skip to main content

Cornucopia - Australia

pepino's whe are they ripe?

21 years ago

i'm sure this has been discussed but a search revealed nought.

just picked a pepino about the size of a softball, pale yellowish colour with mauve sort of lateral stripes around near the top, it is also a little softish.

is it ripe?

or when should i have picked it?

what taste sensation should we expect?

len

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (4)

pepino
21 years ago
If it's a little softish then I would guess it is ripe. Normally mine get to a golden colour with the purple but your weather will mean they grow faster and colour may be different.

The taste is something like a honeydew melon. Not sure if you would classify it as a flavour sensation but still quite nice.
nicefrog
21 years ago
When they are orange, but maybe yours stays Yellow, it should be fine for eating now but they taste a bit better if you leave them for a few days after picking
Related Discussions
The Summer Garden
Q
Comments (31)
Yes Christine, I will post pictures of the inside of the pepino-melon when is ready for eating. Hopefully I will get fruit from the tamarillos I am growing too, the two varieties red and yellow. New Zealand spinach takes good to cooking, it can be used for soups, with eggs in an omelet or quiche. It doesn't become slimy. I think it is a little bit coarse for a salad, unless you use a hot dressing or marinade it. It always grew wild in my father's house, it is growing wild here too. I can hardly keep up with it. It serves like a living mulch for the other veggies. Each season, I am trying to plant new varieties of vegetables and fruits and see how well or not they do in this climate. I have a whole bunch of seeds that I have not tried yet. Silvia
...See More
List of Plants you grow in the Ohio Valley
Q
Comments (4)
Wow, that's a lot of plants! I don't have a list of what I'm growing in my little gardens -- sometimes it takes me a couple of weeks in the spring to realize that that weird looking weed in the corner is something I've had for years. I just assume that more plants than not will grow in this area! One of the more unusual plants I grow is agapanthus. Not a particularly hardy variety, this was simply a florists' plant my mother gave me four years ago. But it's come up reliably every year for the past three seasons in Central Ohio. It's planted against a south-facing brick wall with excellent drainage, and apparently doesn't realize it's not in zone 8+ anymore! One of my mother's more spectacular plants is a 15 year old calamondin orange that arrived as a little "get-well" houseplant. It spends the winter on the unheated glassed in back porch in Cincinnati, and now stands over 6' tall in the pot, and is nearly 4' around. It always has flowers and fruit on it, and we've picked 200 ripe fruits at one time.
...See More
OK those Romas are ripe - what now?
Q
Comments (14)
Amanda, are you back from shopping yet? Treat the jars and lids just as you would treat your Vacola jars and lids. Do exactly the same. Forget I said jam (you don't make jam??!!!!!???). As these jars are (a lot) smaller than the Vacola jars, I'd say the water in the unit would start boiling sooner. My instructions specifically say NOT TO BRING TO BOIL. But mine is the foolproof unit. Plug in, put timer to 1 hour, unplug after 1 hour. However, the water in my unit starts to boil after 50 mins or so, that's when I switch off the unit and wait till the hour is over and then take out the jars. So, it's all really easy. Forget you are using different jars. Do as you would with Vacola jars. But do check up on that boiling matter. Put anything you like in your jars/sauce. Herbs, garlic, salt, etc. It'll be processed well and you won't have to worry about it.
...See More
Growing Pepinos
Q
Comments (20)
I bought a Pepino Gold from Bunnings in Melbourne out of curiosity, and it is going great guns. Six months later I'm harvesting a dozen golden Pepinos with purple stripes from the one plant, and it is still covered in flowers. Perhaps the problem with taste is that they are not being picked when perfectly ripe? The unripe ones taste like a bland honeydew, but when they are golden they get almost a banana-passionfruit aroma to them and the flesh is very sweet. I think it's also possibly due to the soil they are grown in, some of my reading suggested that you need to have trace rock minerals in the soil. I planted mine in a rockery (purely by coincidence, but it means the trace minerals were there), fed it up with compost and a slow-release fertiliser and then ignored it except for regular watering and slug control. The fruit has a great flavour in this environment, and I'm thrilled. I'm planning on planting more later in the year. They do best if trussed, so that the fruit doesn't come in to contact with the ground. I did lose a couple to snails and rot that way.
...See More
gardenlen
Original Author
21 years ago
ok pepino & nicefrog,

it's been in the fridge for a couple of days now so tomorrow we will try it for smoko stay tuned.

in brissy i tried them but no matter what the fruit flies got them they don't appear to be affected up here.

len
gardenlen
Original Author
21 years ago
ok fellas,

the verdict - sensation yup not quiet the right word to use hey lol? well smelt like fresh cut comfry, tasted like honey dew and the fresh cut comfry smell, sort of sweet moist but not tart.

is it on my fave' froot list nup!! guess if the grandkids don't like it i'll grow them for the chooks whatever, we have been totally successfull keeping the fruit fly from them however.

now back to getting more mangoes.

len

Related Stories

HOUZZ TOURS My Houzz: Ease and Coziness in Rural Australia

Nothing is ‘too fancy or perfect’ in this 150-year-old bluestone farmhouse, but everything sure is warm and inviting

Sponsored

Peabody Landscape Group

8 Reviews

Columbus' Reliable Landscape Design & Contracting