Foodlovers Foodtalk Forum
Pomegranate bush
Posted by Dawn
Re: Pomegranate bush June 05, 2016 12:46AM |
Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 5,699 |
Helen I heard your interviews with Nalini yesterday morning on olives and later on pomegranates and found them both really interesting. Apparently pomegranates are really easy to propagate from cuttings and I might give that a go so I can grow one up at our beach house. Good luck with your tree when you get it planted Helen.
I've since had the thought that I could have covered my pomegranate bush with frost cloth to assist the last remaining fruit to hang on in and ripen. However, since I've got a plastic bag on the last fruit now, I'll see how that works this time.
Regards,
Dawn
I've since had the thought that I could have covered my pomegranate bush with frost cloth to assist the last remaining fruit to hang on in and ripen. However, since I've got a plastic bag on the last fruit now, I'll see how that works this time.
Regards,
Dawn
Re: Pomegranate bush August 05, 2016 05:21AM |
Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 5,699 |
Two days ago, sadly, I cut my third remaining pomegranate from the tree, reason being that it had been there for 6 months and it's size has been stationery for the past couple of months and I felt I should relieve the tree of fruit allowing it to put energy into this coming season's fruit as flowering should begin in two or three months time. This is the pomegranate I covered with a plastic bag (refer to above posts) to try to get it to ripen. The plastic bag did a sterling job in terms of helping to protect the fruit and there were no signs of rotting or deterioration and it was very firmly and happily attached to the tree. There were a couple of darkish marks on each side of the fruit which will have been caused by exposure to two extremely heavy frosts, but it survived very well. The outer colour of the fruit had gone pale, and I guess I would go pale too if I were a tropical fruit and left on the tree exposed to winter with a mere piece of plastic between my skin and the elements!!
I cut the fruit open to see what was happening inside and found the fruit beads not fully developed (which I expected) but the juice was wonderfully sweet. See attached photos. I am a little sad I cut the fruit from the tree as it would have been interesting to see if it would mature once the warmer weather arrives, but I didn't want to jeopardise this season's fruit.
Regards,
Dawn.
PS Sorry for such small photos - I had to reduce the size of the files as they were too large to attach, and then the computer reduced them too much and I didn't want to spend time figuring out how to make them a bit larger.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2016 06:21AM by Dawn.
I cut the fruit open to see what was happening inside and found the fruit beads not fully developed (which I expected) but the juice was wonderfully sweet. See attached photos. I am a little sad I cut the fruit from the tree as it would have been interesting to see if it would mature once the warmer weather arrives, but I didn't want to jeopardise this season's fruit.
Regards,
Dawn.
PS Sorry for such small photos - I had to reduce the size of the files as they were too large to attach, and then the computer reduced them too much and I didn't want to spend time figuring out how to make them a bit larger.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2016 06:21AM by Dawn.
Re: Pomegranate bush August 05, 2016 07:29AM |
Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 5,388 |
What an interesting exercise Dawn! I was wondering about this the other day, as I walked past the Pomegranate Tree down the road, and even though some fruit are still hanging, they are split. The home owner happened to be outside, but he is a very grumpy old man, and I tried to engage him in conversation about his Pomegranate tree, but just got some grunts
Re: Pomegranate bush August 05, 2016 11:26PM |
Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 5,699 |
What a shame Irene the old fellow didn't break into conversation with you about the pomegranates as it would have been interesting to know whether the fruit had reached maturity or not. If they have split, then maybe they are mature enough to be edible. I understand birds like them if they are still on the tree and have split and I can imagine at this time of the year that sort of food would be like Christmas for the birds!
Yes, this has been an interesting exercise and I am looking forward to this coming season's crop!
Regards,
Dawn.
Yes, this has been an interesting exercise and I am looking forward to this coming season's crop!
Regards,
Dawn.
Re: Pomegranate bush May 02, 2017 05:00AM |
Registered: 13 years ago Posts: 2,228 |
Thought this might be of interest to you Dawn. [www.stuff.co.nz]
Re: Pomegranate bush May 06, 2017 07:55AM |
Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 5,699 |
Hi Griz, thank you so much for sending a link to the pomegranate article. I really appreciated that as it contains a lot of good information which I found extremely interesting.
I no longer have a note of which pomegranate I have in my garden, but judging from the description of the Incredible Edibles "large, red fruit with clear arils and sweet juice" the 'Eversweet' variety sounds like the one and I did originally purchase it from Incredible Edibles. I see it is cold hardy too.
I think last season 2015/16 was one out of the box as far as ripening pomegranates is concerned. This season (2016/17) the bush has had about 14 fruit on it (a lot more than last season), but alas, to date nothing has ripened sufficiently and I don't think it will now - it's too late. We have had such a mixed bag of a spring, summer, and autumn i.e. cooler, wetter and windier than usual that it has taken a toll on being able to produce a successful crop of ripe fruit this year. We definitely need a long hot summer to get the results we want I reckon. To show you what I mean I have attached some photos. You will see that the fruit lacks the colour it should have, especially if you compare it to last season's photos. However, I will leave them on the bush for a while longer and see what happens but I don't want to leave them on the bush for too long as I will want to prune and let it have a rest before it wakes up for next Spring.
The first two photos are of mature sized fruit, the third photo with 3 fruit are only the size of golf balls.
If there's anyone else out there growing pomegranates I'd love to know how their bush/tree fared for this season.
Regards,
Dawn.
I no longer have a note of which pomegranate I have in my garden, but judging from the description of the Incredible Edibles "large, red fruit with clear arils and sweet juice" the 'Eversweet' variety sounds like the one and I did originally purchase it from Incredible Edibles. I see it is cold hardy too.
