Cherry Guava - The Perfect Fruit Tree for Beginners (and it tastes great!)

These awesome little fruits grow on beautiful evergreen trees that are easy to grow, they're extremely prolific and they can even be grown in small spaces like containers. In fact they're such great trees that I was even talking about them 13 years ago. So today I'm going to do a review on red cherry boabas. So let's start by taking a closer look at these fruits before getting into how you can grow one of these in your own garden as well as looking at what you can do with the fruits because there's some pretty cool stuff to try. So these are native to Brazil but here we call them red cherry guava and yellow cherry guava. They do have some other English names too though like catley guava and sometimes the red ones are known as strawberry guava with the yellow ones called lemon guava. I like to grow both types because they look awesome together with their incredibly vibrant colours and also they taste quite different from one another but we'll get into that soon. When you think of guava trees you often imagine them thriving in a frost-free subtropical or even tropical region but the good thing about these ones is they're known to be one of the most cold hardy guava species, handling temperatures down to about minus five degrees celsius with the red ones being slightly more cold hardy than the yellow and even if you have a winter that gets a little colder than these can handle they do grow well in containers so you can just move them to a slightly warmer area in those cooler months. And if you look close up of the leaves you can see they are quite thick and quite durable which I guess is a good representation of this plant overall being not only cold hardy but pretty drought hardy as well and also hardy to strong winds. You'll also notice that the fresh growth has like a reddish bronzy colour and this will be a lot more tender towards things like frost so if you have a young tree and lots of fresh growth on it and the frost is coming might be a good idea to cover them up. The bark of these trees is also quite ornamental the way that it kind of peels off and that also kind of adds to this tree looking really nice in the garden. In the springtime they produce flowers with kind of a fluffy white appearance and they have kind of a subtle sweet fragrance and they're pollinated by insects and birds. They do have the potential to grow to a pretty large tree like four plus meters but my suggestion would be to keep it relatively pruned to you know something that you can reach up into. So this one here is actually at my parents place and it's a tree that's over 15 years old and when we planted this it was just a small little tree here and my mum prunes this every year and it keeps it to a size where you can reach the fruits and you don't have to climb way up into the tree to get the fruits. It's good to plant them somewhere where you are constantly walking past so you can just pick a few on your way through and try and get them before the birds. You can see how dense these trees grow as well so another option is to grow them as a hedge and it would add some nice landscape value to your garden as well as of course lots of delicious fruits. I'm growing a few of these here in my food forest and what's good is that not only do they do well in full sun but also in partial shade so here where I get a little bit more shade from a few of the other trees around these will still thrive and do pretty well. Just keep in mind though that there are a few places where these are listed as invasive so do check your local area. For example here in New Zealand, Auckland, you're no longer allowed to plant new trees of these and over in Hawaii their class is invasive as well. They do self-seed quite easily so if you already have a friend that has one of these trees you might be able to ask them for a seedling that's already popped up in their garden because sometimes they will just pop up kind of near the tree where some seeds have made their way into the soil. If you're looking at these fruits the best way is, well look how that just fell off in my hand, but usually you can just tell from the colour you can see it's a very sort of almost deep purple when they become ripe whereas ones like this one is, I mean that's pretty close but it has a little bit more of a reddish colour to it rather than this really deep purple and that's they will be at their sweetest. As for the yellow ones it's pretty similar just look for a nice bright yellow colour and a slight softness to the fruit but one of the best signs they're ready is when they drop off the tree on their own so make sure you check underneath the plant too because you'll often find the ripest ones there. You will notice as well here that I've got some wood chip mulch around these trees so that does help keep any fallen fruit clean but it will also help to retain moisture, suppress any weeds and build healthy soil over time. All right let's start with trying the red cherry guava. It definitely has a really nice sort of tang to it but it's like sweet and tangy, a little bit berry like, a little bit guava like, so I guess the name strawberry guava is fairly appropriate and then the inside you can see it's got like a bit of pinkish around the edges there, nice white flesh and there are some big seeds in here so you've got to watch out for those when you eat this. I just swallow the seeds, try not to chew them too much because they are like really hard, you can't really bite through them with your teeth. Yeah they're really tasty little fruits. Let's have a go with this yellow one. Oh yum, this is quite soft because I've been handling it so much for the video but it's like a lot more of a tropical flavour, definitely doesn't have the same amount of tang so yeah these are known to be sweeter and I would say it's like pineapple, guava, maybe like passion fruity, yeah quite tropical in flavour and the inside is a little bit more of a yellow flesh and again same amount of seeds in these ones too but these fruits are packed with vitamin c and other antioxidants. They're also said to have anti-inflammatory effects on the body, they offer benefits for heart health and contain compounds with potential anti-cancer activity so that's interesting and if you do want to harvest some of these seeds and grow them it is a good idea because these grow pretty much true to type and they can fruit from seed in maybe around three years on average. I tend to use containers like these when I grow guava seeds because I can put the lid on to keep the humidity high and keep the moisture in because I tend to be not so good at watering things that take a little while to sprout and these ones do tend to take maybe you know sometimes up to a month or so to sprout so yeah just having that lid does help reduce the amount of watering that you need to do. Since these trees can be so prolific it can be a good idea to use the fruits in some other ways rather than just relying on eating them fresh and one thing that is really nice to make is guava jelly. I've made that before and that can go well with sweet and savoury things so it's quite a nice thing to have on hand but today I want to show you how to make fruit leather which really captures the flavour of these fruits and gives you a tasty and long-lasting snack. So after washing the fruits I'm using this food mill, it's basically a manual strainer, to separate the seeds and skins and it's actually so satisfying using this tool, it works perfectly for these fruits. Now that we've got the fruit puree I'm adding it to a pot and squeezing in a bit of lemon juice to help preserve the colour and extend its shelf life. I'm bringing the mixture to a light boil for around three to four minutes and this will just help to prevent spoilage and also just boost its shelf life. Once that's all cooled down I'm lightly oiling the sheets of my dehydrator and then spreading out a nice thick layer of this puree since this will thin out quite a lot as it dries. I'll leave these to dehydrate at 55 degrees celsius for around 10 hours until it's no longer sticky to touch and check that out, isn't that so cool? Now for the most fun part, cutting the leather into strips and then rolling it up. These can be stored for many many months but honestly they're so yum you'll probably eat them way sooner and you can even rehydrate these if you want, just soak a piece in warm water for around 10 to 15 minutes until it softens and then you can use it in desserts or sauces or even as a quick baby food. All right let's try this. So good, such a like good tangy flavour just like the fruit. Highly recommend, give it a try. Thank you guys so much for watching, hope you enjoyed the video and I'll see you in the next one.