- Today is something special and that's growing passion fruit in Utah.
Now, passion fruit, as you know, is not something that really just sprouts out of the ground in Utah.
It just doesn't grow here unless you get a little creative and a little crazy like me.
And then it does.
I'm gonna give you some few tips of how you're gonna grow passion fruit in Utah.
You are gonna find so much joy and pride when you get to taste something that nobody has grown in Utah before.
I wanna give a quick shoutout to our sponsors, Merit Medical and Red Butte Garden and Arboretum, as they make these shows possible along with you.
Passion fruit, again, tropical vine.
It's not gonna love it if you leave it out if temps are below for sure lower than 45.
I really like to pull it out when the temps are above 50.
If you don't, like my friend who's letting me use his vine, Lamar, he was a little aggressive and he decided to pull it out and there's a little bit of cold damage, right, Lamar?
So in the springtime, I like to pull mine out mid, late May, and then come fall, I will really be careful to watch my temps and get that either frost covered or pulled into my house to make sure that I'm not gonna lose all that beautiful fruit.
Now when I'm saying pull the plant out, I'm not saying pull it outta the pot and transplant in the ground, right?
I am carrying my giant pot down the stairs out the door.
And then I will take it with my mighty muscles back in the house up the stairs and that's what I'm doing.
Let's talk sun.
Passion fruit loves the sun.
They want all the sun.
So when you're taking it outside, make sure that you're putting in a beautiful, sunny location.
And when you're inside, that's where it gets a little tricky.
I have a nice south-facing window that I'll put my passion fruit in, but the backside of it doesn't necessarily get as much sun as it should.
There's a couple things we can do.
I'm lazy.
I used to rotate my plant, but you know, at that point I kinda lost the passion.
However, what I do do is I get a grow light that I put on the backside that's set on a timer that will go off in the morning and keep the backside happy and healthy as well.
Now, passion fruit, they're pretty dramatic plants.
They will tell you instantly if they need water, suddenly you'll look outside, it's lush and beautiful.
Five minutes later, it will droop over and just look like a dead vine.
Passion fruits like a lot of water.
Remember, it's a tropical fruit.
It's not meant to stay in Utah soil.
So I usually have a big pot, one that can really retain a lot of moisture in it, and I will water it deep every day and make sure that you don't wanna have it soggy soil, but it will suck up all of that water, especially during the heat of summer.
In the wintertime, when it's in my house, I'm probably watering it every three, maybe five days.
Just depends on how it goes.
Now another thing that's super important is fertilizer.
They are hungry, and they need a lot of food, especially during the summer months.
'cause you are not just growing a vine here, you're growing some fruit.
So I really like a 10, 10, 10 fertilizer.
Or you can in the summertime up your nitrogen a little bit.
And then in the wintertime, I just kind of slow release, something that's every four to six weeks, just to keep the vine alive and while it's going through dormancy and also it will be producing fruit.
Other problems that you might run into that you'll see.
Spider mites are frequent on passion fruit, so you need to treat for that.
I've never had a problem with aphids, but I've heard people have had problems with aphids.
Grasshoppers, those little buggers, they like to come up and eat your leaves.
So it's not per se, a pest-free plant.
You're gonna have to be diligent in keeping it healthy.
Something super important.
You're growing a vine and it definitely needs some support.
A nice, strong trellis is great.
When you're doing it, make sure that you're not weaving your vine in and out, trying to make it look like it's been growing there forever.
Lay the vine on top of the trellis, clip it with clamps.
Otherwise, you're gonna have a nightmare of a time trying to pull that vine out, lose some fruit, as you're putting it inside for winter.
Another important thing is to make sure that you prune your vine.
All plants love a haircut, especially passion fruit.
I like just to cut off the bad leaves and then I will cut vigorously those vines back just to tame it.
Get that desire for the passion to keep on growing and have a healthy and happy plant.
My favorite time to prune is in early spring before I pull it out.
And then if I can do a haircut, I will in the fall, but sometimes I will have fruit on the vine so I'm not as aggressive as I am in the spring.
Something important about fruit, you usually will get your flowers late in August and it's so beautiful and fun and that fruit comes on super fast.
But when you get that flower blooming, expect fruit right away and that fruit will take probably about three, sometimes four months for mine to develop.
And oftentimes that's in the middle of December or January that I start seeing and hearing fruit plunking down my stairs.
And I'm not just getting one or two fruit off of it.
I'm actually getting up to a hundred fruit every year.
But I do use two vines to grow.
So if you're lucky and you find a friend in Utah that's deciding they're growing a passion fruit vine, and you wanna grow a passion fruit vine, make sure to check out our short, How to Propagate Passion Fruit.
Gardening is all about the experience.
There's no end journey at this point.
And trying something different, trying something hard, and trying it over and over again only makes us better.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Thanks for watching and see you next time.