Passion Fruit (Purple and Hybrid)

This seasons Passion Fruit were extremely productive. I heard this from other Passion Fruit growers as well, which indicates favorable weather conditions and not necessarily my skill :) 

These are a hybrid of yellow and purple Passion Fruit. They turn purple, but grow much larger.

I tried to count the number of flowers I pollinated and how many fruit dropped after they matured, but I lost count; however, I estimate I pollinated over a thousand flowers and got about 700 fruit. There are still about 50 fruit on the vines.

Though it was impossible to individually cover every fruit, I did cover about 50 to use as gifts. Fruit that are wrapped are generally flawless and more sweet since they do not have the stress of insects attacking them and the sun beating down on them. 

I do not pick the fruit, but rather wait until they mature and fall off the vine. I was gathering about 50 fruit a day for nearly two weeks. 

The right Passion Fruit on the left picture is what a freshly dropped Passion Fruit looks like, but after a week or so it will shrivel up if left outside like the left one; however, in many causes the pulp inside is just fine and often very sweet. So don't just assume. Check it.

I gave many Passion Fruit away and with the rest I made jam, Passion Fruit butter, froze the pulp or ate fresh. Sometimes I removed the seeds before freezing so I could use the juice to make ice cream or smoothies. Each bag contains 250 grams. Lay the bags on a flat tray to freeze, which makes storage easy.

9 June

When making jam I will remove most of the seeds to make it easy to eat. The seeds actually account for nearly half the weight of the pulp, so 952 grams of pulp will make about 500 grams of juice.

After I boiled down the juice (500 grams), sugar (225 grams), pectin (6 tsp), lemon juice (1 tsp) and vanilla (1 tsp) I got a little less than 400 grams of jam, which filled three 128 gram jars and a little extra.

18 June

The average Passion Fruit produces roughly 28 grams of pulp. Each of these bags contain 250 grams of pulp, which means I gathered this pulp from roughly 63 Passion Fruit.

21 June

25 June

30 June

2 July

This pulp is still in the refrigerator and will be used to make Passion Fruit butter.

9 July