Thursday, September 7, 2017

POG juice & passion fruit superbloom

Wow, my passion fruit is prolific! After not getting any fruit the first year I planted it, this summer we hand-pollinated all the flowers, which bloomed all of May and June.


It wasn't too daunting a task as there were only a handful of flowers a day, 12 at the most. We started reaping the bountiful harvest in early August. After a heat wave and then a touch of rain, here we are in early in September, the plant is covered in ripening fruit, and now has 30-50 flowers a day!

Passion fruit is a heavy feeder (I fertilize it every month that it's flowering/fruiting) and drinker (but hey, what am storing this rainwater for?).  It felt like the fruit would never ripen - but of course it did; they fall off the vine when they're ready - how convenient! Thanks, Mother Nature!

Juicing the fruit is pretty easy: cut in half, scoop out the flesh into a mesh stainer, and use a rubber spatula to stir and press the juice out (this process is faster than it sounds).

I planted passion fruit because I wanted to make POG - passion orange guava juice. I use a 1:1:1 ratio of oranges to passion fruit to small guavas. For the guava, I peel and seed the fruit and blend it with the passion and orange juice.