Passionfruit

6 Comments
Miniature Passionfruit

My passionflower vine grew a passionfruit! This may seem like small hat (or other small things) to those of you living in the warm, Southern regions of the world, but it’s a BIG deal to a Northern gardener like me. I have grown passionflower vine many times in the past. In fact I grew one plant for many years, cutting it back and bringing it inside every winter until I grew tired of tripping over it in the hallway and let it succumb to the cold outdoors one fall. That vine grew large and abundant with flowers every summer but it NEVER once even toyed with the idea of making fruit.

I first discovered the tiny passionfruit back in July and watched it eagerly for about a month hoping against hope that it would grow into a brag-worthy fruit. Today, on my daily plant inspection I noticed that the tiny fruit — a fruit that has not grown a millimeter since July — has changed colour from dark green to light green. I cut it open to find that it is mostly hollow inside with six, small but mature seeds. I ate two of the seeds. They are completely tasteless.

But so what. I successfully nurtured a tiny, tasteless, passionfruit. My garden kicks boatloads of ass-kicking ass!

Passionflower
    Passionflower. Grown in a container I garbage picked in one of Toronto’s “finer” neighbourhoods.
Gayla Trail
Gayla is a writer, photographer, and former graphic designer with a background in the Fine Arts, cultural criticism, and ecology. She is the author, photographer, and designer of best-selling books on gardening, cooking, and preserving.

Subscribe to get weekly updates from Gayla

6 thoughts on “Passionfruit”

  3. That is impressive. I’ve had the passion fruit plant that is sitting beside me, for ages and never a hint of a fruit. Maybe I should tell it next fall it will be staying outside.

  4. uhh the reason there is no fruit is probally because you need to fertiilize the plant. I don’t know how your plant randomly grew fruit. However, one spring a plant in my house grew huge sweet smelling flowers without any fertilization. It might be a random mother-nature occurance that happens in plants ever so often.

  5. I fertilized the plant. I was growing it in Toronto, Canada. The climate isn’t warm long enough nor is the daylight bright enough for enough months. I think it’s just a fluke that it grew a fruit…. a single tasteless, empty fruit. My taking credit for the tasteless fruit was just my attempt at humor.

  6. I grew a passionflower in my north facing windowsill last summer, and I got fruit, not as big as that one, but I got fruit! And, I live in Edmonton, Alberta!!!

Comments are closed.