First Dragon Fruit Harvest for 2014

[Elaine de Saxe]

For earlier parts to this story, see here.

Picked the first one today after noticing it started to colour about 3 or 4 days ago (this is where a current garden diary would come in handy).

These are some ripening:

And this is the one we opened today:

It has a very tough very short stem - cut it rather than trying to twist it off. Remember the stem has spikes!

It looked red enough …

Don't know what the average weight is per fruit commercially.

And cut open, it looks fine:

But doesn't peel as well as a fully-ripe fruit will do - and tasted a tad tart, dang! another couple of days yet. I can see why the commercial growers count the days from pollination. Something like picking at 28 days for the supermarket and around 35 days for Food Connect or own eating. You can guess I did not make a note of when they were pollinated :-(

[Lissa]

Lordy I'm not nearly so scientific lol. If I find one nice and red I cut it off and eat it. There are about half a dozen beautiful ripe fruit on the neighbours side of the fence that I can't reach :( They never come out into their little backyard when I'm there for me to alert them.

Would agree cutting from the stem rather than twisting. It's very fibrous and doesn't come away easily.

[Elaine de Saxe]

That's a thought! There's little real info available just lots of general info. I recall twisting the first lot off yet these were very tough to cut - and under-ripe. Thanks! :-) 

[Christine Cox]

I will be there, looking forward to seeing your garden.

[Susan]

I'm wondering if you could just test it daily until it broke off in your hand? A lot of fruit is ripe when you can do that and I have picked some from a friends (tree?) long ago and seem to remember them just breaking off into my hand easily. Less effort than counting days from pollination. :)

[Elaine de Saxe]

Yes it is white-fleshed. Both red and white are very similar from the outside. Side-by-side the profile of the stems is a little different. So far the red-fleshed ones have not ripened but soon ...

Yellow is quite different so I hear. I don't grow that one. It is a more spiky plant with spikes on the fruit. But - get this - the spikes fall out when the fruit is ripe! They can be brushed off with the hand or a small brush.

You'll see how much space one plant takes up if you come to our GV - more than we thought (we'd only seen photos) and the plants are spiky enough to need to be careful working around them.

[Christine Cox]

This blog and photos make me very envious.Since I have been following your blog I now have collected 6 plant cuttings. Yellow and red is the ones I have I think. Is that one in your photos a white Dragon fruit? I have eaten the flesh before but I didn't know what it was.