I grew up having an abundance of passionfruit.
Fresh from the vine and frozen pulp in off season.
My grandparents lived at One Mile and back then heavy frosts would descend every winter and the Passionfruit vine would be almost destroyed. Every spring we’d cut it back and allow it to reshoot and take over a section of fence once again. Some years Pop would plant seeds he got up from the previous years plant or he would plant a whole new plant if the previous year’s plant did not perform to his standard.
As he got older and I too got older it was left up to me to trim and rebuild the passionfruit trellis. These plants can climb as high and as wide as you allow them. Some places say allow an 8m spread!
For us the rule was as high as we can grab and as wide as we can go!
It was always a race to get to the ripe fruit before the birds. My grandfather had set up elaborate contraptions to keep the birds out with jingle bells, cds and glowing eye owls but the cockatoos are sneaky buggers and they would still steal the fruit. Lucky for us there was always plenty to go around.
My children grew up with fresh passionfruit and one day I heard my daughter tell her friend .... “oh it’s been too dry that’s why the pulp isn’t as nice this time!”
My grandfather always grew Passionfruit Panama Red. It has a red skin and is very sweet as long as it gets regular water. It’s also self pollinating. He tried Passionfruit Panama Gold one year but he declared that the only real difference is that one has gold and one has red skin. Panama Gold is believed to have an almost creamier taste but pop couldn’t tell and told me that the yellows look wrong so back to red it was!
In most parts of Queensland passionfruit grows so well we don’t need grafted or cultivated varieties.
My grandfather would always make sure his passionfruit were planted into excellent quality garden soil. He would fertilise them with Organic Link at beginning of the warm weather and we would alternate liquid fertilising them with Triple Boost or Potash and Silica every fortnight.
We did try a Banana Passionfruit (Passiflora tarminiana) vine one year but found it just did not perform anywhere near as well as the Panama varieties. Banana Passionfruit has bright pink flowers and its banana like fruit ripen from autumn to winter. It tastes sweeter than the traditional black passionfruit with a hint of banana. It is native to higher altitudes in South America so can withstand longer periods of cold. In many areas of Australia and New Zealand it is now considered a weed.
Trevallan stocks Passionfruit Panama Red and Gold through the warmer months of the year. This is one of the easiest fruiting plants to grow that will always repay you in kind with an abundance of fruit, no matter where you live.