Here in our garden, we just love passion fruit, and it loves growing in the San Diego climate!

We have an absolute beast of a plant, and we have a second one that was started from seed. Let's talk about these two varieties along with some lessons about planting, maintenance, and harvesting.

PLANTING

You'll have the best success putting your plant in the ground when it's dormant (usually between October and April). This is a tropical plant, so it's going to thrive when it gets lots of water and sunshine. It's also an evergreen vine, so it is a great plant to have as a wall or roof all year long.

We picked this one up from City Farmer's Nursery in October 2019, and it's been a massive success. It's a purple variety. In another part of the yard, though, we have a different variety (yellow) that was started from seed. It had a bit of a rough start to life, and this plant hasn't been quite as productive as the other.

PLANT CARE & PRUNING

First, let's talk watering. We have ours on a drip system. It gets watered every 2-3 days, and we'll up the length of time this time of year. We also had a very wet winter in Southern California this past year, and all of the garden has been loving it.

We sometimes use free tree or liquid fertilizers, but we mostly add in a sprinkle of compost a few times a year.

Passion fruit is usually grown as a fence or privacy barrier. It naturally wants to go upward and then sprawl out. That makes it a great option to cover a patio like we have here.

This single plant takes up a ton of space, so we also have to make sure to stay on top of pruning. This is the best day after the plant has given you fruit before it flowers next (usually in the fall or winter), and you don't want to do more than 30% of the plant at a time.

We usually see our first flowers at the beginning of May, and they'll continue to pop up for about a month. The fruit takes about three months to develop. However, we sometimes get another round of flowers in the fall. Even though fruit will develop, it takes much longer (since there is less sunlight), and this bumper crop might need to get sacrificed if you really need to prune.

HARVESTING

Passion fruit is one of the easiest crops to harvest. The fruits will naturally drop when ready! We just walk around and pick them up off the ground. They'll store in the fridge for at least a couple of weeks too, or they can be frozen.

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