropical Plants in Any Home, Anywhere." This book covers 47 varieties of fruiting plants -- from chocolate to cherries, papaya to passion fruit, grapefruit to guava -- providing everything a gardener needs to know, including information on selecting plants, planting, pruning, maintenance, and harvesting. It's easy! Anyone, anywhere can enjoy the satisfaction of growing tropical fruit at home.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, Food, Plants, Cooking

161 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 27, 2010

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great tips on caring for tropical plants. It gave me visions of my own greenhouse of deliciousness! It was fun to read about the varieties of plants.
I have a lemon tree and it's struggling. I checked this book out of the library, and the advice has helped. Neem oil seems to be killing all the pests!
Thank you! Hopefully my plant will thrive again.

"The easiest way to get rid of spider mites is to spray cold water on the plant. It's important to spray all surfaces, especially the undersides of leaves. Take the infested plants outside and use a garden hose. Inside, you can put small plants in your kitchen sink and use the spray faucet; put larger plants in the shower. Re-spray every day or two for a week, the more often the better. This treatment dislodges the adults, nymphs, and eggs while raising the humidity and cooling down the leaf surface, which will eventually cause the population to crash." page 145

[LG · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty pictures.
Not enough details to actually troubleshoot.
Provides general information.

It's been so light on information, I've actually thought about starting a blog and writing about my own experience with growing a lemon tree.

[Melody · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book to try to educate myself on how to keep my papaya tree healthy. There was actually very little information in the book about papaya trees (and none specifically about my type of papaya tree), but other parts of the book were interesting. The parts on pests and diseases, pruning, fertilizing, and troubleshooting will be applicable to my other fruit trees, so I think it'll prove to be a useful book.

[Megan Hartlaub · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basic yet informative.

[Ruth Paszkiewicz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book with useful tips on many exciting edible plants. I would have preferred a bit more detail on each plant though.

[Gaby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book! It's so informative and packed with amazing planting ideas. I get so inspired reading this book.it contains enough info to get you started!

[Eileen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for those who want to grow fruit trees outside or inside. Each entry is concise but complete. It's a reference you will go to often.

[Krista Behr · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great low-key introduction to growing warm-climate fruits (and some spices) on a windowsill, even in northern climates. It doesn’t have extensive instructions or information about any given plant; it gives a quick summary of each type, with some basic care guidance, and moves on to the next. As I flipped through the book, I got more and more suspicious about the author, because I recognized almost each and every plant as sourced from the Logee’s catalog… I couldn’t stop thinking, "This person has grown every edible plant from Logees’ entire stock!"

Well, surprise surprise, when I flipped back to look at the cover, it turned out the authors actually OWN the Logees greenhouse. All of a sudden the choice of plants within the book made sense! I like knowing that the authors have experience – EXTENSIVE experience – with the plants they write about.

There’s a nice selection covered of both major-league, easily recognizable fruit (lots of citrus, plus other tropical and subtropical fruits like the avocado, the pomegranate, and many more), big-name spices (cinnamon! vanilla! black pepper!), plus some highly unusual warm-climate fruits like the Barbados cherry, and more!

Overall, I would highly recommend the book for beginning windowsill gardeners or anyone who is considering adding some tropical or subtropical variety to their indoor “orchards.” Although I have grown windowsill tropical fruit for many years, I enjoyed the book’s rapid-fire summary of a wide variety of fruits and spices; I found some new ones that I want to try… just as soon as I can carve out space in my already-overloaded wish list.

However, if you are looking for extremely detailed information on how to grow each of these species, you probably are going to end up needing to do a little more research. This book gives great foundational info to get you started, but there’s just so many different fruits and spices covered, there’s just no way they could have given that level of detail without spilling into a thousand or so pages.

I did originally get this book out from the library, but I was happy enough with it that I’ll be buying my own. Highly recommended as a fun gift or personal reference guide.

