Mango season brings Miami neighbors together each summer

• A good backyard mango tree can produce 300 pounds of fruit each season, which makes "everybody want to share and then start talking about who has the best mango," Carl E. Lewis, director of the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, tells Axios.
• "It does get these neighborhood conversions going."

What they're saying: Jayme Kaye Gershen, a Miami filmmaker who has a mango-themed art exhibit and a tree in her yard, tells Axios that she views every mango as a gift to cherish because it only comes once a year.

• "It brings out the best in people because there's so much of it, you're almost like 'this tree is so special, I don't want to waste it.' It's this time when you meet your neighbors."

Plus, store-bought mangoes just don't taste as good, she added.

• Gershen noted how some locals like to say, "If you are buying a mango at the store, you don't have any friends."

That's not always true, but mangoes do say a lot about how immersed you are in Miami and its cultural traditions.

Case in point: Bradley Gerber, the former president of Miami Young Republicans, tells Axios that when someone would tell him they wanted to run for political office, he'd ask them a simple question.

• "I'd ask them how much a mango costs, like at Publix. If they had a dollar-figure answer, I'd say, 'Don't run.'"

"The reason? If you don't know anyone who says, 'Take a mango. Here, take six,' then your Miami social network isn't nearly big enough for a successful campaign."

• "No real Miamian who's plugged in would ever have to buy a mango," Gerber, now a director at Golin Public Relations, wrote in an email to Axios.

By the numbers: Lewis, of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, says there are over 400 different kinds of mangoes in Miami, the result of importing and breeding dating back over 200 years.

• "It's really unprecedented to have so much diversity of a fruit in an urban area like that. It is something magical."

It's no accident that Miami is home to hundreds of mango varieties.

• Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden sells mango trees every year at its Mango Festival, which is holding its 31st annual edition Saturday and Sunday.
• This year's festival — which will feature mango smoothies, cocktails, snacks and more — highlights the fruit producers who sustain the local industry.

With such a large variety of mangoes also comes a diversity of cultures that cherish the fruit, which originated in South Asia but is popular in Caribbean and Latin American countries, too.

• In her 2024 short film, "Mango Movie" — which is screening at the Mango Festival — Gershen filmed members of the community eating mangoes to highlight the different ways we enjoy the fruit: Some peel it with a knife, while others bite straight in.
• "What I liked about watching people eat mangoes was that people were uninhibited," Gershen said.

Normally, when you get on camera you're "very self aware." You may fix your hair or stiffen up.

• "For whatever reason, most people forgot the cameras were there and just did their thing. It just became about them and the mango."

Gershen took extra footage from the 13-minute film and created an immersive art exhibit, "When Mangos Last in My Backyard Bloom'd," which is on display at Green Space Miami through August 9.

• The exhibit, which offers mangoes to visitors and has a sculpture wall made of the fruit's husks, will host a mango poetry jam and mango swap on Saturday.

If you go: The 31st Annual Mango Festival at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden on Saturday and Sunday, 10am-5pm. Tickets $25+ for adults.

• 10901 Old Cutler Road

"When Mangos Last in My Backyard Bloom'd:" Open Thursday-Sunday, 12pm-6pm. Green Space Miami, 7200 Biscayne Boulevard.

• Mango swap: Saturday, 4-7pm. Free.
• Mango Poetry Jam: Saturday, 7-9pm. Free.