Love Is A Loaded Passion Fruit Vine

Love Is A Loaded Passion Fruit Vine

I love my loaded Passion fruit vine during February. Passion fruit thrive in the subtropics and almost anywhere that is not frost affected. Our vine, is 4 years old now and produces the purple fruit, Passiflora edulis. It was planted to grow on the boundary fence, but amazingly it has grown over the safety net around the trampoline. The effect is magnificent, and is a very good use of the vertical space created by the net. The result is a bouncy, leafy bower, complete with dangling sweet treats.

Packed with Vitamin C and iron, the delicious healthy balance between acidity and sweetness lends itself to complement many deserts and ice creams, though most of ours are eaten straight off the vine. I will give away and process much of the fruit in the coming weeks as the crop quickly ripens. It is wonderful to pull out frozen Passion fruit pulp mid-winter for a treat.

Fun fact – a Passion fruit is actually a berry, and within each berry is typically 250 seeds.

Endless Passion fruit is sweet compensation for the lack of leafy greens from the garden at the height of summer, but for now the laden Passion fruit vine is ripening at the rate of 2 or 3 Passion fruit per day – one for me, one for you and one for the freezer, perfect!

Rain refreshed, it’s time to plant

REFRESHED AFTER THE RAIN make the most of a rain event which naturally refreshes the soil to plant the garden after the summer heat. The recent rains that accompanied the Super Blue Moon broke the spell of the dry summer and made it possible to grow greens again. Now is the time to plant silverbeet and lettuce.

I want to eat super tasty, fresh plucked organic greens from the garden each day.

Our backyard is set to be rejigged soon, and the raised garden bed will be moved, so for now the growing area will be on the ground along the south fence, a very sunny position.

PREPARE THE GARDEN, I have shovelled some of the soil from the raised veggie garden onto the ground to make a new garden, added compost and watered all. This garden includes container planting – 5 black recycled tubs – and not a lot of planning, it will be interesting to see where the veggies flourish.

PLANT SILVERBEET. For a spend of $35 on seedlings (silverbeet is currently $4 per bunch at the shops), and a bale of organic sugar cane mulch, I now have a potential crop of 10 silverbeet plants, 8 Cos Lettuce, 4 Rocket plants and one Tommy Tomato, oh and not to forget the several clumps of Chives. More garden space is available for a succession crop.

With regular water – it will be essential to water twice a day for a week until the seedlings establish, and in a couple of weeks we will be eating from the garden again.

So, just like that, after the full moon rain, the veggie garden is growing again. Silverbeet and lettuces will be ready to eat soon!

Rain refreshed, it’s time to plant!

Leafy Greens, Yes Please!

For a busy family, growing food in the backyard seems so simple and essential when the crops are blooming. From March to November last year, the garden produced so much silverbeet, lettuce, cabbage and parsley, as well as several crops of butter beans and green beans – enough to fulfil most of our ‘greens’ needs.

Post Christmas holidays the garden is run down, the only edible greens are a couple of clumps of parsley. It is tough to keep the plants alive through the heat of summer. Now the first rains of February have broken the spell, it’s time to plant, grow and eat greens from the backyard again… and never buy anymore silverbeet!

Flat-leaf Parsley, a great low maintenance summer staple