Are you already looking forward to your first salad and fresh cucumbers and tomatoes from your own cultivation? Fruit and berries are also already being cultivated so that you can enjoy vitamins from your own greenery in autumn. But why not try something exotic? Hardly anyone knows that many exotic fruits are hardy, so you can enjoy these plants for a long time and have multiple harvests.
Colder than you think
Many plants that produce extremely tasty fruit come from regions that only at first glance have associations with the south and the eternal wake up summer. On lubera.com you will find a large selection of information on the origin of such fruits. Especially the fruit-bearing plants from the South American continent are often exposed to sub-zero temperatures in their homeland and can take it well. In Chile or Argentina it often gets colder in the highlands than it can get in Germany at all. So you can also plant bananas and papaya, as well as many Peruvian tomato varieties without problems with the cold in German gardens. Many fig varieties from the north of the African continent, as well as pineapples and kiwis from regions beyond the equator, can also be grown in Germany.
Light is particularly important for exotic plants
Sensitive varieties require limited winter protection, but the plant gradually adapts after a few maturing cycles. Light is often more important than heat, so you should look for sunny locations or set up artificial lighting. If the exotics get too little light, the harvest of the ripe fruits will probably be rather poor. But you know that from the widespread tomatoes that have been thriving in Germany for a long time, but are also originally from South America.
It is best to find out about the countries of origin of the fruit. A look at a climate diagram for the region of origin quickly reveals how surprisingly cold it can get in the supposedly always warm south.
The flowers and the bees
A much bigger problem is the propagation of plants outside their homeland. Despite ambitious hobby gardeners, an occurrence is rather rare and sometimes the native insects simply don't know "how's".going with the exotics". When buying seedlings, you should therefore make sure that you always buy a pair, i.e. one plant with male and one with purely female flowers. Sometimes that's not enough and the gardener needs a little help. With a cotton swab, he too can be the bee and transfer the pollen from one plant to another. If the bees are busy, your garden can already be full of exotic fruits in late summer this year.