How I grow my Passion Fruit.

There are so many varieties of Passion fruit. 

The picture above is of the Passiflora edulis variety. 

It's a vine plant native to Southern Brazil through Paraguay and Northern Argentina.

The most popular are the yellow and red/purple ones.

The yellow variety has more vigorous vine and the fruits are larger than the red/purple ones.

 The pulps of yellow variety are more acidic and tangy, while the red/purple ones taste sweeter and richer in flavour and aroma. 

Pulps from ripen fruits are best in making drinks, dessert or salad😋

On the 9th January 2019, a friend gave me a plant of passion fruit. It was about 3 feet tall and ready to climb. I have never seen a passion fruit nor tasted it before. As I never refuse a good offer from this particular friend, for she never plants any rubbish or useless plants. What i mean is what ever she has planted, they are all useful and fruitful.

9.1.19 - launched passion fruit plant -a gift from a friend

20.2.2019 A month later , plants growing more leaves and start to spread its vines to left and right

 

28.7.19 -About 6 months after planting the vines became prolific

15.8.2019 - Flower buds started to appear

Passion fruit buds transforming into beautiful fragrant flowers 

16.8.2019

The leaves and vines spread profusely from  only 1 plant, making ideal little shades in the garden

More trellis was added to let the vines spread further. The shade used to be the tiny chicken coop before. I removed the roof and platform allowing the vines and leaves to give shade like a roof on the  chicken coop.

On 19.10.2019  about 10 months  after the plant was transplanted to the ground, the flowers bloom like crazy and fruiting was prolific. About 3-8 flowers a day. 

It's lovely to see the shiny green fruits dangling on the trellis like ornaments.😂 

After reading from some blogs and watching U tube showing how fruits develop better by hand pollinating than those being pollinated by the bees butterflies or ants etc, I began to practice this method.

Short video of how I hand pollinate with a paint brush by collecting the pollen from one of the 5 Anthers (pollen pads) and brush lightly against all 3 stigma (female organ of the plant).

hand pollinate using paint brush : The flowers has 5 Anthers (pollen pads) as shown in the picture which has pollens on each pads. The 3 stigmas can be seen clearly on this pictures

Then brush slightly against the 3 stigmas where the pollen will stick to it and had the flowers fertilised to form fruits. The flowers will normally stay open in the early evening for 12 hours before they closes again with or without fertilisation.

This photo shows after fertilisation process.

 The flowers will close and the little bud inside each flower turned to a fruit.

25.11.2019 - Successful fertilisation lead to more than 120 fruits from my 1st plant.

12.12.2019 - there were more than a 100 fruits at this time, dangling on the trellis from one parent plant😁

18th December 2019- The 1st fruit had ripen and dropped to the ground😂.  When these happens, it's  time to harvest them😂. The slightly wrinkled fruits are best to taste at this time, rather than the smooth shiny ones because they are absolutely ripe ones, juicy and sweeter. But I couldn't wait and curious to see what's inside the fruit as this is the first time I had my own passion fruit. So I cut it and the picture below is the result.

 

It was very fragrant and juicy and has a very delicious sweet tangy taste. I love it😋😍

 I made juice with it, by adding a teaspoonful of honey, a slice of lemon and water. That's all!

There were also a lot of flowers that didn't make it. 

Probably due to unfertilised flowers caused by heavy rainfall (Heavy rain can wash away pollens from the Anthers) or not enough pollinators around to pollinate them.  Some did develop to fruits, but half way through they just shriveled and dropped off, before maturing. For that, I don't know why.

1 bud of passion fruit flower

The flower sitting in a glass of hot water

Passion fruit flower Tea 

I added 1/4 Teaspoon of brown sugar, some preferred to go without. 

It seemed to help in relaxing and aid mild insomnia. I drank this in the evening. I am not sure if it helps to sleep better but it definitely relaxes me☺

29.10.2019 - My 2nd Passion fruit plant😁

Anyway, I am grateful and happy enough to see most of my passion fruits growing well at my back yard. So I decided to plant another at the front. This time, I bought the plant from the market for a price of Rm20😅😅

Refreshing Passion Fruit Cocktail Drink

Ingredients:

pulp and juice from half of the passion fruit.

Blue water made from 6 blue pea flowers in a cup of hot boiling water & set aside to cool.
1 slice of lemon.
1 teaspoon honey
few ice cubes

Scoop the pulp and juices from the passion fruit into a glass.. Add a slice of lemon.

Add 1 teaspoon of honey (according to your sweetness)

Pour in blue pea flower water.

Give a good stir to mix well with the honey

Add ice cubes

Healthy Fresh passion fruit drink and it's free because the fruits came from my garden! 

I had this exotic tropical fruit drink at Kenny Rogers Roasters. It's called Triple Passion, an amazing trio of Guava, Passion fruit and Mango at Rm 10.50 per glass!

Well, ladies and gentlemen, if you can get any passion fruits, try and make these. They are really yummy yam yam! If you did, do post me your comments. ok?😄

Look at my grand nieces, enjoyed plucking and picking up ripen passion fruits 😂

This enjoyable outdoor activities will be remembered by them forever ☺