Kem Ormond's tamarillo tree.
Kem Ormond is a features writer for The Country. She’s also a keen gardener. This week, she’s enjoying a taste of the tropics.
Tamarillos
In a few months, we will have our fruit bowls brimming with some of these very exotic treats.
I am extremely excited to see that my tamarillo is heaving with fruit.
This is its first time fruiting as it was only planted late last year, but the fruit is colouring up nicely.
These are my favourite fruits, and I have a plan to help me manage over winter when they’re not available.
When they come in season, I stew them slightly, then freeze them in paper pottles.
Then I can have them on my porridge over winter, which is pure bliss.
I wrote an article about tamarillos in August last year, and I think you will be surprised to see the growth of this tree from then to now.
I have a good coverage of fruit on my feijoa bushes.
Soon, I will be pumping out feijoa crumble, muffins, and bread when my trees start dropping fruit.
One thing I find interesting is that mine are still small and would extract a tooth if you tried biting into them, whereas someone at a meeting I attended a few days ago brought along a large bag of enormous feijoas, ripe and ready to eat.
That shows that it is all in the variety you chose to grow.
The NZ Feijoa Growers Association is well worth checking out, and I have to say I have tried many of the recipes they have posted, and they are delicious.
Some varieties are better suited for hedging, some for early fruiting and others for later.
Then there is a tree called Wiki Tu, which is small in stature but produces large fruit.
Some later-ripening varieties include Opal Star, Wiki™ Tu and Triumph.
For hedging, Anatoki, Apollo, Kaiteri, Kakariki, Mammoth, Triumph, and Unique are all great options.
A clever idea is to plant a selection of varieties to provide cross-pollination.
Also, spread the harvest season with early, mid, and late ripening varieties.
No matter what variety you choose, they can be kept compact with regular pruning.
Then there is the under-rated persimmon.
They are in season in New Zealand between May and July, requiring a long growing season (7 months) to mature fruit.
This limits the fruit to warm northern regions in New Zealand, so if you live in Dunedin, it’s maybe not such a great idea to plant one.
They are not keen on cold spring winds and prefer to be planted in the full sun.
Old varieties were astringent, and the fruit almost needed to be well and truly overripe to attempt to eat.
However, new varieties, such as the popular Fuyu, are non-astringent.
Known for their squat, tomato-like shape, Fuyu can be eaten while still crisp.
Deciduous with broad leaves, it grows into a lovely, neat, compact-shaped tree and can easily be fan-trained or espaliered.
For more info on these fruits, check out my article from last year.
If you are thinking of planting a passionfruit, make sure you find a warm, sheltered position.
In fact, I grew my last passionfruit vine up and over my chook house.
Whether it was all that extra manure from the chooks, it just exploded and now covers the entire structure.
It softened the look of the chook house and added extra shade for the chooks.
Two good varieties I have grown are Black Beauty and Giant Granadilla.
With striking white and purple flowers, Black Beauty has egg-shaped fruit, dark purple with juicy yellow-orange pulp filled with small black seeds.
It is self-fertile and can grow 1.5-7 metres per year once established.
Fruit changes from green to dark purple when ready and is harvested from March to June.
Giant Granadilla is a vigorous plant from the vine because of its weight.
It produces 30cm fruit that turns a rich golden green with a fruity aroma when ripe, in summer to late autumn.
Passionfruit vines can be short-lived, but oh, so worth it!