I think last season 2015/16 was one out of the box as far as ripening pomegranates is concerned. This season (2016/17) the bush has had about 14 fruit on it (a lot more than last season), but alas, to date nothing has ripened sufficiently and I don't think it will now - it's too late. We have had such a mixed bag of a spring, summer, and autumn i.e. cooler, wetter and windier than usual that it has taken a toll on being able to produce a successful crop of ripe fruit this year. We definitely need a long hot summer to get the results we want I reckon. To show you what I mean I have attached some photos. You will see that the fruit lacks the colour it should have, especially if you compare it to last season's photos. However, I will leave them on the bush for a while longer and see what happens but I don't want to leave them on the bush for too long as I will want to prune and let it have a rest before it wakes up for next Spring.
The first two photos are of mature sized fruit, the third photo with 3 fruit are only the size of golf balls.
If there's anyone else out there growing pomegranates I'd love to know how their bush/tree fared for this season.
Regards,
Dawn.
Re: Pomegranate bush May 06, 2017 09:54PM |
Admin Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 7,844 |
Dawn, have you thought of turning the unripe pomegranates into a chutney? We do it with green tomatoes, so why not green pomegranates. I realise you've only got a few fruits but it might be possible to make just one small jar as a trial. Who knows, you might hit on a 'unique to NZ' product.
Re: Pomegranate bush May 07, 2017 06:55AM |
Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 5,699 |
Thanks for your idea Lorna to trial chutney. If I had the time I might have given it a go! However, you're suggestion has given me the incentive to pick 2 or 3 to have a look inside. No, not ripe enough, and I don't think they would make a very nice chutney because the seeds don't crunch up when I chew on them, they do break up but not in a very palatable way in comparison with a genuinely ripe pomegranate. However, the flesh around each seed is sweet so that's at least one plus! Perhaps I should put the little gems through my juicer and enjoy what juice comes out of them. Photo attached.
We'll just hope for a long hot summer next year.
Regards,
Dawn.
We'll just hope for a long hot summer next year.
Regards,
Dawn.
Re: Pomegranate bush May 07, 2017 10:13PM |
Admin Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 7,844 |
Dawn, that picture looks like a promise of things to come if only the weather would play its part. I've been having some silly thoughts about how you can help make it happen, and you know what they say about silly thoughts: they lead to great things. So here's mine:
Growing your tree against a brick wall helps to mature the fruit because the bricks absorb the sun and keep the tree warm. If you haven't got a brick wall handy, how about a temporary heat absorber in the way of a semi-circle of support sticks covered by black plastic sheeting on the southern side of the tree, allowing the northern sunlight to heat the plastic.
Or build a permanent semi-circular brick wall around the southern side of the tree. Make a feature of it by adding a couple of matching sculptures on the top at each end of the wall. Cupids, swans, horse heads, whatever takes your fancy.
Go on, I dare you!
Growing your tree against a brick wall helps to mature the fruit because the bricks absorb the sun and keep the tree warm. If you haven't got a brick wall handy, how about a temporary heat absorber in the way of a semi-circle of support sticks covered by black plastic sheeting on the southern side of the tree, allowing the northern sunlight to heat the plastic.
Or build a permanent semi-circular brick wall around the southern side of the tree. Make a feature of it by adding a couple of matching sculptures on the top at each end of the wall. Cupids, swans, horse heads, whatever takes your fancy.
Go on, I dare you!
Re: Pomegranate bush May 08, 2017 05:01AM |
Registered: 18 years ago Posts: 5,699 |
Gosh Lorna you did wake up bright as a light-bulb this morning! And nothing wrong with silly thoughts. Just think, if no-one has silly thoughts the world would be a much different place to live in and to quote Ludwig Wittgenstein (whoever he is) “ If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done”.
My pomegranate is growing in a most ‘unbecoming’ place in the corner of my now scruffy looking vegetable garden which is enclosed on three sides by an old tin roofing-iron fence . (Remember we live on a farm!) The bush is planted right close into the corner of the tin fence and in summer the pomegranate has pumpkin and kamo kamo vines running amok around it and creeping over the old tin fence beside it. The tin fence helps to generate a certain amount of heat from the sun and keeps it reasonably sheltered.
Unfortunately the pomegranate is not growing in a ‘becoming’ enough place in the garden for a beautiful curved brick wall feature with a couple cupids(?!) at each end of the wall so I can’t take up your dare!!! But yes, I could manage something with sticks and black polythene from wall to wall across the more exposed side of the bush which would help keep it cosy. We’ve had 3 frosts already and I wasn’t quick enough with the frost cloth to cover It but luckily not really heavy frosts yet. Fingers crossed for next season aye?
Thanks for your super fine suggestions.
Regards,
Dawn.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2017 05:03AM by Dawn.
My pomegranate is growing in a most ‘unbecoming’ place in the corner of my now scruffy looking vegetable garden which is enclosed on three sides by an old tin roofing-iron fence . (Remember we live on a farm!) The bush is planted right close into the corner of the tin fence and in summer the pomegranate has pumpkin and kamo kamo vines running amok around it and creeping over the old tin fence beside it. The tin fence helps to generate a certain amount of heat from the sun and keeps it reasonably sheltered.
Unfortunately the pomegranate is not growing in a ‘becoming’ enough place in the garden for a beautiful curved brick wall feature with a couple cupids(?!) at each end of the wall so I can’t take up your dare!!! But yes, I could manage something with sticks and black polythene from wall to wall across the more exposed side of the bush which would help keep it cosy. We’ve had 3 frosts already and I wasn’t quick enough with the frost cloth to cover It but luckily not really heavy frosts yet. Fingers crossed for next season aye?
Thanks for your super fine suggestions.
Regards,
Dawn.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2017 05:03AM by Dawn.
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