Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Enter the Dragon (fruit)

I highly recommend planting Dragon Fruits under trees or beside walls or fences. They provide great tasting fruits. And also they are very hardy come rainy days or the hottest of weathers.

There are three kinds of dragon fruits that are grown in our country. They differ in taste and meat color, white (common), red (sweeter than the white one) and yellow (the sweetest among the three).

The one with white meat (shown in picture) produces the biggest fruit.



7 comments:

gelle319 said...

i really wanted to grow dragon fruit ever since i saw this plant few years ago. last year, my sister brought me cuttings and as what i have read from the net, it would only take a year for it to bear fruits. but it doesn't work for our dragon fruit. hindi pa din sya namumunga and it doesn't show any sign to having any soon. :( so i tried growing naman thru seeds. i was so happy when they actually germinated after a week or so. hehe! but after 2-3 mos, they seem to stop growing. dilemma ko tuloy ngayon kung itatransplant naba sila or do they still need more time to stay in the pan i have kept them.

Raymond and Mariel......................................... said...

Hello gelle,

I had the same feeling too when i first saw a dragon fruit. I also tried planting seeds. They also stopped growing after 3 months but stayed alive for 6 months until i decided to feed them to our chicken. A friend of mine uses dragon fruit seedlings as ornamental plants. They said that it would take more than 10 years before a dragon fruit seed reach maturity. So the best way to go is get some cuttings.

gelle319 said...

10 years?? woww ang tagal pla.. thanks for the info. i'll take your advice po with the cuttings. thanks again..

Tin said...

my mom fell in love with my aunt's dragon fruit back in the US, that she cut a small part of it and brought it here. it grew really long and became comfortable with the wall, but it didn't bear any fruit for almost 5 years now. is there something i can do for it to become productive?

Raymond and Mariel......................................... said...

Hello again Tin,

I admire your patience. When I planted the dragonfruit seeds, I gave up in 6 months. By that time they were just about 4 inches tall. :) Do you have a picture of your dragonfruit? I really love to see a 5 year old dragonfruit planted from seeds.

In our farm we plant then from cuttings. They bear fruits in about a year or two after planting (from cuttings).

Have you tasted the red ones? they are sweeter but the yellow ones are the sweetest but they are not recommended for diabetics because of high sugar content.

Tin said...

my mom bought the cutting itself hehe, i don't know how it survived the trip since it was just wrapped in newspaper and stored along with the frozen steaks.

anyway, the plant grew and took over the wall, but it was thinner than the original cutting. it was just planted in a big clay pot-- i guess that's probably the reason why it didn't bear any fruit. funny that you asked for a photo; we just got rid of it days before i posted the comment hehe. i might try growing one again if i can get a cutting.

i love munching on the whites.. i'd probably love the reds and yellows more when i get to try them!

Raymond and Mariel......................................... said...

You got that right. The plant is not getting enough nutrients in the pot.

Dragon fruit cuttings can survive for months if you keep them dry. It will even start to root.

Drop by AANI at the Quezon Memorial Circle. They can provide some dragon fruit cuttings, both the white and red ones. they can even teach you how to plant them properly. Its easy, trust me.