Today I planted the “Queen of fruits”, Garcinia mangostana aka mangosteen. Mangosteen is an excellent fruit that is refreshing with delicate sweet and sour flavors. Easily in my top 10 favorite fruits. This seedling is about 1.5 years old and it takes forever to grow. The best time to plant a mangosteen tree is 10 years ago because that’s how long it takes to start producing fruits. The first year might yield 200+ fruits, and when it reaches full maturity in 30 to 45 years is when it can produce more than 3000 fruits annually. But until any of that happens a lot can go wrong. This is probably why there aren’t many mangosteen farms in Hawaii but during season it’s available mostly via backyard growers at the farmers markets. Per pound it is quite expensive for such little fruit and the quality is usually a hit or miss. The good thing is that we already planted two mangosteen trees that we grew from seed in 2014. That means if we’re lucky we’ll have some fruits in about 4 or 5 years!
Originally posted on 2021-05-26, part of the daily planting journal behind Ha’a Chocolate’s food forest on Hawai’i Island.