I was in a local Virginia store recently and found packages of guava/guayaba/guayava at $2.48 per...a package containing twelve pisidium guayava.
The trees that produce this fruit grow really well at our place despite all the salt that constantly blows in with the Caribbean breezes and all the salt that's been deposited in the soil from eons of those breezes.
The trees don't get very big, maybe up to 20', with rough sandpapery feeling leaves; and again, at least where we are, once a tree begins to bear fruit it doesn't seem to stop. And, of course, there doesn't seem to be a season...the tree produces and produces and produces, just like a coconut tree.
We can't keep up with the fruit production and lots of our guayava ends up on the ground from where we scoop and deposit them on the compost heap.
We have two varieties at False Bluff. I can't tell the trees apart and there seems to me very little difference in the fruit produced by each except the flesh of one is slightly pink. But Jacinta knows as she knows almost everything about plants in the area. And Jacinta's in the process of propagating lots of the variety she says produces the better fruit.
Because the guayava (staying with the local name) grows so well in our environment, we plan to put in lots more trees, in rows, using the rows as wind breaks behind which we can plant more salt-sensitive plants. We tried this with banana trees (see previous post) but it didn't work: banana trees do not like salty air.
Hopefully we can also figure out what to do with all the fruit.
