Feijoa: Acca sellowiana

(feijoa: acca sellowiana)
october 2009
carrboro, north carolina

My plants - a total of 5, which range in size from 6" seedlings to a 2' plant, aren't yet mature enough to produce fruit, and getting feijoas to set fruit is notoriously challenging, so who knows if they ever will? Still, an absolutely stunning fruit isn't the only virtue with feijoas.

If you have eaten a feijoa, you know that it's one of the most delicious things in the world: the fruit looks a bit like a dull, green avocado. Sliced lengthwise into two halves, much of the flesh is of a texture reminiscent of a soft pear, slightly granular, though not as granular as a pear. At the center, there's a pocket of sweet, jelly-like pulp, containing a large number of very tiny seeds.

And what of the flavor? The flavor and fragrance are both reminiscent of a very strong mixture of strawberry and pineapple. The flavor is somewhat layered - the firm flesh beneath the rind approaches a citrus-like level of tartness, while the soft pulp at the center is very, very sweet. Scooping the flesh from each half mixes the sweet and sour parts of the fruit, producing a phenomenally complex, shape-shifting flavor.

Feijoas also produce equally dramatic flowers, and those flowers - while spectacular in appearance - do not produce nectar. Thus, they don't attract insects very well, so pollination is a bit tricky. The edible petals are sweet, and attractive to hummingbirds (which will eat the petals, while pollinating the remainder of the flower in the process); otherwise hand pollination and luck are the only way to get fruit. This difficulty explains the relative rarity of feijoas in supermarkets, though they are cultivated in Australia and New Zealand (where they are enormously popular), and their native Argentina.

My plants are interesting. They are steady growers - overall they are rather petite and shrubby, but with a very sprawly, lanky habit. The leaves are a rich, deep green, with a soft, whitish peach fuzz on the undersides; their deep coloring contrasts nicely with the bark, which is cinnamon-colored.

When mature, feijoas are hardy to about 15 degrees, though they are considerably more frost sensitive when young, as I discovered in mid-December, when my largest plants were left out a little too long, and suffered some frost burn on the youngest leaves, with some limpness in the branches. However, I also discovered that they are very resilient, shaking off the superficial damage within a day, with no serious or permanent injury. Likewise, they are intolerant of extreme heat, entering some degree of dormancy at 90 degrees (they will remain healthy, but visible growth will come to an absolute stop until temperatures cool off); temperatures over 100 will do serious damage. Growing them out of doors in North Carolina would be a major gamble both in winter and summer, except in coastal locations. Their modest size makes them excellent container plants however!

Ginger: Zingiber officinale

(ginger: zingiber officinale)
december 2009
carrboro, north carolina

What to do with this?

Ginger will be another learning experience - how to prune or trim it, how to harvest it, the whole nine yards. Ginger belongs to the genus zingiber, which also includes turmeric, galangal, myoga, and cardamom; bananas belong to the same order of plants. The greater family also includes distant relatives like all the grasses and bromeliads. Ginger has a number of superficial resemblances to many of those relatives, both close and distant - foremost among them a very grassy, spreading habit of growth.

Many species of ginger are known for spectacular flowers, unfortunately culinary ginger is not one of those. If you love ginger, it won't matter to you much!

Watching this plant mature has been quite a treat. I purchased a large hand of ginger in September 2009, and put it on a shelf, taking care that it wasn't in direct sunlight (sunburn) or total darkness (mold growth). In about 3 or 4 weeks, it began to develop multiple shoots at the fingertips - short and fat, very pale whitish green in color, with a soft ginger smell, looking a bit like bamboo shoots. I left it alone for another week, until the shoots began to develop a deeper green color.

At this point, my ginger went into a large pot, filled with deep but quick-draining soil. It spent another month developing the rudiments of a root system - the ginger "root" actually isn't a root, but a rhizome that slowly spreads outward as shoot grow upwards, and fine roots develop downwards into the dirt. In mid-November, I put it in a humid bathroom, below a south facing window, with the bottom warmth of a central heating vent 2 feet below. Around Thanksgiving, it began its' upward growth, swiftly sending up 6 shoots. These grew to widely varying heights, with the three dominant shoots skyrocketing to 3 or 4 feet in a matter of 2 weeks, before settling in at that mature size. The green growth doesn't have much of a fragrance, and superficially, ginger looks a bit like a cross between corn and bamboo, but with fleshy/juicy stalks, unlike the hollow, notched stalks typical of grasses.