**I have gone through this book in both ebook format and paperback copy, and I suggest the physical, paperback version is the way to go. Yes, I’m old school; I really struggle with using ebooks for nonfiction. I just can’t find my place fast enough. I realize this is a fault on my end, not the format, but call me a dinosaur: I just like the physical version better. For this book specifically, I LOVED the paperback version, and I do feel that some readability and some of the lovely graphics were lost in the ebook version.**

Krista Behr
www.yankeedirt.com

[Abbas]

drago

[P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give it four stars for its contagious enthusiasm, clear format, and extensive back section on fertilizing, repotting, propagating, troubleshooting and buying. I am going to give one of these plants a valiant effort.

Each plant is given a description of its history and properties, and when it blooms/fruits, how tall it gets, what type of plant it is (tree, shrub, vine), minimum indoor temperature, sun and fertilizer preferences, and susceptibility to pests and rot, along with color photos and sometimes recipes.

One thing I think is really lacking is a notation for WILL THIS PLANT KILL YOUR PETS? That would be helpful to know. I can do the research myself, but shouldn't the authors have done so?

[Cristov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nicely laid out and beautifully photographed; this book offers lots of information from best varieties to fruiting season to potential problems. There's also a section dedicate to plant care covering materials, propagation and pests.

About the only fault I can find is that I would have preferred more details about suggested container sizes but the book does cover the overall plant sizes and in some cases discusses root systems. It also would be good to have estimates on how long these plants live though in some cases some details are mentioned.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

As far as a beginner's course goes, this is a great book to pick up. I learned, quickly and concisely, how to make sure my pomegranate tree doesn't die, and also read the short chapters in the back about feeding/propagation/etc. And the pictures of the myriad of other things you could grow were pretty... I think if I'd been in the process of choosing a plant, I'd have spent a lot more time with this. As it is, though, I don't have room for any more plants.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This slim book provides a good amount of detail about the needs of each plant. It's a useful introduction to some edibles that I've never heard of before. I'll read this book again when I'm ready to choose some container plants for my central Florida patio.

Additional research beyond this book should probably be done before committing to any of the plants, but this is a great idea book with enough information to guide a gardener's plant selection.

[Martin Witchard]

Just received this. Will be interested how to grow the many things we can already grow outside in Brisbane!

05/12: Finished this long ago. A good book full of useful information and I did pick up some tips on growing even though what was considered 'exotic' in this book is mundane in Brisbane. There were also a few surprise plants that I had not heard of and might experiment with if I can find space in my garden!

[Felix · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good introductory book on how to grow various trees in containers. I was looking more for a book on how to grow trees for outside the house, but the information in the book can be adapted easily for trees grown outside.

Good information on how to grow and take care of various tropical trees and also good information on combating various tree dysfunctions and pests.

[Lorraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

The bit of advice this well-planned book starts off with is this: read about all the plants, but then just pick a few to really think about incorporating into your home. Great pictures, and I'm excited to try growing some of these plants in my south-facing kitchen window here in Seattle.

[Marija · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book includes excellent, detailed instructions for growing tropical plants in pots. There are familiar ones (lemons, coffee) and others you have never heard of (peanut butter fruit, anyone?). Definitely recommended.

[Sarah Hefner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nice overview of some interesting edibles to grow indoors. Have not yet put anything in to practice, but this book makes it feel do-able and has sections for beginners as well as the intermediate and advanced.

[Megan · Rating 1 out of 5]

The title is misleading, as there is no way S.A.D.-tastic Chicago winters could sustain the vast majority of these plants without fairly serious equipment, but the pictures were nice.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. Want to own it.
It has many different plants that you can grow (think chocolate, vanilla & so many types of fruit you have never heard of but will want to try after reading this).

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alright. I thought the information per plant was a little light. The plants pick for this book where the top 47 suspects, many that aren't really good for the PNW's cool climate.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty book that tempts would-be home farmers - it's just too skimpy on details to be of much immediate help though.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book and original to boot! Who knew it was so easy to grow peppercorns?

[Daniel]

I never thought that tropical fruit could be grown in the north until I read this book. I have always wanted house plants so if I could have house plants that have fruit so much the better. It was fun reading about banana, vanilla, Cinnamon, tea, chocolate. I think it would be so fun to grow chocolate. So many cool plants. It talks about propagation, diseases, watering, pots. I can't wait to get growing some of these plants.