I received a lovely passiflora vine of unknown cultivar from a friend at a DG swap. Beautiful flowers and, lo and behold, one of them made a fruit!
My question is, now what? Are all passion fruits edible? Should I just let it dry for seeds? I'm open to any and all suggestions--I've never even eaten a passion fruit before, but am always ready to at least taste anything edible that comes from my garden.
Thanks for the help!
Here's the fruit...
And here's the flower, if that's any help at all in determining what I should be doing with this.
Thanks!
It looks like Passiflora caerulea. They do have edible fruit but it is not particularly tasty when compared to the more popular edible varieties.
So, I was looking through PlantFiles, it looks like it will turn golden-orange when ripe? Then, if I decide to be bold and nibble, do I slice it? Eat seeds? Eat pulp only?
Then, if I decide it's not sufficiently tasty, do I save the seeds for later planting? :)
They will color up as they ripen. When the fruit is ripe it will literally fall off in your hand when you touch it or you can colect it when it falls from the vine. Cut the fruit in half, the rind wioll be hard. You can eat the pulp & the seeds, it is difficult to remove the seeds and eat just the pulp. Many are turned off by the texture of the pulp (somewhat slimy looking) and/or by all the seeds. The seeds germinate very quickly. I have a few different Passiflora vines and every year have many volunteers that spring up from fallen fruit. Last year off my P edulis vine I got about 200 fruit.
Thanks for the help, popper1! I'll look forward to seeing the color change, then!
No, they are a couple inches in diameter. Passiflora quadrangularis is the Passiflora that has the huge fruit. I also grow that one, it has amazing flowers with a wonderful scent. The flowers are much larger than P edulis and much more colorful. Unfortunately the flowers are nodding so don't display as nice as the other. It is a VERY aggressive vine. It is currently setting fruit. The taste is similar to P edulis, a little sweeter and less tangy, overall a more mild flavor.
All the goodie will be inside the hollow fruit. You'll see what looks something like cucumber seeds each inside a little sack (somewhat like pomegranate but not pretty and they're not long like cucumber seeds). I like to take a grapefruit spoon and scrape out the interior from each half into a small sieve over a cup. Then I take a pestle to gently crush the juice sacks, pour warm water over it; add sweetener and drink!
I'm so looking forward to my one little fruit! Thanks again for all the help!
