passion fruit

[chilli50]

hi. i have a 3 year old passion flower which grows over the coalshed on the side of my house. last year i was surprised and pleased to see that it had produced a couple of fruit. sadly they didn't grow properly. this year i haven't been able to spend as much time in the garden and have left the passion flower to its own devices. imagine my delight to notice today that it has produced AT LEAST 18 fruit, the largest of which is the size of a kiwi fruit.  ;D  my question is: are they edible and if so when are they ripe? I'm not too bothered if they aren't as the success of growing the fruit is almost reward enough. any advice is greatly appreciated :D

[chilli50]

[saddad]

Most Passion Flowers are edible, but not very nice, edulis is but compare your flowers with a website, through any search engine... the more standard your flowers eg not Red! the more likely to be edulis... ours came from an ebible one, a friend grew them for the hell of it!
:o

[PurpleHeather]

I am growing passion flowers too and asked the same question to a professional gardener, his reply was 'definately not to be eaten'.

[Woodpecker]

I grow the common passion flower and eat its fruits which I love (great with ice cream). You will either like them or hate them as they have a greenish, gooey, seedey constinuency and a bitter sweet flavour.

You must let them ripen fully so that the outer is almost black, quite hard and maybe starting to wrinkle a bit (you only eat the inside goo!)

Many plants do not flower or fruit well after a year or two. To encourage them try and restrict their roots by growing in a pot sunk in the ground - this also helps restrict the runners which will appear all over the place.

Try the link below for more info:-

http://www.passionflow.co.uk/

[OliveOil]

I didnt think you were supposed to eat passion flower fruit... as it is totally different to passionfruit.

Passionfruit is ready when it starts to wrinkle... but will keep for a few weeks and can be eaten when its really gone wrinkley.

The problem with supermarkets is they reduce the price of the passionfruit before they are even ripe - jsut to confuse everyone lol.

[fluffygrue]

Passion flower fruit is the same as passionfruit..

Probably you're growing the hardy Passiflora cearulea, which is edible but not hugely tasty. Are the flowers white with blue bits?

If you're managing to grow P. edulis outdoors without any effort, I'd be fairly jealous!

There's only a few species of Passiflora that are definitely not to be eaten, and they're pretty hard to get hold of..

[OliveOil]

How do you all cope with your passionfruit in the winter  - do you have them in a proper greenhouse?  I have a plastic mini greenhouse, i wonder if they would survive winter in that LOL

[Biscombe]

My vine is in its third year! The winter is quite cold here in Spain (Alpujarras) year before last it was -12 and last winter -5! My vine is outside with no protection in the winter and it just bounces back early spring! at the moment it has loads of fruits and I'm enduring the long wait before the fruits turn purple and I can scoff them!! Good luck with your fruits!