Nagami Kumquat: Fortunella margarita

(nagami kumquat: fortunella margarita)
transplanted seedlings, 2009 december 20
carrboro, north carolina

I planted kumquat seeds the same day that I planted the pummelo seed, and they sprouted at the same time - roundabout the second week of December. Like the pummelos, they have grown fairly quickly, and I was able to split them off into small, individual pots a week before Christmas.

Kumquats - bright orange and olive-sized - stand a bit apart from other citrus fruits. They were, until the early 20th century, placed within the citrus genus, before being split off into their own genus, fortunella - the arguments in favor of this separation included differences in flower structure, along with kumquats' winter dormancy. Today, the several kumquat species are still officially classed as fortunella, though today most botanists, academics, and growers all consider them to be a true citrus, and the unofficial moniker citrofortunella is also often used. Kumquats' ability to produce hybrids with other citrus species (or hybrids: the faustrimedin is a trigeneric kumquat-tangerine-finger lime hybrid), along with the similarities in the fruit are the strongest arguments supporting their official re-inclusion within the citrus genus.

The seeds I planted were taken from fresh fruit, used for the aforementioned relish, and these were from nagami kumquats. Nagamis are the most widely cultivated variety in the United States, and like other kumquats they are considerably more cold-hardy than other citrus, able to withstand temperatures of 15 degrees when mature, though cold weather does send them into a deep dormancy unique among citrus. Nagamis have an explosive, intense flavor - the outermost layer of the rind is sweet, but retains a pungent citrus fragrance. The whitish inner layer of the rind is spicy, and eating three or four will leave a trace of a ginger-like burn on your tongue. After biting through the rind, you'll then get a small explosion of juice, with a sour flavor reminiscent of a mixture of lemon and tangerine. If cooked, the flavors of the sweet, sour, and spicy parts of the fruit will mellow out considerably, blending very well into a truly unique flavor very well-suited to jams and preserves.

The vigor of these seedlings is interesting, rivaling that of the pumellos that sprouted the same week. Kumquats mature into one of the smallest of citrus plants, and they are often grown as indoor ornamentals. We'll see how mine progress.

Pummelo: Citrus maxima

(pummelo: citrus maxima)
top pic: 12-20-09, one of several seedlings
bottom pic: one week earlier, sprouts
carrboro, north carolina

I did some cooking for Thanksgiving: a cranberry-kumquat relish. While at the supermarket, I also spotted fresh pummelos, and decided that a small amount of shredded pummelo would be a perfect addition to the recipe. The remainder of the pummelo made a great snack later on.

For anyone who isn't familiar, pummelos are the largest citrus fruit - they can grow to the size of a small melon. They have an extremely thick, spongy rind, and are known for their variable (or unpredictable) flavor: sometimes tart, sometimes mildly bitter, sometimes powerfully sweet. The best pummelos have an intensely sweet grapefruit-meets-melon flavor, and flesh that is meatier and far less juicy than other citrus fruits. Pummelos are also a partial ancestor to oranges, tangelos and grapefruits, which are all citrus hybrids of variable complexity.

Of the many pummelos I've bought over the years, this was the first I think I've ever gotten with well-developed seeds, and this one was exceptionally seedy. I've been told that pummelos, when cross-pollinated with another citrus fruit, will bear seedless fruit, but when pollinated by another pummelo, will produce seedy fruit. I'd also heard that pummelos rarely grow true to seed. I decided to plant some of the seed to see what might happen.

As it turned out, the seed sprouted quickly, and the seedlings were quite distinct from other citrus in a number of ways. They developed deep, strong roots before breaking the surface, and the first shoots appeared in 2-3 weeks. When handled, the shoots are very fragrant, with a strong scent very similar to the flavor of the fruit. And they are very vigorous, with a muscular stem developing pretty much immediately.

Due to their size and vigor, I separated them into individual pots rather quickly - deep but narrow, to give them room to develop a root system. We shall see how they progress.

New Seeds!

(unripe biriba fruit: rollina deliciosa)
(photo credit: tradewinds fruit)

Got some seeds today for several interesting fruit trees - they will be going into some dirt in the next day or so. It will be interesting to see what might become of them.

