OMG!!! So, I was talking to my neighbor over the fence yesterday, and I looked down, and there on the larger Randia formosa (which has been in-ground for at least 2 years, and is the only one of the two so far to flower) was a fruit!!!
*My question is, when should I harvest it? It is very tiny... like maybe 1.5 cm long? But it is yellowish, like pictures I have seen... does that mean it's ready? When I touched it, it seemed firm, so did not give any clue as to ripeness that way, and did not ready fall off the branch by being held.
For the info of others here, I have 2 plants side-by-side - maybe a year younger and about half the size of the other. The larger one has only ever produced a single flower, that I have seen, and I do look over all my plants regularly. The flower was large, white, flat, and beautifully fragrant. It had no visible pollen. So I am really baffled how this plant could have made a fruit... I never saw even a single flower this year! The single flower I had, came I think around May or so of last year on the larger plant. (Don't remember... I wrote it in another thread though, maybe the one about waiting so long...). So is this plant one of those that can produce fruit apparently without multiple flowering plants, and also even without multiple flowers on the SAME plant? The fruit is down low a bit underneath the plant near the ground, so I can see how I would have missed the flower. But I wonder how long it was there before it created the fruit, and if in fact there never was another flower to pollinate...?
Anyway, this is amazing news for me. Especially after so many plants have yet to produce anything, and then the 3 natal plums flower profusely but have not made a single fruit, I have been getting very frustrated. Natal plum are similar with a white fragrant flower, and no visible pollen. Like Randia formosa, it is another species that has variable taste quality depending on the plant.
I am really hoping this particular Randia turns out to have good flavor. From everything I have read, it sounds like it is highly variable, with some people having really great flavor, and some poor. I have not seen clear notes as to whether this is more a function of the soil and/or climate, or just the individual plant. Possibly some of both..
I was expecting the fruit to be much bigger though... not the size of a fingertip. Do they keep growing? Or once they turn yellowish, is that it?