Coconut palms are astoundingly useful to tropical or subtropical homesteaders. They provide everything from wood to medicine to nutritious, high-calorie food.
They’re hardy, need minimal to no care, and produce (on average) anywhere from 50-200 coconutsper tree, per year.
The icing on the cake? You can process the fruit to make oil, coconut milk, or other products without any special equipment whatsoever. Read on to learn more about coconut palms and how to harvest coconut on your tropical homestead.
Where Coconut Palms Grow
You’ll find coconut palms growing in warm, humid regions around the world. They’re possibly the most abundant tree along coastlines worldwide between 26 degrees latitude north and south in the tropics and parts of the subtropics.
Palms are naturalized in southern Florida, and can also be grown in the southern areas of Texas and California. They thrive best in USDA Zones 9a to 11.
Coconut palms are very willing to grow in areas away from the ocean so long as their climate requirements are met. They are resistant to floods, strong winds, and storms.
How Coconut Fruits Mature
Coconut palmsflower in bunchescalled inflorescences by the botany-inclined. The flowers are small, white-yellow, and often surrounded by aswarm of pollinating bees. The palms flower continuously throughout the year.
Fruits — that is, coconuts — form from the swollen ovary of the flowers and can be green, orange, or yellow. They start out not much bigger than a grape, but within a few months, swell to a respectable size at which point you can harvest them for coconut water.
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Fruits left on the tree mature in about nine months; at the end of which they’ll have turned hard and brown, ready to process for the substantial layer of fatty white meat inside the seed.
How to Harvest Coconut by Knocking Them out of the Tree
No matter what stage you harvest, your first task is to get those fruits down from the treetops. People around the world have settled on various ways to achieve this, so you have a few options.
Use a Long Stick or Bamboo Pole
从附近的树上捡取或砍下一根能够到你眼馋的椰子的树枝。如果你是沿着海岸线采伐,附近甚至可能有一些浮木符合要求。只要拿起这根杆子狠狠地敲椰子就行了。这需要一些打击,但这是一个简单而有效的方法,让他们下降到你的水平。小心你的头。
Prop a Ladder
如果你处理的是相当小的棕榈树,梯子可以够到果实。用一只手托住手掌,让别人扶着底座,然后爬上去。带把刀来把椰子快割掉。
Climb the Tree
This one depends a great deal on your athletic ability and the shape of the palm in question (you stand a much better chance on trees with curved trunks). If you do manage to climb one, all it takes is one slash with amachete或者一把丛林刀,然后一堆东西滚下来!
Editor’s Note: Do not attempt to climb a coconut tree unless you have prior experience doing so. Do not try this at home if you aren’t confident or feel safe doing so.
Harvesting Fallen Coconuts
椰子在成熟的各个阶段都会从树上掉下来,从地上摘下来并没有什么错。首先做一个快速检查。如果你想摘未成熟的椰子喝水,闻闻它们的味道。如果闻起来有发酵的味道,就扔掉。同样,也要注意椰子皮上的裂缝。如果是摔裂的,别浪费时间了。很可能水已经排干了。
When harvesting mature fallen coconuts (those with tough brown shells), again perform a sniff test and toss any with a suspicious smell. Disregard those with roots or shoots.
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还要记住,果实里面的种子也可能长出根来。不幸的是,你也需要丢弃这些,但你不知道是否如此,直到你打开它们。
Now you have a grip on the practicalities of how to collect coconuts, let’s talk about selecting the right coconuts and processing them.
How to Harvest Coconut for Water
When you’re harvesting your coconut for water, there are a few things to remember including how to properly select ripe coconuts and how to process them for their water.
Selection
Coconuts are predominantly harvested for water when they’re still young and green or yellow or orange (colors signify variety rather than age). You can harvest mature brown coconuts for water if you like, but that means a much longer wait and more effort to open them.
口味喜好因人而异,但我理想的椰汁饮品直径在13厘米或5英寸左右。这种大小的椰子通常是球形的,而年轻或年长的椰子则是椭圆形的。
Coconuts at this stage have sweet, refreshing water that’s just right for most people, and exactly the kind of taste you get from bottled coconut water sold in supermarkets. In contrast, the water inside smaller, younger coconuts is bland and tasteless.
Coconuts on the mature side have tangy, slightly fermented water. Drinking it won’t make you sick, but most people find them a little too strong for their liking. Experiment with coconuts of different sizes and you’ll soon get an idea of what you like best.
Processing
你要的水藏在椰子的种子里。要得到它,用砍刀或菜刀切开水果。
我发现最有效的方法是像下图那样从椰子的顶部或底部斜切几片。一旦你拿到坚硬的种子,要么用同样的对角线切口挖一个洞,要么把刀直接插进种子里,用手掌敲打刀柄。根据你的喜好把洞扩大,你就得到了一杯美味清爽的椰子汁。
As with most things, you more proficient with a bit of practice so don’t despair if your first few coconuts seem like a lot of effort. Soon enough you’ll be slicing through them in ten seconds flat.
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Tip: Before you throw your empty coconut away, feel inside the seed to see if it has a soft layer of meat. It’s not the same firm texture as the meat of mature coconuts, but it’s still tasty. If your coconut is old enough to have a layer worth eating, split it with a machete and dig in!
How to Harvest Coconut for Meat, Milk, Cream and Oil
As far as harvesting coconut for meat, milk, cream, and oil, there are a few other considerations.
Selection
无论你是想吃椰子肉本身,还是把它加工成椰奶、奶油、油或其他产品,你都会想要成熟的棕色椰子。它们的白肉层比年轻的更厚更硬。
As mentioned, leave any coconuts with visible root or stem growth behind. If you’re harvesting coconuts still in the tree this shouldn’t be a problem.
Note: If you’re planning to make coconut milk or oil, you’ll generally want at least three coconuts to get a reasonable amount of finished product.
Processing
There are as many ways to get to coconut meat as there are cultures that harvest it, though none of them are without effort. First, you need to remove the hard, outer skin and fiber of the fruit from the seed inside. Some people cut into the coconut with a machete and bring it down on a hard surface like concrete until they make a deep enough cut to start peeling away the skin.
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Another option is to find a metal pole or spiky tree branch and hit the top of the coconut against it until you can begin peeling away the skin in strips. It’ll take some work, but once you’ve separated the seed you can discard the rest.
Tip: Ever heard ofcoconut coir? Coir is a name for the fiber covering the seed of the coconut. If you grow seedlings, don’t throw it away. You can use it to makea fantastic potting mix.
Now that you’ve separated the seed, the meat awaits inside. You can split the seed by using a hammer to tap a circle around it until the two halves fall away. This is even easier if you hold the seed over a hot flame for a minute or two beforehand. I like this option as it lets you chip away parts of the seed casing until you’re left with a relatively intact ball of meat ready to use.
或者,你也可以用锤子或锋利的石头把种子分成几块,然后费劲地把里面的肉块弄出来。不过,我不推荐这种方法。这需要更少的技巧,但把肉从壳里分离出来比像上面那样只切掉部分直到肉露出来要繁琐得多。
That’s it! You’ve successfully taken a whole coconut and gotten to the nutritious, delicious meat inside. You can now proceed to use that meat in an astounding number of homestead projects fromdessertstoskincaretocleaning products— if you’ve resisted the temptation to gobble it up fresh, that is.
Maddy Skinneris an ecologist whose interests lie in permaculture, rewilding, and living respectfully as members of our interspecies communities. She currently lives off-grid at a biological station in Costa Rica.
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