August Meeting - Eric Henson - Dragon Fruit

August Meeting - Eric Henson - Dragon Fruit

Meeting Date/Time: Monday, August 11th 2025 at 7pm.  

Location: Harlee Building/County Fairgrounds, 1303 17th St W, Palmetto, FL 34221

Our August Speaker

from the Program Committee 

Our August speaker, Eric Henson, is the owner and operator of Casting Kayaks, a Sarasota enterprise that provides kayaks and fishing gear for enthusiasts in the Sarasota area. An expert tournament fisherman, he writes articles and creates videos for many magazines and fishing companies. Eric is also a horticulturalist focusing on dragonfruit, as featured on his Instagram site bigechronicles. He will speak to us about this exotic Florida fruit.

ON THE TRAIL OF TROPICAL FRUIT Exploring the Manatee Rare Fruit Council’s collection at Palma Sola Botanical Park

Here is a link to the article in Horticulture Magazine about the MRFC Fruit Tree garden at Palma Sola Botanical Park. 

 https://mcusercontent.com/7286ca37dd7e41932ea6f1795/files/91a6f4a1-8b47-a520-a832-5fb212388853/Hort_Magazine.pdf

July Meeting - Sean Patton - Creating Healthier Ecosystems, Starting in Our Own Backyards

July Meeting - Sean Patton - Creating Healthier Ecosystems, Starting in Our Own Backyards

Meeting Date/Time: Monday, July 14th, 2025 at 7pm.  

Location: Harlee Building/County Fairgrounds, 1303 17th St W, Palmetto, FL 34221

Our speaker on July 14 will be Sean Patton, a graduate of New College of Florida, where he studied Marine Biology and Ecology. After graduation, he became an aquatic biologist working in the swamps, lakes, and other bodies of water found in Sarasota and Manatee Counties. Concerned about the traditional, costly, impermanent, and ineffective systems within the private sector of environmental management, he began researching alternative methods of restoring Florida's landscapes to their most balanced and natural forms. He created his own company, Stocking Savvy  to utilize naturally-occurring biological systems, native plant species, harvesting, and a coalition of green businesses to restore habitat across our state. He believes every backyard can be a flourishing habitat and every pond a paradise.

With co-author Kendall Southworth, Sean recently published a book, Florida’s Aquatic Butterfly Gardens: How to Create a Beautiful Backyard Habitat for Attracting 70+ Species with 100+ Native Plants, a guidebook for creating aquatic butterfly gardens in Florida.

Sean will speak about how we can create healthier ecosystems, starting in our own backyards.

June Meeting - John Dawson - Citrus Care in the Home

June Meeting - John Dawson - Citrus Care in the Home Landscape

Meeting Date/Time: Monday, June 9th, 2025 at 7pm.  

Location: Harlee Building/County Fairgrounds, 1303 17th St W, Palmetto, FL 34221

from the Program Committee

Our June speaker will be fellow MRFC member John Dawson. John is a Master Gardener with 20 years of experience in horticultural education. 

John has grown citrus in Manatee and Dade Counties, and has years of experience at the Manatee County Extension Office diagnosing citrus problems. He will speak on Citrus Care in the Home Landscape, including the history of Citrus in Florida and here in Manatee County, and how to select, plant, maintain and protect citrus in your landscape.

Slides from John's presentation 

May Meeting - Josh Jamison - Ongoing Experiments With Lesser Known Crops at Cody Cove Farm and Nursery

May Meeting  - Josh Jamison - Ongoing Experiments With Lesser Known Crops at Cody Cove Farm and Nursery

Meeting Date/Time: Monday, May 12th, 2025 at 7pm.  

Location: Harlee Building/County Fairgrounds, 1303 17th St W, Palmetto, FL 34221

Our speaker will be tropical edible plant expert (and MRFC Fruit Tree and Plant Sale vendor) Josh Jamison. He is the primary grower and horticulturalist at Cody Cove Fruit Farm and Nursery in Babson Park, FL. Cody Cove is a small family farm whose goal is to provide nutritious food to the community and promote sustainable agriculture through offering high quality plants and produce. Its focus is on collecting elite edible plant varieties from around the world and making them available to home gardeners, small farms and beyond.

Josh’s presentation will be “Ongoing Experiments With Lesser Known Crops at Cody Cove Farm and Nursery.” He will bring plants for sale, a rare opportunity to acquire these edibles.

🌱🌺🍍🌿

Please bring fruit for the tasting table and/or plants to donate for the raffle (no citrus plants, please). Don’t forget to collect a free raffle ticket for your

donation. Your participation is very much needed and appreciated.

A friendly reminder: If you bring a plant, please label what it is. Also, write your name and the plant on the Raffle list. If you win a plant, please put your name next to the plant on the Raffle list.

Do you have a suggestion for a topic or a specific speaker? Let the Program Committee know by completing this online form: Suggestions for Program Topics and Speakers.

MRFC members are encouraged to bring a dish for the tasting table or a plant for the raffle table if you can. Please sign the registers at these tables so that our editor can credit you in next month's newsletter.

