We Grow Moringa Oleifera and Moringa Stenopetala in Florida

Do you want to grow Moringa in the United States? You can - we grow it here in Florida, and despite our recent cold winters - it grows! For a really sustainable source of edible landscaping, the Moringa tree is an excellent choice. Planted a few feet from your back door, or your front door, for that matter - you can harvest edible greens for your meals - within minutes!

When the weather is warm, above 70°F, plant your Moringa seeds. They grow so fast, that you can start harvesting leaves within two weeks of planting. Now, THAT, is if you live in a very temperate climate. Where the weather is cooler, it will take a bit longer, but once those Moringa seedlings take off - you will be hard pressed to keep up with their bounty.

Should you live in the northern part of the US, you can, with a little bit of extra planning and care, grow Moringa, too! If you have access to a greenhouse - you are "set". They love humidity and heat, and thrive on the sunshine. If you do not, you can prune them back severely, and keep them in large potting containers, with an ample supply of plant lights.

Since Moringa leaves provide all the essential amino acids necessary for human life, a Moringa tree growing on your property, can provide excellent nourishment to you, year-round. For more about growing Moringa trees, eating Moringa leaves, pruning Moringa trees, and how to add Moringa to your diet, check out the links below:

• More About Moringa on My About Me Page
• I Love Moringa
• How to Prune Moringa Trees

Read about Moringa, and see how it can enhance your diet, and beautify your yard - you'll love it!

How Do You Prune Moringa Trees?

One of the nightmares, of growing Moringa Trees, is that they can rapidly get out of hand. If you intend to eat their leaves, and harvest their pods - you have to be able to get to them!

From seed, a Moringa Tree can easily grow 20 feet tall, within a year - given the proper growing conditions. That makes for a difficult harvest! They just reach for the sunlight, with all of their might, and before you know it - the leaves are out of your reach.

Listen up - it does not have to "go that way"! There is a very simple process involved, for keeping any Moringa tree pruned to a reasonable height, and here it is --- pinch or chop off, every other top growth, and always, always - prune from the top!

Once our little Moringa seedlings are about 12 inches tall, I start pinching off every other top growth of leaves. That encourages Moringa leaves to sprout out, all down the trunk of the seedling. You can do that many times, while the seedlings are still in their pots, and before long - the trunk gets "woody".

If you do not pinch off every other growth, you will have a very tall, spindly Moringa seedling - which grows into a very tall, spindly Moringa tree. That is not conducive to easily getting your hands on the Moringa buds, blossoms, and leaves.

Once the Moringa seedlings are about 18 inches tall, I start chopping the branches in half, lengthwise. We strip off the leaves, and eat them, or dry them, for future use. You must trim them this way, or all you will have, is an extremely tall tree - with its harvest waving up in the air, far above your head.

With Moringa trees of any variety, the more you prune them, the better they grow - and the stronger the tree!

More about this, at this link: How to Prune Moringa Trees

Does Anyone Else Feed Their Guinea Pigs Moringa?

Recently, we acquired two male guinea pigs. One is young, the other is mature. They get along just fine, miraculously! We grew to love them both, very much, and then the younger one started showing signs of not being quite "right". This is our little guy - isn't he cute?

He routinely manufactured 50, that's right, 50 pellets - within 15 minutes. I have owned many, many guinea pigs, and never encountered THAT before. He also did not seem to gain very much weight, in comparision to the food he devoured. We think his digestive system is "awry".

Then, he started coughing, and being listless - almost to the point of death. He shivered, and sneezed, and would "go limp" when we picked him up. For a "squirrely" guinea pig like this little fellow, that was not a pleasant site to see. Usually, he would be "bouncing off the walls" - endowed with enough energy for 5 guinea pigs.

I researched every site I could, to help him. Never, had I seen anything remotely close to his symptoms. He did not want to eat, or drink - even blueberries were spurned. We noticed that he started breathing loudly and rapidly, and acting like he was choking on something. Because he tends to eat his bedding - lots of guinea pigs do - we started keeping him on old bath towels. That seemed to help. We also stopped giving him timothy hay, because every time he appeared to recover - he would eat a lot of hay, and drink water, and start coughing again. We switched to alfalfa hay, with the same results. He would eat hay, and within hours, the cough returned.

No more hay for him, we decided. That seemed to help, but it did not get him "up and running" again. So, because we already knew the basics:

• fresh water
• top quality guinea pig pellets
• dark, leafy greens
• no iceberg lettuce - ever
• small tidbits of fruit
• Vitamin C in their food or water

we decided to try something else. His little body was just not "behaving" like most guinea pigs' would.


Because I grow Moringa, and it is used in some countries for animal fodder, I thought it certainly wouldn't hurt anything, to feed him some. The only other time I had seen a rapid decline in health in any of our other guinea pigs, was when I was very, very young, and fed one of mine a lot of iceberg lettuce. She developed diarrhea - fast - and died. I learned my lesson.


I thought it would be easy to find references online, to people feeding their guinea pigs Moringa, but I was mistaken. Because it grows in the Philippines, in India, in Guam - just to name a few of the countries, and people there have guinea pigs, I expected to find references galore! I could not find any. There was no place that said people feed their guinea pigs Moringa - so I really was leery of giving him any of it. He was in such bad shape, though, I thought anything was worth a try. Almost fearfully, I tendered some fresh Moringa Oleifera leaves to our sick little guinea pig. He liked that - a lot! He ate them rapidly, and started to show a bit of interest in life. I then gave him some of our dried Moringa leaves. That was devoured, also - stems and all.

So far, our little guy is looking good. I know we are not "out of the water" yet, with him. His digestive tract is just "screwy". Time will tell. We hope he completely recovers, and thrives, as both my husband and I just love him!


What I would like to know, is - does anyone else feed their guinea pigs Moringa?