The first three are all annonaceae - the family of plants that includes pawpaw, cherimoya, sugar apple, custard apple, soursop, ilama, biriba, soncoya, alligator apple, ylang ylang, and many other notable plants. With the lone exception of pawpaws (native to North America - Ontario to Florida), they are all tropical.

I was able to get seeds for sugar apples, custard apples, and biriba. I had already saved seed from several store-bought cherimoyas, which have been planted, but have not yet sprouted. I decided to do a little experimenting - some of the cherimoya seeds were planted fresh from the fruit, while others were cleaned and soaked for 3 days before planting. It will be interesting to see how the different treatment affects seed viability.

I also found seeds for an unusual legume called the ice cream bean, or pacay - inga edulis. The pacay is native to South America, with a native range that stretches through parts of Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. They have some similarity with other tree legumes - like tamarind and honey locust, the (very sweet) pulp is eaten, and not the beans or the exterior of the pod; in the case of pacay, the nickname "ice cream beans" refers to the vanilla-cream flavor of the pulp, which has a marshmallow texture. Like mesquite and honey locust, they also have a tendency to spread and become invasive, though - as they are true tropicals - that won't be an issue here. Unlike most tree legumes, they can be kept in containers, though I've heard that it is a challenge.

Yuzu: Citrus ichangensis x Citrus reticulata

(yuzu: citrus ichangensis [ichang papeda] + citrus reticulata [mandarin])
october, 2009
carrboro, north carolina

One of the newest leaves on the yuzu tree.

Though it may take years, I'm eager to see if my yuzu will bear fruit. The yuzu is a very obscure citrus fruit in much of the world, though it has a rather rarefied history in Japan and Korea - yuzu have been cultivated in both countries for 2000 years, where sweet and sour variants have been developed, and a wide range of culinary uses are on display.

Many parts of both countries are known for cold winters, and the yuzu is one of few citrus with a reputation for cold tolerance. The fruit looks a bit like a large, yellow tangerine, and has a sour, but very complex flavor akin to a mixture of grapefruit and key lime; an ancient, sweet-tasting cultivar was thought to be extinct before a 1980s re-discovery of a feral grove within a forest in southern Japan. In Japan, yuzu juice is mostly used in savory concoctions; in Korea there are uses for the sweetened juice, including the honey marmalade yuja-cha, which is made from yuzu juice and zest which is combined with pectin and honey. Elsewhere in the world, yuzu is best known as an occasional fragrance, and as a primary ingredient (alongside sudachi juice, soy sauce and saki vinegar) in ponzu sauce.

Yuzu is a wild hybrid, a cross between a mandarin and an ichang papeda. The papedas are a large sub-group of citrus plants which are only rarely cultivated. They all have a number of common characteristics which set them apart from other citrus: winged petioles (giving the leaves an hourglass shape), leaves that are intensely fragrant when rubbed or crushed, and a somewhat more rugged physique than other citrus. Most papeda fruit tend to be either very bitter, or very sour, and are oft-described in botanical literature as "unpleasant tasting." However, they are of some interest, as many of them are more disease-resistant than other citrus, and a few of them are cold-tolerant to a far greater degree than is generally typical of citrus plants. When papedas hybridize with other citrus, the resulting fruit tends to have a very sour, but complex flavor: shangjuan (papeda x pummelo), yuzu (papeda x mandarin), sudachi (papeda x orange?), kaffir lime (papeda x key lime?) are four papeda hybrids that have acquired varying degrees of gourmet interest.

The yuzu is distinctive - rubbing the leaves between one's fingers produces a unique scent: a sweet, spicy, complex, and strong fragrance akin to a mixture of grapefruit and lime, with floral overtones. As the yuzu is especially close to kaffir lime in its' ancestry, I tasted one of the leaves, and though they do have a powerful fragrance, the flavor is a bit less interesting, very reminiscent of lemongrass. The tree itself is rather muscular in structure, even at a height of only 2 feet, with a more rugged and less shrubby stature than other citrus, and a number of rather prominent thorns.

We will see if this tree will bear fruit. The fruit is reportedly the most intensely fragrant of citrus fruits, and in countries where yuzu is cultivated, the fruit is also sometimes kept for its' air-freshening qualities.

Malabathrum: Cinnamomum tamala

(malabathrum: cinnamomum tamala)
november, 2009
carrboro, north carolina

My malabar cinnamon tree.

