Growing Passionfruit is not nearly as hard as people make it out to be. In-fact growing your own fresh passionfruit is very easy, and I’ll share my experiences with you.
Like most plants, passionfruit needs a well drained soil, water, nutrients and some care.
Firstly you will need something to grow the passionfruit on, as they are a climber a trellis or mesh fence is a great starting point. It needs to be strong, as over the next couple of years your passionfruit is going to hang off it. You don’t want to have it collapse in a heap.
You will need to condition the soil you want to grow the passionfruit, dig the hole three to four times as big as the pot the plant came in. Make it a big wide dish shaped hole. Try not to mix the sub soil with the top soil too much. Maybe make a pile for the top soil, and a pile for the sub soil, put the subsoil back in first followed by the top soil.
Passionfruit are gross feeders, which means you will need to feed them a lot of nutrients over their life time. Set aside the dirt that came from the hole and mix it with well rotted cow, sheep or horse manure as well as some blood and bone. My grandmother always put some offal (liver, heart etc) in the hole and covered it over before planting, over time this would break down into a great nutritious food for the passionfruit.
Indirectly water the area with a sprinkler so the water can permeate slowly, not breaking down the soils composition. This may take two hours to get all the way through, a wetting agent such as Wetasol can be used to speed up the process.
Planting out Passionfruit Vines
Dig a hole in the prepared soil, gently remove the vine from the pot and tease the roots. A healthy plant should have white outer roots, this indicates new healthy growth. Old brown roots are still ok, but the plant is not in it’s optimal state. It’s good to check the roots of plants at the nursary to see that they are healthy before you buy them.
Place the passionfruit vine into the hole and cover with soil. Ensure you do not cover the trunk above it’s original ground level.
Gently water the plant to remove any air bubbles around the roots.
Mulch generously if you live in a warm climate, this will help keep the ground around the plant cool and prevent moisture loss.
Growing Passionfruit from Seed
There has been many requests for the method of growing Passionfruit from seed. Before we begin, the result of your seedling may not grow the same fruit as the vine that it came from.
Step 1
Remove the fruit’s seeds and wash the yellow pulp from around the seed (I like to put the seeds in my mouth and eat the pulp then spit the seeds in a bowl). Plant seeds right away in seed-raising mix. You can plant more than 1 seed per pot, just put them a few centimeters apart, separate them when they grow larger. Cover lightly with mix (~1cm), water them well and put in a warm spot to germinate.
Step 2
Your new plants should pop up in 14-28 days.
Step 3
Once the plants are ~5cm tall, separate them into individual pots. To help the plants grow upright, include a stick or small growing frame in the pot to ensure they don’t droop over the outside. In 12 months your seedlings should be flowering.
Varieties:
Varieties include Nellie Kelly , Red Ambrosia, Panama Red, Panama Gold, and Sunnypash. The golden varieties are better suited to more tropical climates and growers may have problems with fruit ripening in cooler districts of the southwest. Passionfruit have relatively short life of between 5-6 years as they are so vigorous and heavy fruiting.
Above is a photo of my new passionfruit vine. It is a Panama Red, and the fruit will grow to be around 5cm in diameter. I have mulched the soil with rotted horse manure, and I will cover that with shredded newspaper. The fence is to keep my dog from digging it up. I have installed temporary shade cloth (70%) to the galvinized iron fence and the other side of the mesh to provide some protection from the hot sun. I will remove this when the plant becomes established.
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68 Comments
I have experienced every thing mentioned on this site. I have both yellow and purple varieties that I bought from a nursery. Sometimes they flower and they dry up and fall off, and then after about a year the flowers were pollinated by lots of bees and set fruit… hundreds of them. I scoop them out and have frozen a lot for the winter. I have tried the hand pollination but without sucess. They have now taken over all the fence lines and now grow up into the trees and upon my roof. To everyone keep trying and you will be rewarded. Im in parcha heaven. Near Tampa Fla
Passionfruit in England ? yes I planted mine last year and now it is full of fruit slowly changing colour. I intend to make a Tiramasu and some jam.
It has been great learning about how to grow passion fruit plants. I am beginning a mango plantation in the middle belt plains of Ghana and have tried some seeds of yellow passion fruit I brought back with me from Tanzania in July 2008. A couple of them have germinated and exactly eleven months after they are flowering and fruiting beautifully. I am really excited and am eargerly waiting for the fruits to mature so I can expand production. With the information you have shared on how to grow passion fruits, I cannot wait to establish a plantation of passion fruit.
