How To Grow Passion Fruit - Passion Fruit Growing Tips
Passiflora edulis or Passion Fruit is a vine species of passion flower native to southern Brazil through Paraguay and northern Argentina.
Today it is being cultivated commercially in tropical and subtropical areas for its sweet, seedy fruit, commonly called passion fruit.
The fruit is a type of berry, round to oval, either yellow or dark purple at maturity, with a soft to firm, juicy interior filled with numerous seeds. The fruit is both eaten and juiced, the juice often added to other fruit juices to enhance aroma.
How To Grow Passion fruit Vines
Like all fast growing plants Passion fruit needs a lot of nutrients. That lush green foliage has to come from somewhere, it can not materialize out of nothing. So Passion fruit vines need fertile soils, probably additional fertilizer, and they appreciate all the compost and mulch you can spare.
They also need full sun, a warm climate, and protection from wind. A sunny, sheltered site in a frost free climate is ideal. There are some purple varieties that can handle the odd very light frost. And sometimes, even though the top of a vine is killed by frost, the roots re shoot. However, the warmer the climate, the easier it is to grow passion fruit.
Passion fruit need something to climb over. A fence, a water tank, a trellis, anything will do. Watch where you plant them, because they will be up in the crown of a nearby tree before you know...
Passion fruit plants have a vulnerable root system. A healthy soil, teeming with worms and microbes and lots of organic matter is your best bet. If your soil is poor you will get problems with wilt diseases, root rot and nematodes. Heavy clay soils also cause problems with rot diseases.
Watering
the root system of passion fruits is small for the size of the plant it has to sustain. Especially while a passion fruit is fruiting it needs a lot of water. It needs a very regular water supply at all times. However, passion fruit can't handle waterlogged soil. Make sure your site is free draining.
Growing Passion fruit Seeds
If I can grow something from seed I will. If I can grow something from the seed of store bought fruit, even better. Why spend money on a nursery plant if you don't need to?
Growing passion fruit seeds is not hard. The seed just needs to be fresh. For some reason old seed takes a lot longer to germinate. So buy some nice passion fruit, separate half a dozen seeds from the pulp, and plant them as soon as possible. They take about ten to twenty days to germinate.
If you buy your seed then it's likely older, so be prepared to wait. Old passion fruit seeds can take months to germinate. The best way seems to be to just put them in the garden and leave them be, and eventually they come up. Or not.
There are some tricks like soaking the seeds in warm water first, and some people swear by vinegar. Others report their acidic soil seems to do the job. I believe in fresh seed. Whenever I used fresh seed it came up without problems.
Planting Passion fruit Vines
You can plant out your seedlings when they are about eight inches high (20 cm). If you wait too long and they are much bigger than that prune them back as you plant them out. It helps reduce moisture loss while the root system settles in.
Make sure that whatever support you have in mind is strong enough for the vine. They do get huge and heavy pretty quickly and need something sturdy.
Also be aware that a vigorously growing passion fruit will climb over any- and everything it can reach and can quickly smother plants. Make your own life easier by growing passion fruit away from other shrubs and trees.
Be careful to disturb the roots as little as possible. Dig a big enough hole, at least twice as big as the root ball, and mix the soil with compost before you back fill. Then mulch thickly around the plant.
In the early days you may have to train your vine up the support, by carefully tying it.
But it will quickly get the message. As soon as there is something for the little tendrils to grab hold of, say the first wire on your trellis, it will climb on its own.
Fertilizer requirements And Watering
Yep, plenty of both, please. Passion fruit needs a steady supply of both water and nutrients.
Of course, as always, don't overdo it. Over watering can lead to root problems. Make sure you don't have water puddling and not draining away.
Overfeeding can also lead to problems. Too much nitrogen (most commercial fertilizers are heavy on nitrogen) will lead to lots of soft green leaves, attractive to all sorts of insects and diseases, but you get little fruit.
So, lots of compost, lots of mulch, and the odd sprinkle of a balanced, organic, slow release fertilizer.
Maturity Period
That depends on several factors. The tropical varieties fruit quicker then the purple passion fruit.
Any passion fruit will reach maturity sooner if growing in a warmer climate.
A passion fruit vine planted in spring fruits sooner than a passion fruit planted in autumn.
In ideal conditions (early spring planting in the tropics) you can get fruit within six months. Autumn planting in a cooler climate means you may have to wait for over 12 months.
Harvesting
That's what I love best about growing passion fruit. You don't need to worry about harvesting them. When they are ready they'll drop. Dropping on the ground does not hurt them the least bit. You just collect them as often as you feel like it.
When one of my passion fruit vines is in peak production I usually do it twice a day. My vines are very productive. Otherwise I will pick up my red passion fruit daily. It has a much thinner skin and I find it goes mouldy on the inside unless I put it in the fridge straight away.
My yellow passion fruits do not mind lying on the ground in the sun for a few days, and then sitting on the kitchen bench for weeks. They shrivel up and look awful, but they are still juicy and delicious inside.
Pruning
Pruning passion fruit is essential.
Well, usually it is. I don't always do it. Some of my passion fruit vines raced up into some huge trees and I can't get to them. So I just let them be.
Anyway, most people grow passion fruit on much smaller structures, like fences or trellises. If you don't prune your passion fruit you end up up with a thick, tangled mess of dead wood, and a plant that has lots of problems with fungal diseases.
Don't be shy, take your cutters to it. In the tropics you can prune a passion fruit as soon as it has finished fruiting. In cooler climates prune passion fruit in early spring.
Cut out everything that is dead or weak, trim healthy branches by about a third, and even fully remove some of them. You have to keep the plant within bounds, you need to make sure that some air can circulate through the foliage, and you want to stimulate vigorous new growth. Passion fruit only sets fruit on new growth.
If your passion fruit is growing where it shouldn't, or threatening to smother other plants, you can of course trim those shoots at any time.
Live Span
I already mentioned it, growing passion fruit can be tricky because they are very susceptible to all sorts of root problems. Usually the plants are not all that long lived, five to seven years is a long life for a passion fruit vine.
Commercial passion fruit growers work on a life span of three years for their passion fruit vines. However, a well tended, well fed vine in a good location in healthy soil may live a lot longer.
I find that after three years the productivity of a vine definitely decreases, so I don't plan for them to live any longer than that. I simply start one or two new plants every other year. I'm lucky enough to have the space to do so.
If you don't have that space you will need to watch your passion fruit carefully, so that if you notice problems you can replant in time.
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