Yes, I know we're all "Passionate" about Figs - but check out this Passion Fruit Vine:

We planted this Vine last September. . .
 

11 Months of Southern California Sun later and. . .
 

I thought it would take at least a few years to fill up the trellis, now I wish I'd built it 3 times larger - Haha! Time to expand :)
The vine only has about 10 fruit on it right now, but I'm sure I've got the hang of manual-pollinating now aa 15 new ones are coming along! Plus I hit the 15 flowers that have opened in the past 2 days so I'm hoping it will be LOADED soon.
My kids love the sweet & sour tangy flavor of them and say the crunchy seeds remind them of pomegranate seeds :)

 

 

Anyone have any success hand-pollinating these?

Keep Growing, 

Good looking plant. I lived a Brazil for a few years and had fresh maracujá often. We put the pulp of a ripe fruit in a cup of water with a spoon full of sugar and mixed it together.
When ripe the fruit will start to reduce in size. The skin will start to get folds in it.
The fruit has a mild sedative in it and drinking it on the beach as we often did would put you to sleep.

Is that P. incarnata? I got some maypop seeds from another from member a few years ago. A couple took and now I have blooms and fruit! It's a fascinating plant. I hand-pollinated the first, but not second or third, then fourth and fifth blossoms. All hand-pollinated are now fruiting. Those I did not are not.

Very nice!! I am growing my first one this year, not nearly as big as yours!!

Dave is that the Maypop variety? I have been meaning to get one I understand they survive in cold climates 

I love tropical Passionfruit.  I planted Maypop here last year but no flowers yet.  I don't know how the taste of the maypop compares with the tropical Passiflora edulis.  I'm no expert but I'll bet his is P edulis.  The maypop which is native to the SE USA is P incarnata

They occur as far north as Pennsylvania across to Illinois. Pollinators are various bees. Maypop is the common name for the species P. incarnata.

Just did a youtube search and found this on the Maypop taste  

I have P incarnata on the back patio and can post pic if you like.  They grow wild everywhere here locally.  Dad used to gather and taught me to gather them.  I know where every vine patch is on every fence in town!

Flavor varies with ripeness.  I like them just as they are beginning to get soft and yellowish.  Sweet with a tart finish.  I fill my whole jaw with the seeds and expertly remove the flesh of each seed, one at a time with my front teeth and tongue, kind of hard to explain, and spit out the seeds.
  

Charlie, how old does a P incarnata have to be before it starts bearing fruit?  How long does it take from flower to ripe fruit?  Mine didn't spring up until late July.

I love passion fruit!  I am growing a plant from a seed I bought from the market, I would be so happy if I get even a flower to bloom... I think the leaves are sweet, for some reason, every bug out there wants to eat the poor plant.

Dave, thankyou sooooo much for posting these two photos of your passion fruit vine frames.   I've got several of these plants in the ground and have been wondering what sort of frame I'd need to put in place before they really start growing (its winter here still) so you have answered this for me thankyou.

Also, from my understanding one doesn't need to hand pollinate, the bees do this job.  

Gen
hello from Down Under

Took these pics last year...

 

 

 

Charlie, I came from a small town inland in Brazil, and they  grow them commercially. At time of blooming you can smell the flowers from far away. What a great weather you guys have in California to grow the amazing fruits.  These flower pictures make me happy.. what a perfect looking flower! Thanks for sharing.

Great photos revealing fascinating floral structures of these plants.

hand pollination is easy take the pollen part and smear it over the small heads. i think its best to cross pollinate between different fruits on the same vine - the chances are higher.
I hope to have the same success pollinating my fejoa tree.

This one is Passiflora Edulis - we picked it up from Evergreen Nursery in San Diego, California.
Usually I'd leave it up to the bees to do their business, BUT it seems these flowers are only open for a single day! A window of a few morning hours and that's it! So to literally give Mother Nature a hand I'm out there going "buzz, buzz, buzz" doing the dirty work :)

So check this out: While I was visiting Encanto Farms Nursery in San Diego this week, Jon shows me this huge Passion fruit vine that he tells me grew from a seedling. Here's the kicker: it puts out Lemon-Yellow passion fruit with an identical inside to my Passiflora Edulis ONLY SWEETER!!! It was like almost all of the sour/tang was taken out, just leaving the sweet tropical flavor! Mine grows green fruit which ripen to a wrinkly purple. An online search tells me that this yellow type is not completely uncommon, but I hadn't seen one before. I didn't think to examine the flower to see if it was also purple/white, but the vine itself looked 'normal'. Weirdness!

AussieBackyardGardener40: Build your trellis as large as possible - The Vine will use it all!

Keep Growing,