Thanks.
I would like to know more about passion fruit. Im from southern part of India. And im badly in need of Yellow Passion fruit for conducting a study related to my thesis. Do you know in what season passion fruits grow? Here it is rainy season now. It is not much marketed here in India. So i can only manage to get it in its season, by finding out someone who is growing it. please give your suggestions on this.
Thank you
I live in Glorious Fresno, California and i am passionate about passion fruit. I would love to have a garden, but i am afraid it is too hot here. In the summer temperatures can reach 110. Is there any way i can grow a variety of passion fruit in this climate? Perhaps with shade?
I have grow the passion fruits almost a year but there is no fruits yet. I don’t know what’s wrong. It grows quite fast and strong but strange no fruits yet. I let it grow on the fence and I put enough fertilizer and watering. Can anybody help?
i was prunning ,and mistakenly cut main trunk, can it be saved
I was delighted when I found your site and found it very interesting, I am growing Passion Fruit over my Pagoda and have loads of fruit, but I was told I could not eat it, that it was ornamental only in this country [North West England] Is this correct?
I have a passion fruit plantation on my terrace. It’s four month plantation now and and flowering has started. I have made mesh structure on four poles. I sowed only four seeds in a vase measuring 1′ deep. It has been fed on kitchen waste and sheep dung. Very soon it will spread horizontally on the meshed structure. I would love the shadow beneath when it fully occupies. I do not get east sun which is good for the plantation but, a west sun which is harsh. Despite this it has flowered within four months. I love the aroma of the fruits as the name suggests.
My mum has got a super passion flower plant.She does not know name of plant as was gift many years ago. This produces lots of lovely orange passion fruit, she would like to know if these are edible. We live in south of England if that has any baring on subject. Many thanks for help , Chris
I live in England. We have a large passion fruit bush with plenty of flowers but no fruit.
We had fruit about 2 years ago but none since. Any suggestions?
I lived in Kansas for nine years and the vine grows wild there. It was the southeast corner of Kansas and could be harvested in most of the state. Even though winters could be very cold (-50F wind chill ) and hot and humid (low 100’s F) in summer. They have a beautiful flower and are harvested for herbal use.
I am growing passiflora edulis from seed I bought in Hawaii. I neglected the seedlings for a few years in a pot- now they are in the ground here near Mission Bay in San Diego. The vines have taken over the backyard the last two years- and it finally started flowering late this summer. Still blooming here in early fall. Some flowers are white- some are purple. I have not seen any fruit- the flowers only last about a day and fall off. I have lots of painted lady butterflies in my garden- they lay eggs on the vine and the caterpillars chew on the leaves. I have a problem with spider mites- I probably don’t water enough. After reading comments I will fertilize w/ potash and see if that helps- I would love to see some fruit! I have bees in my garden- but I always see them crawling on the flowers before they open. I have tried hand pollinating- have not seen any results. I also think maybe it doesn’t get enough sun- I have a small fenced in yard that gets shaded by adjacent buildings and an increasingly large ficus tree- which the vine keeps trying to take over!
my new passionfruit plants `( about a month) leaves have gone crinkly ,any suggestions ?
I’m currently growing passionfruit and I’m in the Philippines. I don’t know what variety it is, i got my fruit from Hong Kong and I brought it to the Philippines, it’s hot here but it’s growing! I started to plant the seeds during summer (early March) and temperatures were between 34-40 degrees celsius. I’ve planted it in medium size pots with good soil and drainage and now it’s growing like crazy. I’m training the vines to coves the entire wire trellis fence to cover my ugly neighbors house (LOL) and it’s doing it’s job. I just don’t know when it’ll start to flower and fruit.
I am in the Southern Portion of the Phils. I grew Passion Fruits just to cover my vermi plots. It has given me enough cover from sunlight because be sometimes have temp. of 28-32 C. It has produced for me some delicious fruit juice & combined with pineapple or mango juice do make it excellent.
Each fruit gives me so many seeds that now I have Passion Fruit plantables growing out of my ears! If any one need the seeds or the plantables, say it !
I’ve purchased a Black beauty passionfruit plant today, Your info above should give me a great start to success. Its summer here in New Zealand and the temperature is 26 0C, I intend on doing as you’ve suggested and its sound to me like a recipe for success.
Thanks and I look forward to fruit within the next year or 2.
Michelle
From New Zealand
Tender Passion fruit leaves make great healthy green salad. Cut into tiny pieces mix with onions, salt, grated coconut, and juice of lemon.