In certain academic circles, there’s a fierce debate over which fruit Eve gave Adam in the Garden of Eden. The King James Bible asserted it was an apple. Rabbis have claimed it was a grape turned into boozy wine, while other scholars have argued it was likely more regional fruit like pomegranates, figs or tamarinds. But there is only one fruit worth getting kicked out of paradise for: the mango.
And that time has come. It’s July in Southwest Florida—a month covered in sun and heat and emptied of tourists and snowbirds, but full of mangoes, our prolific but finicky fruits. While some trees bent heavy with fruit last year, 2024 was considered a poor harvest because of our unusually wet winter. Whether this season is bountiful depends on many factors, including where the trees are located.
Fortunately, the Sarasota-Manatee region’s unique microclimate is well suited to many mango varieties. That’s why, more than 140 years ago, some of the first mango trees in America were established in Bradenton. In the early 1880s, a nurseryman man named Pliny Ward Reasoner (who the Florida Agricultural Hall of Fame credits for introducing many tropical and ornamental plants to the state, even though he died of yellow fever at age 25) traveled along Cuba’s coast collecting mangoes and brought them back to Manatee County…