Tuesday 8 November 2011

Pomegranate Dreaming

Like rubies glinting in the sun, with a sweet yet tart flavour, little jewels that burst and pop in your mouth, such is the allure of the pomegranate.

I have 2 pomegranate bushes, one that was planted 12 months ago is located in the chicken pen with a wire fence around it to keep the scratching at a safe distance and one that was planted 4 months ago out in the main orchard.
The 12 month old bush, don't mind the weeds
The 4 month old bush, must do something
about that grass
 The other day when I was out feeding the chickens I noticed the most exciting thing, a flower.

The petals were soft like crepe paper
Now the flower has dropped off and there is a bud, or is it another flower yet to open?
 
The bud

Ohhhhh  how I hope it's a fruit.

But I have my doubts about the strength of the branch's to hold a developing fruit, let alone a rosy, fully ripened, bursting with luscious juiciness mature fruit. 
The branches are mere twigs, but perhaps since the bush is so small the fruit could sit on the ground while it ripened? 
But that would mean bugs and pests and would therefore thwart my plans for homegrown pomegranate in my salads, or in cocktails, or juiced over ice this summer.
Maybe I will have to build a stool for my little fruit to sit on...

Perhaps I am over thinking things at this stage, maybe I should hold off before making any rash decisions about supporting and eating my pomegranate until it grows a little more.  At this stage it is probably just as likely to drop off after undesirable weather conditions.

Grow little pomegranate grow, a few more flowers please.  I have some many plans for you, and yes my expectations may be high but I am sure you will want to live up to them.


6 comments:

  1. I think I read about this recently, maybe in my Daley's nursery catalogue, the flower turns in the fruit slowly, so that looks like a fruit. This will be painful, but you should probably remove some of the fruit/flowers before they ripen so you don't stress your little tree too much in its first year (sorry to be the one to say that!). I have been removing buds from our tangelo tree, to encourage more leaves and not so much fruit, I know its for the best, but its still hard to do :)

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  2. Ohhh pomegranates are SO exciting! I love them too! I have one in the garden with no promise of fruit this year... You're very lucky to have the promise so soon!
    My grandparents had a tree that was huge and really old and the fruit would always droop elegantly to the ground on soft stems...
    As Liz said, perhaps reducing the fruit to one or two might be a good idea. Oh how difficult!

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  3. Oh yummy. I look forward to updates. That is going to be one spoiled pomegranate with its own little stool to sit on :)

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  4. Ooooooo why isn't mine flowering! This is the most exciting news in the world Fiona - I saw one flowering the other day and it looked just specatcular, the flowers are glorious! Congratulations on your first one, and good luck picking them off... I don't think I could do it :D

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  5. Liz, yep I have had to remove the buds from my citrus for the last 2 years so hopefully this year will get some fruit.
    Liz,Phoebe, AA, Ali, I only have the one flower so far and if I do not get anymore I might just risk leaving it on.
    Phoebe I did not know the stems stayed soft.
    AA, yes one spoiled pomegranate it will be.
    Ali, Don't be too envious I only have one flower/bud at this stage

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  6. Well they do and they don't... I think grannies plant drooped because it was always laden with fruit. When there is no fruit the stems hold up!

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