Friday, February 22, 2013

Growing Passion Fruit


This is my passion fruit plant in September last year.

 

Here it is around a month ago 



Due to the hard clay soil at my backyard, I decided to grow it in a large rectangular polystyrene pot, with the base cut off. For the next 2.5 months, the vines grew and multiplied quite aggressively with no sign of flowers. I applied some fruiting fertiliser and in its third month, and 3 weeks later, countless number of flowers started to bloom. I was elated!!



I learned from this You Tube video below on how to hand pollinate the flowers if there is an absence of buzzing bees.  Use a small brush or your fingers. The flowers usually bloom only in the afternoon till late evening for a day only, so if you missed this one day chance, you'll missed pollinating it. Good news is, once it flowers, it will normally produce many continuously for 2 weeks or so.




Fruits start to form within the next few days at successful pollination. Within a few weeks, the shiny apple green fruit will grow in size.






However, sadly some suddenly stopped growing and shriveled. About 20 of them!! I have no idea why!!  What a waste!!!

 


So I removed them and in the compost they went. 



Anyway, I'm utterly delighted that the rest, almost 30+ fruits, continue to grow and glisten under the sunshine! <wide happy grin>



Fruit flies and ants started to attack a few of the fruits as I noticed holes on them and so I wrapped each fruit with expandable foam wrapper I collected from a fruit vendor.


It takes almost 3 mths from fruit formation right up to ripening when the color of the fruit turns maroon-ish. Once ripened, the fruit will fall off by itself, or they can be also be harvested by hand with a kitchen scissors.

 



Here's my third and most recent harvest. I made them into juice for my family at our Chinese New Year dinner at home. Yummy!!



Some growing points and observations:

Soil - needs fertile soil, best mixed with compost, soil should not be water-logged.

Fertiliser - i used nitrogen rich chicken and goat manure during the early stages of growing, and in the 3rd month, i applied fruiting fertiliser.

Weather - needs warm sunny weather. best to plant it in the east side where morning sun shines.

Diseases - the plant has strong resistance to common diseases. watch out for fruit flies and ants trying to penetrate the fruit.


 Happy gardening!!


11 comments:

  1. Geram-nya! I have an ice cream recipe for passion fruit! Can I bring a basket over? hehehe!

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  2. I have had mine for a year. There are many leaves but no fruits. Can you please advise?
    So envious of your plant. I have tried fruit fertilisers.

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  3. Hi Petite. Thank you for sharing your interest in passion fruit. My neighbor's passion fruit plant is growing over my side of the block wall, so I was able to enjoy one of them this summer. Very tasty. I planted a seed and may have a seedling - not sure yet. Also, I have cut a few of his vines and applied root hormone and have them planted in seed tray greenhouse.

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  4. Wonderful article. In this post is great. i like to read in this interested post

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  5. Thank you for sharing the pictures, I just bought some seeds and am really eager to get growing some delicious passionfruits!

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  6. Thank you!I have learned so much from you!

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  7. I am happy to find this post very useful for me, as it contains lot of information. I always prefer to read the quality content and this thing I found in you post. Thanks for sharing.

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  8. The post is very nice. I just shared on my Facebook Account.

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  9. Hi, I am like you having a very small teenie tiny garden. I just started to create my small garden last year. This year Jan i just started to plant my passion fruit plant given by a friend. I have never seen or tasted a passion fruit before until when the fruit appears.

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  10. when the flowers started to bloom and fruit, there were also a few like yours started to shriveled and dont know why

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