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Topics - NickD

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Some photos of my Kangaroo Apple (solanum laciniatum) plants. I would describe it as an edible ornamental.

Very thick (about 5cm) and rigid deep purple stem with big dark green leaves and pretty purple flowers. The flowers look similar to eggplant flowers, but much larger (about 5cm). Unlike other flowering plants where individual petals drop to the ground separately, with Kangaroo Apple, the whole flower parachutes down to decorate the ground in intact form.

The fruits are toxic when unripe, but then turn from green to yellow to orange. When they're orange and separate from the stem easily, they are ripe, and taste like a mix of eggplant, tomato/tamarillo and apricot - sweet, bitter and sour, and seedy. Mind you, my fruits only began to ripen after the frost, maybe if they had ripened earlier in the season the taste would be different.

The plants are semi-hardy, light frosts didn't do any damage, and even with several frosts of -5C to -4C, only tips of the stems, flowers and smaller fruits were damaged, most of the stems and leaves were still in good condition, and larger fruits approaching maturity appeared to have been undamaged as well.

I started my plants a bit late - sowing seeds in late April and only transplanting them in mid June. However, they grow very fast, so they reached a height of 7ft only about 2.5 months from transplanting. The fruits are slow to develop though, taking 4-5 months to ripen from the transplanting date. I'll try to overwinter some in a pot (I'm in zone 5) and see if that helps them hit the ground running earlier in the season - they should be okay to go outside in early May even if we get a light frost due to being semi-hardy.











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Temperate Fruit Discussion / Novelty nightshades
« on: September 21, 2024, 04:53:56 PM »
This is the afternoon's sampling from the garden, mostly nightshades plus a few other things.


Solanum alatum - orange little berries, taste sweet like grapes, grows and ripens quickly, if started indoors around the same time as tomatoes, they can ripen 6-8 weeks after transplanting.
Solanum retroflexum - black little berries, more of a complex spicy taste, still sweet, maybe a bit like blueberry or black currant? Also quick to mature.
Solanum villosum - yellow little berries, tastes a bit between ground cherry and cherry tomatoes. Also quick to mature.

Queen of malinalco tomatillo. Tasted one raw, haven't make salsa yet since I don't quite have enough for that yet, but it does ripen faster than my purple tomatillo, which is appreciated.

Tzimbalo. Supposedly edible, but so far they taste pretty awful... Maybe they're not ripe yet. Hard to tell when they are though since the colour doesn't change.

Purple Jaltomato (next to the raspberries). Tastes a bit like tomatillo, a bit like apple, a bit like blueberry? Supposedly hardy to zone 8, so I'll see if it survives in my garage - overwintering will be useful since the germination is tricky. So far, not very productive, but maybe it's because my plants were slow to germinate and get going, and once they get bigger there will be more (but I've got only 1 month of growing season left).

Ground cherry. Probably people are familiar with it, tastes in between tomato, tomatillo and pinneapple? Pretty easy to grow, even in short and cool growing seasons like mine, especially if started indoors around the same time as tomatoes, but even self-sown volunteers can ripen by late summer.

Cape gooseberry. Sweeter and tastier than ground cherry in my opinion, with larger fruit. Plants are bigger too, but fruit takes longer to ripen, so may be beneficial to overwinter in the garage here. Supposedly hardy to Zone 8 to maybe they'll make it if my garage only gets down to 20-25F?

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Zone 5 passionfruit experiments
« on: June 03, 2024, 09:49:28 PM »
I'm currently trying to grow passifloras, both for flowers and for fruits, in Canada Zone 5 north of Toronto.

I started in 2022 with passiflora incarnata (maypop) and passiflora caerulea, which I planted in-ground. In fall 2022, I took cuttings of those and rooted them, since I decided it was better to grow them in pots.


In 2023, I got some purple passionfruit (passiflora edulis) and sweet granadilla (passiflora ligularis) at the grocery store and used seeds from those, and also managed to germinate passiflora tripartita and manicata from seeds off Etsy. Some were a little slow to get going, but eventually put on a good amount of foliage during the summer.
Meanwhile, my two passiflora caerulea and my one passiflora incarnata bloomed nicely during the summer, and the passiflora incarnata began to set fruit in August. That's later than ideal, since I had to carefully bring the plants indoors to a south facing window without breaking the vines that had fruits on them when we got our first frost in mid-October. The fruits finally ripened indoors by late November.

Passiflora caerulea spent the winter in the garage, where temperatures were a few degrees below freezing during the coldest part of January. The rest of the plants were in south-facing windows for the winter.

Mid April 2024, the passiflora caerulea starts putting on new growth in the garage, so I take them outside.

Mid May 2024, with the threat of frost passed, I brought the rest of the passifloras outside.

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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Can you bury passionflower trunk?
« on: April 18, 2024, 01:33:21 PM »
I'm growing passionflowers in containers, and the soil level has been dropping. I guess the compost in the soil has been breaking down. My 5-6 gal pots now have a soil line that's about 3-4" below the rim of the containers, so I want to add 2-3" of soil to bring it to within 1" of the rim to make full use of the size of the container.

Is it okay to bury the stem/trunk of the vines like that? I know for young plants/thinner vines it's fine and they'll just grow new roots from the buried part, but I was wondering if it's still okay for thicker woodier growth that's about 1/2" to 3/4" thick. Also, some of these vines are starting to branch out from the trunk very close to the ground level, so there would be some nodes for thicker secondary vines that get buried too.

It seems like I might have to repeat the process on a regular basis, once or twice per season, due to the fact that the soil had a lot of organic matter in it.

Species I'm growing in containers include

incarnata
caerulea
manicata
tripartita (var azuayensis)
edulis
ligularis

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This is what I'm attempting to do in Zone 5, wonder if anyone else has attempted the same.

I have passiflora edulis, ligularis, tripartita (var azuayensis), manicata, caerulea and incarnata.

Incarnata and caerulea might be able to overwinter in-ground here with sufficient mulching, at least during mild winters. They were able to when I lived 50 miles further south (Zone 6) during the mild 2022-2023 winter. However, they take too long to sprout/wake from dormancy in the spring so I don't get any flowers unless I grow them in containers.

Currently, my plants are about to enter their second season. Most are grown from seed, although caerulea and incarnata are from cuttings. Have you found you can get fruits on your first year (rather than 2nd-3rd) if you grow the plants from cuttings?

And is the growing season long enough to get fruits in Zone 4-6? Last/first frost is May 10 and Oct 10 here, on average.

Which species are able to overwinter in a dormant state and at what temperatures? My garage is at 25-40F during the winter, and I tried overwintering caerulea in there and they seem okay. My root/wine cellar in the basement is around 40-50F during the winter, so that's also a possibility for non-frost hardy plants. I overwintered my yacon in there and it seems to have worked out (yacon is now sprouting new growth). Would edulis for example be able to overwinter in a dormant state at 40-50F (no light)? How about ligularis?

For now, I'm keeping ligularis, edulis, manicata, incarnata, and tripartita in a south facing window of my house (room temperature, 65-70F).

Would you agree that the foliage of most species other than caerulea and its hybrids is not hardy to hard freezes (below 28F or so)? That was the hardiness of my incarnata foliage that I had in-ground. As for my other 4 species, I didn't dare expose them to any frosts yet. Would even light freezes be risky (30-32F)?

Also does anyone know what the difference is between tripartita azuayensis and mollisima? The source I bought passiflora seeds from only had azuayensis but it seems like mollisima is more commonly grown for banana passionfruit.

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