Apple-2-the-core

Apple trees can grow fruit for 100 years

Most apple trees live for 35 years and produce the best fruit between 10 and 30 years. Some varieties have been known to live 100 years or more.

Sources:

• Read more here at gardenguides.com

Apples are a member of the rose family

The rose apple is native to the East Indies and Malaya and is cultivated in many parts of India, southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. It was introduced to Jamaica in 1762 and became distributed in the West Indies, and at low elevations, from southern Mexico to Peru.

Sources:

• Read more here at crfg.org

Only one variety of apple is native to North America

When the English colonists arrived in North America, crab apple trees were the only species of apple they found. To this day, the crab apple variety is the only known native apple variety.

Sources:

• Read more here at whatscookingamerica.net
  Brockman, Christian Frank and Merrilees, Rebecca A. Trees of North America.

Johnny Appleseed's real name was John Chapman

Johnny Appleseed, born John Chapman in Leominster, Massachusetts, is a great American historical figure. Johnny loved apple trees and saw a growing need for agriculture in the west as the population started migrating. He is accredited with introducing apple trees to Indiana, Ohio and Illinois. Chapman traveled beyond the borders of many established towns with apple seeds from cider presses in Pennsylvania. He planted apple nurseries and built fences around them. He would leave the apple trees in the care of a nearby neighbor, and then would return every few years to tend to the nursery.

Read the entire story at appleappetite.com

People have eaten dried apples since the Stone Age

In Swiss Stone Age lake dwellings and on a dig near Jericho in the Jordan Valley, archaeologists unearthed charred apple remains dating all the way back to 6500 B.C.E.

Read the story at

• www.nhm.ac.uk

Cherry-go-round

We cannot tell a lie: George Washington did not cut down a cherry tree

The incident may have been the concoction of an ex-parson turned bookseller, Mason Locke Weems, who first wrote about it in his biography on George Washington. It is believed among many that Mason Weems made up this story about George Washington in order to sell his biography and make money. The public in 1800 needed something new to talk and think about, no matter if it was true or not. Was the story fact or fiction?

To learn more visit suite101.com

Henry David Thoreau grew cherries on his Massachusetts farm

Founding father, Thomas Jefferson, grew cherries on his plantation at Monticello, as well as, literary giant Henry David Thoreau on his family's Massachusetts farm. At more than 12,000 ORAC units per hundred grams of fruit, cherries have a higher antioxidant capacity than grapes, oranges, plums, raspberries and strawberries combined.

To learn more visit thenibble.com

Dried cherries help reduce jet lag

Cherries are one of the few known food sources of melatonin, an antioxidant that helps regulate natural sleep patterns and alleviate jet lag. Recently scientists have found that cherries contain more melatonin than your body normally produces. Eating cherries is a natural, healthy way to boost your body's melatonin levels, which will lead to better sleep and less jet lag.

To learn more visit choosecherries.com

A Cherry tree shaped the path of Broadway

Legend has it, a tavern keeper named Henrick Brevoort used to love smoking his pipe while sitting under a cherry tree that stood at what is now the corner of Broadway and East 10th Street in New York City. In the late 18th century, map makers arrived with a street plan to extend Broadway. Mr. Brevoort discovered the plan would involve Broadway running straight across the roots of his beloved cherry tree. He demanded they redirect the route in order to save the life of his tree. The planners obliged and reshaped the route. Thus, Broadway Avenue in Manhattan shifts west at East 10th Street because of the cherry tree that once stood long ago.

Read the story at

• Myths and legends of flowers, trees, fruits, and plants, in all ages in all climes
  By Charles Montgomery Skinner
• books.google.com

Cherry trees produce beautiful flowers

Many cherry tree varieties produce beautiful flowers called cherry blossoms. Cities throughout the USA and Canada celebrate the short blooming season with Cherry Blossom Festivals. Washington, DC has one of the most renowned Cherry Blossom Festivals.