This tree is known by a few different names: malabathrum, Malabar cinnamon, or Indian bay leaf. The leaves are used as a seasoning in some Indian cuisines. I've found that the scent and flavor of the leaves is very, very mild - so much so, that the primary interest in malabathrum is ornamental. Still, it has the typical 'cinnamon' look - sleek leaves with long, longitudinal veins, growing in crossed quartets.

Malabathrum is a very steady grower, and new growth is vaguely reddish, though this is not nearly as pronounced as it is with common culinary cinnamon. To my chagrin, I've also discovered that malabathrum really dislikes central heating: out of doors, it thrives as long as temperatures remain above the upper 30s. The relative drought of an indoor winter doesn't appear to be inducing much vegetative glee, though I'm putting as much effort as possible into keeping this guy happy.

Tangelo: Citrus Reticulata x Citrus Maxima

(tangelo: citrus reticulata [mandarin] + citrus maxima [pummelo])
two seedlings, december 2009
carrboro, north carolina

These guys were my second undertaking, after the unexpected lemons.

As citrus tend to have a fine root system, I was afraid of any possibility of root rot, and overcompensated - I set these seedlings into a soil mix that was far too lightweight, unable to retain much nutrition. After months of worry - how might a re-transplant damage two small and very delicate plants - I faced the music, in the fall of 2009, and re-potted them into small pots with sturdier soil.

Slowly, they've begun to respond - the new growth is still slow, but healthy looking, with a few rich green leaves. The leaves have a wonderful scent - a sweeter (but spicier) variant of the smell that lingers on the fingers after hand-peeling an orange.

As of winter, they do seem to be enjoying their window perch - south facing, in a humid and warm bathroom, a perfect ersatz greenhouse.

The Inevitable Intro

(feijoa: acca sellowiana)
october 2009
carrboro, north carolina

I've never been a plant guy. Once, as a wee lad, I killed a cactus. Upon my arrival in some semblance of adulthood, I subsequently killed tomatoes, basil, peppers, yellow squash, and kiwano melons.

And then, one day, to my utter shock and surprise, I looked on my North Carolina back porch, and found a small pot, filled with bad North Carolina clay, with not one, but several tiny eureka lemon seedlings, making their presence known. Some years before, a former roommate had moved out, leaving behind a number of pots of widely varying sizes, and - as I was cooking one evening - I tossed the lemon seeds into one of those pots, with virtually no premeditation whatsoever.

This turned into quite an unanticipated learning experience, as multiple lemon seedlings drowned, dried up, or were set upon by nefarious slugs, seeking some sort of citrus fix, under cover of darkness. However two lemons - siamese twins, the product of a polyembryonic seed, developed into two determined little guys, with a plucky ability to shake off everything a North Carolina summer could dish out.

Excited by this turn of events, I set about an ever-weirder trip into gardening. I was able to sprout tangelos, and though I continued to make mistakes (months later, they remain small, but apparently healthy) - pots too big, pots too small, soil too heavy, soil too light. As the learning curve continued, I decided to make a great leap. I was ready for grafted nursery plants.

After doing some diligent research, I was able to purchase two additional citrus trees: a year-old calamondin (a wild mandarin + kumquat hybrid), and a yuzu (a wild mandarin + papeda hybrid). This move had some ups and downs - neither plant was particularly happy with some near-100-degree days in summer, and they responded by entering some degree of dormancy - healthy and green, but zero growth.

With the first cool front of September, the yuzu burst to life, quickly developing a handful of new branches, each graced with the arrowhead-shaped, powerfully-scented leaves typical of the papeda side of the citrus genus. Yuzus are a big, big deal in Japanese and Korean cuisine, acquiring a gourmet reputation elsewhere, and are reportedly far more cold tolerant (when mature) than other citrus.

The calmondin took a bit longer to acclimate to my Chapel Hill porch, perhaps due to what appeared to be a slight aphid issue. This I managed to conquer - another small victory! And as winter approached - plants now indoors - the calamondin exploded to life, two weeks before Christmas, sprouting new branches and leaves, and covered in tiny buds.

Along the way, I managed to acquire a few other nursery plants: malabathrum (malabar cinnamon), along with two feijoas (erroneously known as pineapple guavas). And the experiment with sprouting things on my own has continued: guavas, honey locust beans, culinary ginger, kumquats, pummelo, cherimoya, sugar apple, custard apple, biriba, pacay (ice cream beans).