Hawaii's Share Your Table

The mangoes are his pride. Suiso has 40 trees, of at least a dozen mango varieties. Some he planted, some he grafted, others are left from his father’s experiments on the long, narrow family property more than 50 years ago, around the time Suiso was born.

It may be because of these memories—of a childhood surrounded by these fruits of summer, nurtured by a dad who taught school during the day and came home to water, prune, fertilize, pick and take to market truckloads of mangoes, each carefully polished until it was glossy—that Suiso’s passion runs as deep as it does.

He can talk about mangoes for hours. He’ll tell you about the qualities of each mango, where it’s from, where it grows best, and how to eat it. He’ll tell you how to care for the huge mango tree that’s outgrowing your yard, how to plant your own tree, he’ll even come to your house and help you graft one. And he does all this with the precise, practical detail of a banker—his full-time day job.

Below, SYT asked Suiso two questions: How do you grow a mango tree? And how do you eat a mango?

How to grow a mango tree

If you’re a backyard grower, the first thing you’ll want to do is get your soil tested. You can take it to the university or talk to a good commercial landscaper. Let them know you’re looking to grow a mango tree.

You want an area where you’ve got quite a bit of sun, not a lot of shade. Mangoes tend to do better at lower elevations, below say 500 feet, where there are periods of the year that are dry and periods that are wet. The common and white Pirie might do well at higher elevation, where it’s generally more moist and you don’t have heavier soils.

Mangoes like heavier soils generally: you don’t want to grow a mango in lava rock. Some soils get real mucky and wet and stay wet for a period, and some varieties can do well in that environment: the common mango, white Pirie, Chinese mango, Shibata. Mapulehu might do well; Hayden does not.

The rule of thumb: if the fruit is red, it likes sun. If the fruit is more greenish-yellow, it can handle a lot of water.
You might want to try several varieties to find out which do best in your particular area. What does well for you might not be the same as what does well in the next valley.

When you plant your mango tree, dig the hole twice as deep and twice as wide as the pot. And get some good, rich soil. Once you get your mango tree started, based on your soil testing, you want to make sure you’re not over- or underfertilizing. The plants tend to like a good soak once a week.

If you buy a tree in a three-gallon pot, it’s 2-3 yrs old and should flower next season. A tree in a one-gallon pot is about 2 years old; it’ll take another year or two before flowering. If it’s a grafted plant, it should flower within a 3- to 5-year period.

Fertilizing and watering right after the season is finished will allow new growth. Four or five months after the new growth, the leaf is matured enough and if it throws shoots, quite often those will be flowers. Normally mango trees will flower between December and March, and four to five months later the fruit will start to mature. That’s a normal cycle. So if, for example, you prune in August and September, then in December or January your tree will be flowering and four months after that you’ll get your fruit.

When the tree gets too tall, taller than a house, it gets unruly and hard to manage.

Sometimes by January or February, your matured leaves have not thrown flowers yet. Try applying some potassium nitrate. If they don’t flower by March or April, those trees might miss the season.

Sometimes when mango trees flower, bugs or mildew will attack the flowers. If that happens, applying salt or baking soda might help.

In Japan, some people will actually put bags over the fruit so it doesn’t get any scars or marks. If yours is a younger tree, you might be able to do this.

Once the tree matures and gets to 8 feet or higher, start pruning it after the harvest. Try to cut back the leaf growth and keep the roots in balance with the size of the tree. If the tree tends to dry out during the year, you’ll have the roots dying off and the plant will suffer. Healthy trees tend to fruit better and have less disease.

When the tree gets too tall, taller than a house, it gets unruly and hard to manage. Don’t let it get that tall. Cut back the main branches that are shooting straight up.

How to eat a mango

Green mangoes: The most preferred green mango is the common mango; Hayden is also decent. The test to see if you can eat it is if you can cut through to the seed. Green mango comes early in the season, so start looking in April and May.

In Hawaii we like pickled mango. Some people peel green mango and eat it with vinegar, shoyu and black pepper. Some eat it with bagoong. At my house we make green mango pie: we put butter, sugar and cinnamon and it tastes exactly like Granny Smith apple pie. In April we get heavy winds that knock a lot of mangoes off the trees. This is a farmer’s dilemma. You can pickle so much, you can sit down and eat it, but if you eat too much green mango, your stomach’s not going to be happy.

Hayden, Momi K, Gouveia and Keit are fairly long-lasting: you can eat them green, half-ripe and ripe and they taste good. I challenge anyone to eat a green Pirie mango. I haven’t been able to yet.

Ripe: Any mango that’s tree-ripened or ripened at room temperature is good for eating. Lots of people refrigerate before the mango is fully ripe, so it doesn’t taste as good. Once a mango smells good, it’s at its peak. If you wait, it’s going to go overripe, so refrigerate it that day. Some mangoes are real fragile, like Pirie and Rapoza: they go from too green to too ripe too fast, especially on hot summer days.

Chutney or salsa: You want half-ripe or quarter-ripe mangoes that will stay real firm. Most people like crunchy chutney, not mushy. Chinese is good and stays firm when cooked. Tommy Atkins has lots of firming fiber, common mango and Hayden also.

Baking: If you’re baking, some mangoes you want on the tart side and some you want on the sweet side. Some you want soft and some you want firm. A ripe Pirie or Mapulehu will turn to mush if cooked, but they’ll make a really good smoothie because they don’t have fiber.

Smoothies and purees: When you don’t need any mango texture but want the flavor, Mapulehu, the Piries, Gouveia, Rapoza or Southeast Asian varieties are good. There’s no fiber in them. These are also good for making mango bars and mango sauces.

Drying: You want a mango that doesn’t have much fiber and isn’t too soft, like Hayden or Momi K, and is only three-quarters ripe. If you let the mango get too ripe or soft, it doesn’t cut well and gets mushy during drying; sometimes it gets too sweet and will turn black.

Freezing: Don’t freeze in large containers, use sandwich size plastic bags. Squeeze some lime on—it goes well with mango and helps it not turn too mushy. All frozen mangoes tend to be a little mushy, so eat it while still partially frozen. It’s difficult to make mango bread with frozen mango because it doesn’t have the proper texture, no matter what variety is used. I like to see chunks of mango in my mango bread, and you’re not going to get that with a frozen mango.