Home & Garden: Fruitful undertaking

When Dr. George Panjikaran retired in 2008, he built his dream house on Siesta Key, as well as a garden full of fruit trees. Panjikaran grew up in Kerala, India, and as a child his favorite fruits were jackfruit (also known as chakka) and mango.

Panjikaran wanted his landscape to contain a variety of fruit and vegetation, so he created an orchard hosting some bountiful fruit trees. Panjikaran’s garden contains bananas, jackfruit, starfruit, sapodilla, lychee, Golden Delicious apple, pineapple, avocado, atemoya (sugar apple), Pakistani mulberry, blackberries, raspberries, papaya and white fig. It also boasts 13 different types of mango trees and four types of persimmon trees.

His neighbors benefit from his tropical trees, because Panjikaran gives much of his yield away. He has even helped others start their own tropical fruit trees in their yards. Panjikaran works in his garden a few hours every day. With the fruit he doesn’t give away, he enjoys eating it, dehydrating it, juicing it, freezing it or creating pulp candy from the fruit.