How to ignore your guava

Guava trees produce small, white flowers in late spring. They fruit from about mid-April until June-July, depending on their geographical location.

Years of neglect bear fruit, thanks to this quiet achiever's accommodating nature.

I can't imagine why I planted a guava. At the time I bought it I was probably attracted to the foliage, but I suspect I didn't even know it made fruit and I'd certainly never tasted one. The plant didn't do anything spectacular in its first five minutes, so I turned my attention to the higher achievers and ignored it for the next four years.

I noticed it this year only because, ambling past one day on my way to some other, more interesting part of the garden, I squelched through a mushy carpet of windfall guava, slipped, and became acquainted with the fruit at rather closer range than I had planned.

There were certainly plenty of them, both on the tree and off, so I decided I had better find something to do with them. It didn't occur to me at that point to simply eat them, so I trawled through pages of recipes on the internet and finally found one that seemed easy. Cook them to a pulp and add to stewed apple, it said.

I picked a colander full, added the four granny smiths still clinging to our solitary apple tree and headed for the kitchen to make pulp. I sampled a couple of guava on the way. Sweet and tart at the same time, with an indescribable flavour, they created a taste explosion in my mouth. I decided I might pay the guava tree a little more attention.

Guavas, I'm told, are hardy and, having ignored mine for over five years, I believe it. (On the upside, had I nurtured it, it might be twice its height by now and I wouldn't be able to reach the fruit.)

They tolerate a wide range of temperatures, which is why I can now swap notes with a friend in Christchurch on the comparative results of growing guava in the Far North and the Deep South. She says hers has occasionally had some leaf damage in really frosty weather, but that's about the worst of it. She is, however, anticipating it may resent the replacement of its well-drained garden bed with a whole lot of gluey, stinky goo as a result of liquefaction. I've offered to adopt it should it want to leave home.

Guavas like free-draining soil and lots of sun, and the shady spot mine occupies may explain why it's taken five years to get to a height where it's finally captured my attention.

Call me opportunistic, but now that I've discovered I like the fruit, I'm going to nurture the tree. I'm committed to giving it a feed of fertiliser with a high nitrogen content and pruning it in early spring.

The guava is self-fertile, so you need only one, but I think I might plant a second one anyway, since I missed the first one's childhood altogether.

Guava trees produce small, white flowers in late spring - in fact, mine's probably been doing so for years, if I'd only noticed. They fruit from about mid-April until June-July, depending on whether you're north or south, and the fruit are ready when they're deep-red and soft to the touch. Eat the unripe ones at your peril - your cheeks may never reinflate.

Guava, Apple and Anything Crumble

Most guava recipes I found on the internet were for complicated jams, jellies and chutneys. One, however, was dead simple. Chuck them in a saucepan with a little water (I used the three mouthfuls of chardonnay left in last night's bottle instead) and a sprinkle of brown sugar. I added the juice and rind of a lime -  just to get rid of one more of the little green suckers - and stewed the mixture for about 10 minutes. I sliced apples, kiwifruit and feijoas into an ovenproof dish, poured over the guava pulp, sprinkled with a mixture of brown sugar and cornflour, and covered the fruit with crumble. I baked it for about half an hour and we ate it with far, far too much whipped cream. The guava turned the fruit a beautiful shade of red and both the look and the taste were truly fabulous.

If you want the exact recipe, email info@gardenpress.net. The crumble, from Annabel Langbein's The Free Range Cook, is to die for. Try it only if you want to be a really fat person who eats crumble every night.