Since Papa is a fan of strange and bizarre foods, it should come as no surprise that I have a dragon in my garden. Actually, I have many, in the form of Pitaya plants, also known as DRAGONFRUIT!
It all started last winter when I was considering what to grow in my garden this year, and in the years to come. I ordered some of the pruned cuttings of these great succulent plants from a Pitaya grower in Florida, and soon I had something to work with. I had never tasted the fruit, but I did know quite a bit about them, and was eager to begin to grow my own.
When I planted the cuttings, some began to grow new sections right away. Others just sat there, remaining dormant.
Some even began to die back, and shrunk from 18 inches down to just a few. Still, I know enough about plants to know that if there is still some green, there is still a chance, because the plant has not completely died.
Before too long, even the ones that had been dying back began to grow new sections.
Never give up on a plant! Some will surprise you if you only wait.
So they kept growing and growing, sending their roots deeper into the soil and making more new sections.
I used a lot of organic material and rabbit manure to make sure that these plants had plenty of nutrients.
A few times, some even flowered for a moment, but thankfully the young flowers fell off. I say thankfully because these plants most likely did not have the root system necessary to produce mature fruit anyway, and I'd rather have them invest their energy in new growth.
In their native tropical wilds, they will climb up trees and actually root directly into the bark as well, which helps to hold these plants upright. A few of mine began to shoot out roots higher up as well.
Finally, I found some ripe fruit at a grocery store outside of Branson, MO. For the first time in my life, I would get to taste the legendary Dragonfruit.
The fruit itself is quite large, and certainly has an interesting look to it. It is the peculiar look of the fruit that gives this plant its common name, dragonfruit.
Once sliced open, the amazing color of this variety immediately struck me. From what I understand, dragonfruit comes in two main colors on the inside, either the bright pink or magenta variety, or a white fleshed version. I'm not sure what kind mine are, but the one I picked up was the bright pink kind.
Once inside of this strange fruit, you may be wondering how to eat it.
The thick skin easily peels off of the tender flesh. The flesh can be eaten as is, or used in a variety of desserts and fruit dishes, including smoothies.
I can't wait until next year when I can hopefully begin to grow my own. I'll need to keep these indoors or in a greenhouse for the winter, but if I can keep them alive, I should be able to grow my own fruit next year.
On the inside, these amazing plants look very similar to a Kiwi, in that they have a fantastic color and many tiny black seeds. If you know much about @papa-pepper, then you'll already know that I like to find seeds.
I like to take a few of the seeds and clean them off. Then, I place them on a wet paper towel.
Next I'll stick that paper towel in a plastic bag, inflate it, and seal it. Then I'll place it in a sunny location and wait.
Within a few days, the seeds should start to sprout!
Here is what they looked like earlier today. This means that any variety I can get my hands on, I should be able to grow. Even if the cuttings that I got were from the white-fleshed variety, now I have some of the pink-fleshed variety growing as well.
I'm glad that I finally got to try to eat some of the fruit from this amazing plant, and I'm also glad that I can at least try to grow my own. What a blessing it is to be able to enjoy so many different varieties of food from around the world, and even grow some yourself.
For more on propagating the pitaya plant, check out this post:
papa-peppers Guide to Plant Propagation - Prickly Pear & Pitaya
As always, I'm @papa-pepper, and here's the proof:
proof-of-papa-and-pitaya
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