While you might be familiar with smooth, juicy apricots, the tropic gold apricot’s speckled cheeks are even sweeter and boast an even stronger flavor than their classic counterparts. This medium-large fruit grows on the tropic gold apricot tree, which was first discovered in California.
Easy to grow and impossible to resist, this fruit can be dried, baked, cooked, and snacked on with bountiful health benefits and a flavor you’ll crave all summer long. Read on to learn how best to incorporate the tropic gold apricot tree in your garden and kitchen!
Eating Tropic Gold Apricots
What do They Pair Well With?
The juicy taste of the tropic gold apricot makes it easy to combine with a variety of sweet or savory flavors. Herbs and spices like basil, black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, lavender, nutmeg, rosemary, and vanilla, many of which are considered warm spices, particularly enhance the flavor of apricots.
Cooking with Tropic Gold Apricots
Fruit is most often used as the base for desserts or as a healthy replacement to a more artificially sugary snack, but apricots actually add an unexpected twist to savory meals too. Head to All Recipes for a breakdown of how to perfect an Apricot Chicken with Balsamic Vinegar, which offers an original dinner for eight in under an hour. Fresh thyme and parsley add an herbal base to this unique flavor profile.
Also, be sure to check out Martha Stewart’s Crispy Apricot Pork Chops Recipe, which makes an apricot jam crust on four bone-in pork loin chops. With a simple spice pairing of salt, pepper, and olive oil, you’ll have this four-person family meal ready in under twenty-five minutes.
Baking with Tropic Gold Apricots
Though good enough to eat straight from the branch, the saccharine, juicy tropic gold apricot is the perfect ingredient in a number of desserts. This Austrian Apricot Almond Linzertorte from Epicurious is a tempting summer treat that replaces a traditional raspberry filling with an apricot twist. The result is a lattice pie-like warm, spiced almond cake with a musky apricot filling.
Another great use of your apricot bounty is a fruity twist on an American classic: Martha Stewart’s Apricot Cheesecake. In just six easy steps, this recipe transforms a thirteen-ounce jar of apricot preserves into the glaze for a ten-serving creamy cheesecake, the perfect centerpiece for your next summer garden party.
Snacking, Canning, and Dehydrating
Foundational to several of these recipes is apricot jam. Our guide to Making Apricot Jam will teach you the right techniques to create a smooth, naturally sweet addition to the above-described balsamic chicken or cheesecake, or even just to dollop over a bowl of yogurt and granola or buttered toast in the morning.
For apricot fans on the go, the Food Network has a great recipe for Apricot Oat Bars that you can take with you on a hike or to the beach! Tropic gold apricots are also particularly well suited to canning and dehydrating, making them easy to preserve for months of enjoyment to come!
Health Benefits of the Tropic Gold Apricot Tree’s Fruit
Tropic gold apricots are not only tasty, they’re also very good for you! Apricots are beneficial for heart, liver, eye, and digestive health. They boost the immune system with essential vitamins and minerals. Apricots are rich in antioxidants, which promote bone and skin health. For a more thorough breakdown, you can check out our post on the Health of Apricots.
In addition to healing and fortifying, apricots are also just a great addition to your diet. Low in calories and fat, and with only 4 grams of carbohydrates and just over 3 grams of naturally occurring sugar, you’ll feel healthy and renewed after snacking on a few tropic gold apricots on a summer afternoon. Our guide to Apricot Nutrition will introduce you to all the benefits of eating apricots, if their taste isn’t enough of a treat!
Growing Tropic Gold Apricot Trees At Home
Should You Grow this Fruit in Your Garden?
Self-fertile varieties appear to thrive in mild winter areas, while heavy producers prefer to grow in low deserts and higher elevations. The tree is a hardy 4-9 in the USDA zoning scale, so you might want to decide whether your garden is going to support this tree depending on your location.
Can You Grow Gold Apricot Trees Indoors?
If you find that you’re not located in an ideal climate, you can actually grow the tree indoors! Placing the plant near a south-facing window, fertilizing annually, and keeping the soil moist are all particularly important for supporting the growth of your tree.
Size, Spacing, Pollination and Further Care
Outdoor apricot trees grow to 16 to 20 feet. They are self fruiting, meaning you only need one tree to produce fruit. Our post on Growing Apricot Trees at Home explains the details of finding the right location, water, fertilizer, and other important factors for your tropic gold apricot tree.
Re-potting and transplanting your tree, which can be done with the right amount of water and gentle root care, is further detailed in our post on Apricot Tree Care: How to Grow Apricot Trees.
You can also check out our post on Pruning Apricot Trees, which explains everything you need to know about pruning your apricot trees from a young age to help the tree distribute its energy most productively. The method for pruning evolves over the lifespan of the tree but is essential throughout to prevent disease.
Diseases and Pests
After all the hard work of growing your tropic gold apricot tree, you’ll want to make sure that diseases and pests won’t slow your progress. Identifying the signs and causes of root rot, fungus spread, and bacteria is essential.
There are a few main diseases that target apricot trees, like brown rot, Eutypa Die Back, and shot hole disease, all of which carry their telltale signs of infection and require unique treatments. You can find a thorough explanation of how to identify, treat, and prevent these diseases in our guide to Apricot Tree Diseases.
Pests carry equal risk to the health of your tropic gold apricot tree. There are nine main varieties, detailed in our post 9 Types of Apricot Tree Pests, but the main ones to watch out for include sap-feeding insects, mites, and foliage feeding caterpillars. Learning how to spot these intrusive guests and get rid of them as quickly as possible is crucial!
When to Harvest Tropic Gold Apricots
You’ve chosen the right soil, kept track of your watering routine, and applied fertilizer when needed. When is it finally time to harvest your delicious tropic gold apricots?
The ideal maturity date is between June 25th and July 5th, though may vary depending on when you planted the tree. This apricot tree variety fruits every year, unlike other apricot trees, which may only fruit every second or third year.
Where Can You Find Tropic Gold Apricot Trees?
The first step in the tropic gold apricot tree growing journey is finding out where to buy the seeds or young tree. The easiest way to begin growing is to buy a young tree from a local nursery or order one online, like this Tropic Gold Apricot from Nature Hills Nursery. You should be aware this is a popular tree that sells out fast, so check their inventory before the start of planting season!
If you’d prefer to start from seed, you can buy tropic gold apricots directly from supermarkets like Whole Foods and extract the seeds from the pit for planting. Our guide on How to Plant Apricot Seeds will walk you through every step of that process, which is no different for the tropic gold apricot tree.
Put Tropic Gold Apricot Trees on Your List This Summer!
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