Local producer VIVEROS ESTEVA

What began as a hobby more than 20 years ago is now the livelihood of Jeroni Esteva, who runs the Viveros Esteva nursery, in Sant Llorenç des Cardassar (Mallorca), where he plants and sells Mediterranean and subtropical fruit trees.

The star fruit of Viveros Esteva is the avocado. “I’ve got more than two hundred,” he says. When it’s time to pick the fruit, he sells directly to his customers. “Viveros Esteva avocados are very well known.” His customers appreciate how creamy, tasty and perfectly ripe they are, freshly picked from the tree. “To know when they’re ready to be eaten, you just have to squeeze the fruit gently and feel how it gives a little.” 

As well as avocados, the nursery’s 2.25 hectares also contain other subtropical fruit trees, such as guava (common and ‘red Carley’ varieties), custard apple and lime, kiwis and other traditional Mediterranean trees, such as orange and olive.

Jeroni likes having variety in his crops and unique cultivars, such as: the Reed avocado, one of the most late-ripening varieties of avocado, with exquisite buttery flesh; the white sapote, a medicinal plant originally from Central America and grown in family gardens and subtropical rainforest; the citrus australasi, known as caviar lime, a shrub from the Australian subtropical rainforest that produces a fruit known as the finger lime, so called for its finger-like shape, of course, and with a fresh pulp that is like a fizzy explosion and with a spicy taste while chewed. 

Some of the fruit trees at the Viveros Esteva nursery are more than 30 years old, such as the white sapote. The plants are of course available in pots for sale. Viveros Esteva customers are always discovering some new variety, and often give them as gifts.