We are now accepting 2025 dues (still only $12), please click here for more information about dues and to pay online. You may also pay with cash or check (made payable to MRFC) at this or a future meeting. If you are not sure whether you have paid yet, please ask at the membership table at the meeting.

April Meeting - Jonathan Crane - Climate change: Opportunities and risks for tropical fruit production in Florida

Meeting Date/Time: Monday, April 14th, 2025 at 7pm.  

Location: Harlee Building/County Fairgrounds, 1303 17th St W, Palmetto, FL 34221

from the Program Committee

Dr. Jonathan Crane is a Professor at the University of Florida, Associate Director of the Tropical Reseach and Education Center, and Tropical Fruit Crop Specialist for IFAS Extension. The recipient of numerous awards for professional achievements and grants for his research and extension work, he is a well-known and highly respected expert in tropical fruit horticulture. His areas of specialization include tropical and subtropical fruit production systems, mitigation of environmental plant stress, plant physiology, enhanced flowering and fruit set/pollination, and sustainable production practices.

Several of our local tropical fruit experts are graduates of Dr. Crane’s annual summer course on Tropical Fruit Production and Research, and over the years he has given numberous informative presentations in our area, including his July, 2023 presentation to the MRFC on Pollination. At our April meeting, his topic will be Climate change: Opportunities and risks for tropical fruit production in Florida.

Slides from the presentation

Rare Fruit Tree Sale Saturday March 22nd, 2025

  2025 Rare Fruit Tree Sale!

Join us for the area's largest rare fruit tree sale 

Saturday, March 22nd, 2025

9am-2pm

🥭🥑🥥

Premier Sports Campus 

5895 Post Blvd, Lakewood Ranch Florida 34211

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Bring a Wagon and Cash

No ATM on site

MRFC Fruit Tree Sale Flyers to Print and Share

These are great to print and post in areas where fruit/gardening enthusiast may frequent like international grocers, restaurants, and more. 

MRFC Tree Sale Color Flyer

MRFC Tree Sale 1/2 sheet color flyers

MRFC Tree Sale B/W Flyer

MRFC Tree Sale B/W 1/2 sheet flyers

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Sign up for MRFC Rare Fruit Tree Sale Email Reminders

March Meeting - Jeff Wasielewski - Hurricane Preparation and Recovery

Speaker/Topic: Jeff Wasielewski - Hurricane Preparation and Recovery

Meeting Date/Time: Monday, March 10, 2025 at 7pm.  

Location: Harlee Building/County Fairgrounds, 1303 17th St W, Palmetto, FL 34221

Jeff Wasielewski, a Commercial Tropical Fruit Extension Agent for Miami-Dade County, is based in Homestead, FL. Drawing from more than 25 years of horticultural experience, he provides environmentally sound practical information in classes, workshops, publications, blogs, and social media.

A quick search online will produce many of Jeff’s articles on growing tropical fruit species. Among his many education outreach activities, Jeff hosts Tropical Fruit Tuesdays, an online workshop series whose goal is to teach homeowners and commercial growers the key points of selecting, planting, growing and maintaining tropical fruit trees in subtropical and tropical counties. Each episode focuses on a specific tree or a growing or maintenance technique. You can sign up online to participate in any of the free workshops, and all previous workshops are available for viewing on the UF/IFAS Miami-Dade Extension YouTube site.

Because of the great distance from Homestead, Jeff’s talk and Q&A will be by Zoom, but fear not, he is a very experienced online presenter. The topic will be Hurricane Preparation and Recovery. Jeff will show us techniques that can make an enormous difference in the survival and recovery of our fruit trees when hurricanes strike.

February 2025 Meeting - Rod Greder - Soil

Speaker/Topic: Rod Greder - Soil

Meeting Date/Time: Monday, February 10, 2025 at 7pm.  

Location: Harlee Building/County Fairgrounds, 1303 17th St W, Palmetto, FL 34221

From the Program Committee 

Our February speaker will be Rod Greder, Ph.D., who recently retired as UF/IFAS Extension Agent at Sarasota County, specializing in Sustainable Agriculture. Raised on a 500-acre beef, corn and hay farm in Iowa, and he received his PhD in Plant Genetics from the University of Illinois. His work has varied from managing his 83-acre farm to conducting seed research. His current work focuses on designing products that make managing pasture-based livestock ranches more profitable, sustainable, and accessible. 

After living in Minnesota for 30 years, Dr Greder left his position at the University of Minnesota Extension program to work at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agriculture Extension in Sarasota. In his words: "Turning romance into reality is my mantra. I've worked with small farmers since 2015. I walked the talk for 14 years raising grass-fed beef and pastured poultry and produced 1 acre of fruits and vegetables on an 83-acre farm. We offer a Small Farm School, Beginning Farmer Incubator and an Apprenticeship program in Sarasota County. The classes give would-be farmers a chance to practice in the field, get advice on building a business plan, and have someone connect them with buyers and customers along the way.”

Dr. Greder will speak on Soil.