A Dangerous Harvest

Today’s posting comes from a guest blogger – The Gardener himself.  We learn an important lesson about mangoes.

Well, for the first time, our Mango tree bore a modest  crop of nice large fruit.  I have gone out over several days and picked about a dozen delicious gems.

The offending mangoes

Around the same time I noticed some itchy bumps starting to appear on my arms and hands.  Later, my eyes started to itch and swell a bit.  To make a long story short, after developing rash on several parts of my body, I remembered learning that mango trees are on the same family as poison oak.  The sap contains urishiol, the chemical responsible for poison oak/sumac/ivy rashes.  Luckily, it is only in the sap (including leaves and skin of the fruit) but not the fruit meat.

Harvest Manager… peel me a mango, please!