Tampa Bay Chapter Rare Fruit Council International

UPCOMING PROGRAMS

November 12, 2017, 2:00 p.m., Christ the King. Growing with Hydroponics! Francisco Rivera, Small Farms and Alternative Enterprises faculty at the Hillsborough County Extension office, will speak on Hydroponic Gardening on Sunday, November 12, 2017 at 2:00 p.m. in the McLoughlin Center at Christ the King Catholic Church. He will talk about which plants can be grown hydroponically (without soil), their requirements, different hydroponic methods (and their advantages and disadvantages), and current research initiatives. A variety of hydroponic “setups” on exhibit will demonstrate “do-it-yourself” hydroponic system hacks.

Francisco oversees Hillsborough County’s Small Farms and Alternative Enterprise program, which emphasizes sustainable agriculture methods, agricultural marketing, rural resource conservation and protection, least toxic pest management, and regulatory requirements for agricultural production. Francisco is also interested in the rural/urban interface, intensive small scale agriculture initiatives, and small farm livestock/forage production. Francisco  supports local farmers’ markets and urban farms in addressing food accessibility and serves as an adviser for the 4-H Youth Development program.

Francisco has a BS in General Agriculture and an MS Animal Science (Animal Nutrition) from the University of Puerto Rico (Mayaguez Campus and completed an MBA (Accounting) at Metropolitan University.

December 17, 2017, 2:00 p.m., Christ the King. Holiday Party! Please note the meeting this month falls a week later than normal.

Our speaker for this meeting will be Charles Novak, past president of the Tampa Bay Chapter of the Rare Fruit Council International. Charles will talk about tropical fruit tree cold weather protection,  an issue which can be critical if we get an unexpected (and now seemingly rare) cold snap.

March 11, 2018, 2:00 p.m., Christ the King. Kumquats! with Greg Gude. RESCHEDULED from September 2017. What citrus fruit do you eat whole, skin and all? Kumquats! Greg Gude, a grower who generously donates kumquats for our citrus celebration, will talk about growing this delectable sweet-tart delight. Kumquats have different growing requirements than a lot of other citrus varieties and Greg has been growing them for decades.

Bring a dish to share for the buffet table.Side note: Each year, just before Dade City’s Kumquat Festival, Greg hosts tours of kumquat groves and the Kumquat Growers packing house in St. Joseph–well worth the trip. The next festival is on January 27, 2018.

~MARK YOUR CALENDAR~

The Tampa Bay Chapter of the Rare Fruit Council International meets on the second Sunday of the month except in February (Citrus Celebration), April (USF Plant Sale) and October (USF Plant Sale). We will meet on the THIRD Sunday for our Holiday Party this December.

Missing newsletters

Our newsletter archives are fairly complete . . . but we are missing some issues. If any older members have any of the following issues, please contact Tom Schaefer or Sandra Kischuk. The missing issues are:
1980-all                   1983-July
1989-December       2005-October

THANK YOU!

PAST PROGRAMS

October 14 and 15, 2017, Plant Sale at the USF Botanical Gardens. Great job again! We heard reports that some vendors had very poor sales . . . but we did well. WELCOME to our new members who joined at the plant sale!

Our planned September 2017 program, Kumquats! with Greg Gude, was cancelled due to Hurricane Irma. Greg has been rescheduled for March 11, 2018.

August, 13, 2017, 2:00 p.m., @ Christ the King. GROWING BANANAS! Celeste Welch of Sulcata Grove, an urban farm in north Sarasota, discussed banana varieties & best practices for propagating and growing this yummy fruit.

July 9, 2017, 1:00 p.m., Christ the King. MANGO FEST! What a party! Great job for the team who put together a wonderful event where we got to try a wide variety of the worlds’s favorite fruit–MANGOES! Welcome to all our guests and new members!

Sweetwater Organic Community Farm, June 11, 2017, Christ the King. A representative from Sweetwater Organic Community Farm spoke about the objectives of the Sweetwater organization.

Olives, May 14, 2017, 2:00 p.m., Christ the King. Michael Garcia, Pres. Olive Growers of Florida, spoke on growing olives in Florida and said that many of the commercially available Mediterranean olives need a longer chill season than we often have. See the July newsletter for varieties that require fewer chill hours. Olive varieties that grow in North Africa, which will be more adapted to our climate, are not readily available . . . yet.
http://www.wikihow.com/Cure-Olives

USF PLANT SALE: Saturday, April 8 (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) and Sunday, April 9 (10 a.m. to 3 p.m., 2017.  Kudos to our team members who again organized and ran a wonderful spring sale.

Citrus Celebration Success/ Florida State Fair

Feb 12, 2017, 8:00 a.m. to 4 p.m. What an amazing team! Chair Bill Vega and his team designed a beautiful display booth (4th place–WOW!–against some pretty tough competition) and the citrus tasting was well organized and went off smoothly.

We had a great selection of fruit thanks to the members who went out to the various growers and distributors . . . our cutting team and our “table supervisors” worked diligently to keep the tables well stocked, Paul Branesky kept the juicer running, and our customer service team greeted guests and sold, sold, sold!

Thank you to our members who provided food (we will try to plan that better next year so that we have more people bringing food since we were a little short for the number of volunteers who showed up). I was especially thrilled that some of our new members joined us.

Thank you to Bill and to all of our members who helped make this event a great success!

BIG CITRUS NEWS!

Jan 8, 2017, 2:00 p.m., Christ the King. Speaker: Dr. Jude Grosser, University of Florida  Professor of Plant Cell Genetics. (guest of George Campani).Dr. Grosser’s presentation about citrus research provided the first truly hopeful news we have heard in years about treating greening. UF is developing a number of greening resistant root stocks and greening resistant scions, but the big news is that greening is being controlled in already infected trees through the application of elevated levels of specific micronutrients.  This type of slow-release fertilizer is not yet available on the market. More information to follow, when we get the information from Dr. Grosser about who we need to contact to expedite getting this fertilizer to market.