Growing passion fruit from grocery store seeds: Part 1 – The Bohemian Kitchen

So I’ve been wanting to grow passion fruit for a while. It’s a beautiful plant. Flowers bloom on the vine, their petals white with purple fringe, the pistil large and prodtruding far from the center with its twisting stamens. It’s a flower that is exotic to me, living in Canada where passion fruit does not naturally grow. The only place that it might exist here in Ottawa is in a greenhouse or in some adventurous gardener’s home such as my apartment – and your home too if you want!

It is actually possible to buy the seeds online or wherever a garden store may carry them, but that requires a certain amount of searching for which I do not have the patience. Grabbing a fruit from the grocery store seems easier, so that’s what we’ll do today.

It’s easy enough to get started. Cut the fruit in half and you will be faced with a gelatinous yellow mass containing large black seeds. Gently remove the seeds by placing them on a paper towel and using your fingers to sort of slide them out of the goop. Wipe them against the towel to remove any residue. Plant several seeds at a time. You could use a pot, but I prefer to use soil pellets inside a jiffy plastic seed starter with the greenhouse cover. It should be placed somewhere sunny and warm.

Within a couple of weeks the first of the seedlings will appear. If using soil pellets, wait until they’re an inch high, or pressing against the lid of the jiffy greenhouse, then plant each seedling into its own separate pot.

Keep in mind that these are climbers, so you may want to have a trellis or some other support frame ready for when the plants grow bigger. I’ve never actually dealt with climbing vines before, so I’ll post an update to show you guys how well it hopefully works out when I get to that part. Does anyone happen to have any tips for that?

Thanks for stopping by today!

D.