May's Mango Madness

May is the official month of Mangos in the San Blas area of Nayarit. 

If you were standing on a high hillside in the middle of a mango orchard, you would most likely get a view like the one in the photo at the top of my blog. 

Standing in the midst of an orchard you would get what you see below, having  to watch where you step to avoid being smacked in the face with one of these sweet tasting fruits.


Kay Mango

May is the month that all of the fruit is ready for picking, the month where you see seasonal workers come up from Chiapas, a month where everybody's pocket books are full of money to spend.

Most, if not all families in our ranchito, live year round off of what they reap from their mango orchards.  After a long year of patiently nurturing the trees, killing off the hormigas (ants), weeding all of the wild growing plants, and maintaining the roads, the people finally get to see the end product of a hard year's work; mangos and the money the orchards bring.

Don Humberto and B checking up on the newly planted orchard's progress

Since I have been down to Nayarit several times, I have been able to see how mangos are cared for and what they look like at different times of the year.  Plus, I learned there are several varieties of mangos grown in the area: tommy, kay, manila, ataulfo and mango corriente.

The mango that I am most familiar with here in the states is the tommy mango which has a beautiful reddish purple color.  In the picture below, the mangos weren't quite ripe so they appear to be very purple, but at the time they are picked they have a greener color.



Tommy Mango (left), Mango Corriente (right)

Before mangos can be planted a piece of land must be cleared of all wild brush and palms, or what I like to call "jungle brush."  Once there is space, mango corriente is planted in early spring before the rains.  The mango corriente is a very small variety of mango which is used to combine with a specific variety of mango desired by the owner.  The trees take advantage of the rainy season and grow strong.

Jungle Brush

After approximately a year, it is time to "injertar." I am not sure how this translates in English, but the process is as follows.  The tree's small branches are bandaged with a branch from a mature mango tree of a particular variety, depending on what is desired by the owner.  Over time, the part of the tree that grows is the mature adult branches that were bandaged to the mango corriente. This is how the mango trees yield specific types of mango. 

If not all of the branches are bandaged, you will sometimes end up with a tree that gives both mango corriente (a small tasty mango) and another variety.  This can be seen in the picture above as I am near the tommy mangos on the left of the picture and Don Humberto is grabbing a mango corriente, both varieties growing for the same tree.

In approximately two years the trees will start yielding fruit.  In January the mangos start off as itty bitty balls.

Baby Kay Mango

Once they reach closer to maturity, they increase in size and weigh down the branches of the tree prompting "orquetas" to be made.  Orquetas are long sticks made out of wood with a Y point at one end, these are used to prop up the branches so that they do not touch the ground.  Ideally this should be done early on as the fruit are growing and not at the last minute.  Can you imagine trying to prop up a branch full of heavy mangos?

One of my favorite mango trees is the ataúlfo.  In full maturity, the mangos hanging from the branches look like rain drops. 

Ataulfo Mango

Every once in a while among the great mango trees you will come across a papayo...

Papayo

Or just a big scary tree....

This tree looks like it could be in a scary movie.  Hey, when you are out in the middle of nowhere and all you hear is the breeze of the wind and the animals around you, your mind starts to wonder. This picture does not do it's size justice, it truly is enormous.

At the end of the mango season, the trees are bursting with fruit and are ready for picking.  The orchards are either sold to a buyer and the buyer does the harvesting of the fruit, or the owner harvests the fruit and then sells to a buyer.  Depending on the negotiations between buyer and seller either method can be favorable for either party. 

Please note I have only shared the basic idea of growing mangos in hopes that you can get an idea of the amount of hard work and love that the people put into their orchards. 

Among the many things I learned from Don Humberto was that the orchards are a reflection of the people who work them.  I remember him saying often as we would pass mango orchards "mira que bonito esta esa huerta, señal de que lo cuidan bien (look how beautiful that orchard is, it shows how well it is looked after)." 

The people take pride in their orchards, and so when I pass by one of them I often think about the families who care for them.

Don Humberto sitting in the shade of a mango tree