• Learn more at
  www.nps.gov

pine-4-pineapple

Many flowers combine their fruit to make one pineapple

Pineapples are made up of many flowers whose individual fruitlets fuse together around a central core. Each fruitlet can be identified by an "eye," the rough spiny mark on the pineapple's surface.

• Learn more at whfoods.org

A pineapple plant only makes one single pineapple a year

Pineapple flowers naturally only once a year. The plants can sense the increasing day length by late January or early February (northern hemisphere).

• Learn more at netdwellers.com

much-ado-about-Mango

Many weddings feature mangos as a symbol of love

The Hindu goddess Lakshmi, who represents prosperity, wealth, wisdom, fertility, courage and beauty, is believed to reside in a mango tree. Mangos and mango leaves have been used throughout India to symbolize fertility, love and good fortune. Mango leaves are used in weddings to ensure that couples bear many children.

• Learn more at spirituality.indiatimes.com
• Chattrjee, Gautam. Sacred Hindu Symbols. (2003) p. 106.

Mangos have been eaten in India for over 6,000 years

Experts have traced the origin of mango to Meghalaya, India where a 65 million year old fossil of a mango leaf has been found. Other fossil records of mango in Northeast India are 25-30 million years old.

Mangos are native to eastern India, Burma and the Andaman Islands. It is believed that Buddhist monks brought mangos to Malaysia and eastern Asia in the 4th and 5th centuries B.C.

• Read the story at www.fao.org

There are over 1,000 varieties of mango

Mangos are a delicious and popular fruit in several countries throughout the world. Many countries such as India have native mango varieties while other countries have relied on imports from regions where mangos grow naturally.

• Read more about the many different types and where they come from.
  en.wikipedia.org

Apricot-a-lot

The Latin word for Apricot means "precious"

In Latin, apricot means "precious," because it ripens earlier than other summer fruits. Apricots are a relative of the peach. The apricot is smaller than a peach and has a smooth, oval pit that falls out easily when the fruit is halved.

• Learn more at fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov

Dreaming of apricots is said to be good luck

Apricots range in size from 1.5 cm to 2.5 cm in diameter. They have a high fiber content very low calorie content. Dreaming of apricots, in English folklore, is said to be good luck.

• Learn more at strange-facts.info

Banan-a-peel

Ancient Buddhist texts and Alexander the Great have something in common - the banana

Alexander the Great relished his first taste of the banana, an usual fruit he saw growing on tall trees in India. He is credited with bringing the banana from India to the Western world. According to Chinese historian Yang Fu, these bananas grew only in the southern region of China and were considered exotic, rare fruits that never became popular with the Chinese masses until the 20th century.

• Learn more at banana.com

Parsley, sage, rosemary... BANANA? Banana plants aren't trees, they're actually herbs!

The banana plant is not a tree. It is actually the world's largest herb!Instructions on how to eat a banana appeared in the Domestic Cyclopaedia of Practical Information and read as follows: "Bananas are eaten raw, either alone or cut in slices with sugar and cream, or wine and orange juice. They are also roasted, fried or boiled, and are made into fritters, preserves, and marmalades."

• Learn more at banana.com

CApricot

Packed with beta-carotene, California apricots are great for your eyes and heart.

Apricots are small, fuzzy, golden orange fruit and are often described as being somewhere between a plum and a peach in flavor and appearance. Apricots are full of nutrients such as beta-carotene which promotes heart health by preventing LDL cholesterol from oxidizing. They are also a great source of vitamin A, a powerful antioxidant that destroys free radicals which can damage the eyes' lenses.

Sources:

• Read more here at whfoods.com
  

Apricots thrived in ancient Greece and Persia

Dried apricots were important to several ancient societies. Alexander the Great introduced this sweet fruit to Greece when he exported apricot trees from Armenia to Europe. In ancient Persia, apricots served as an important trade commodity.

Read the entire story at apricotproducers.com

Apollo astronauts ate dried apricots on their way to the moon

Because of dried apricot's dense nutritional value and delicious taste, astronauts enjoyed these yummy fruits on a number of space missions, including the Apollo 15 trip.

Read the story at

• www.articlebase.com