This is one of our Acerola trees here at Tullamore Farm. Acerola are native to the Caribbean and have the common name of Barbados Cherry. The fruit are about the size of a grape or cherry and start out green and ripen to a nice red, like the ones in the photo. They look a bit like a large glazed Cherry. Acerola really produce well and can have 3 or 4 crops yearly between October and May.
I first got to taste the fruit in 2016 and quickly decided we needed to have them here. We planted our first two Acerola not long after, and we have since added more. Many visitors’ views on the taste do differ. I like the strong flavour and feel they are just a little tart. We eat them straight from the tree and sometimes add them whole, seeds and all into our breakfast juice. Acerola is one of the richest sources of Vitamin C in any fruit. They apparently have between 20 and 50 times the vitamin C of Oranges.
Our first two Acerola struggled for the first couple of years here but have really flourished since establishing. We have always mulched our trees well and the treatment of Acerola is the same. We mulch everything well with wood chip or prunings to around 15cms. The established Acerola get a feed of our compost twice a year and we are always adding prunings and other plant material which break down and help hold moisture.
Acerola are well documented as drought tolerant once established. Ours fared well through the nasty drought we had here a few years back. They take well to pruning. We really give them a strong prune every year in late Autumn after the fruiting is over. A good prune helps keep them to a manageable size and easier when accessing the crop.
