By Lee Koelzer | Director
The first time I heard of a giant passion fruit I was ESTATIC! I mean- passion fruits are delicious little shriveled nuggets of heaven- but a passion fruit the size of my head? My mind was blown. And of course I had to grow them! Eventually I managed to get a fruit and it was amazing. The seeds were the typical sweet and tart passion fruit I was used to, and it was encased in an amazing melon-like capsule. The skin was much softer and more easily damaged, and the ENTIRE THING was edible!
We kept the seeds and propogated them. Our first vines were grown at the farm as a trial to see how they would work. The vines grow thicker than standard passion fruit vines, but to hold fruit that can easily weigh 7 pound thaat is understandable. After about 16 months our first fruit were started to ripen. We invited villagers passing by the farm over to try them and they were both suprised and excited as most had never seen them before. We cut the melon portion into slices and it is so soft and juicy that with the first bite the juice started dripping off our elbows.
Fortunately, the villagers were also eager to try growing this bizarre new fruit so again we harvested the seeds, and when the seedings were about 12 inches tall we started distributing them to the villagers.
Now, a couple years later, the vines are huge and healthy and fruit about once per year. Most of the villagers just eat them at home as they are delicious and SUPER healthy as they are full of antioxidants, vitamin C, and a plethora of other vitamins and such. A few bring them back to us to sell and we sell them at farmers markets and to a local high-end Japanese restaurant.
I love success stories, and our giant passion fruit adventure has been 100% successful.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.