Pepino dulce – Solanum muricatum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanum_muricatum

This is one of my favourites from my childhood. Another Peruvian fruit that tastes great and seems to grow like a weed when you get it going in the right climate.

It has a distinct crispy fresh melon like flavour and texture.

It grows to about a metre or so high but needs a supporting trellis or support if it gets much above about 70cm.

The fruits are prolific and grow to about 10cm on average but can get much bigger.

You can pick them as soon as the purple stripes from on the enlarged fruit – however –  if you can leave them to change from the green background colour to a slightly gold tinge with a bit of ‘give’ in the firmness of the fruit they are better flavoured.

They love heat and full sun in a good soil. Add lots of manure and water and keep the root area well mulched.

You can propagate them easily through cuttings. If you let the growing stems bend down to the ground and root from there it makes it very easy. They usually last for about 2-3 years before you need to replace them – so this is a good method of keeping the number of productive plants up.

They usually fruit all summer and into autumn.

This last photo shows a small pepino plant growing at the end of a row of Yacon.