I have been wanting to try these Dragonfruit for a long time and never found them locally so I decided to search the internet for someone who would ship them I found this place in Florida "Robertishere" It never dawned on me to ask him if he had the white or the red I was hoping to get the white but I don't think it matters, I believe they both taste the same "from what I read" anyway they were very good I wish I could grow them if you've never had them try them you will be in for a pleasant surprise 

Dave

Awesome! I wish i could grow many things that are not within my growing zone.

I never heard of it!  Is it really that pink?  It reminds me of an artichoke from the outside.  Is it originally from Asia?

I am not sure if it is a question of acquired taste or something else. I just put one full one and one other half in the compost in the compost. This was the second time my son brought them because I forgot to tell him the first time that I was not impressed. It is not bad but not something to wait for like the FIGs.
Also, the red one I composted was a week old in the fridge and had become soft. The poppy seeds like seeds in the fruit flesh were a good sight to look at.

here's a picture of a white one that I got from the internet, all the info I have seen about these on youtube claim they are very close in flavor a white one may be a little bit better 

I bought one of the white ones in Hawaii during the summer of 2011. It was mild flavor but quite good

One of my favorite fruits. They sell them pretty cheap in Chinatown, NYC.

Navid.

I too have tried these a number of times, especially when shopping at the market with my daughter.  We like to try new fruits, but dragonfruit has never been a good experience.  Maybe they are simply underripe - but they have all been so mild that they barely had any flavour at all.
Nice to know there are really good ones out there!

Interesting fruit!  I've never seen them either.  I'll check Chinatown in LA next time I'm there.

Suzi

I've never tried or seen them here either . They are very colorful !

Ever since I saw this post, I've been watching for them at the local supermarket.  This evening they had some  (at Wegmans, near Binghamton NY).  So I bought one.  How do you prepare them?  Just slice them and cut off the coarse outer parts (as you would a pineapple)?  

I decided to make an exotic fruit dessert night tomorrow:  I also bought a star fruit and a pepino.  If I have enough ambition, I'll post pics. I've had star fruit but never had pepino or dragonfruit before.  (Oh the things we do while awaiting the return of fresh figs).

Mike   central NY state, zone 5

I love them! The taste is unique: sweet "radishy-cucumber" The seeds give a nice crunch like you would bite into a kiwi. So good. My childhood fruit, along with Mountain apple, and Mangosteen from the Philipines- reminiscing here. Thank you for posting

They are a member of the "climbing cactus" family, from South America, and Mexico as I remember.
grown as farm produced fruit in California.
They grow into massive plants some grow over 15'-20' in high and wide.
And resemble the orchid cactus species.

A night bloomer, that needs a moth to accomplish fruits, or cross pollination by hand.
there are a lot of youtube videos on them. Interesting to watch.
I tried growing them once and started with 5 varieties.
They're not worth the trouble unless you are in zone 10 or above.
And even in those zones they can be difficult to grow.

Dave. I've never tried the fruit but I have a couple small plants of these growing. If you're motivated to do so, I'm pretty sure you can grow the seeds. You'll get a larger plant faster from vegetative propagation but I still think they will grow from seed.

I've seen them with red on red like yours as well as the red with white inside. But there is also a yellow one. I think it's also white inside.

There are some interesting videos on youtube that show these being hand pollinated. The blooms are huge. Large enough to stick your hand inside them to transfer pollen from one to another.

Dan, we must have been posting in sinc. We added some overlapping info :) .

I grow some of the plants in the greenhouse.
Buying it from the store, be prepared to pay a lot for nothing. There are barely any flavor in them. However picked almost ripe from a farm and shipped has a good flavor.

My 3 year old calls them dragon eggs. To eat them just slice in half and scope out with a spoon. Like a paw paw but no seeds to worry about. Flavor from the asian market in my neck of the woods isn't that great - but what from the super markets ever is?

Also known as Pitaya in Guatemala. They grow all over and many people used the cactus plants from which these fruit are borne as hedges. I took some cuttings from a street side hedge and planted them in sandy soil on my property and within 3 years was picking these delicious fruit with crunchy seeds! Never saw white ones down there.

I've bought these in Hawaii and California.  They look so exotic and good to eat, but not a single one tasted good.  Very bland, like eating water with seeds.   The white one is supposed to be the blandest.   I heard the yellow one is best, but I haven't tasted it.  

A few pics from my "exotic fruits" night.  I concur with the general consensus on the flavor, by the way... fairly bland for both the dragonfruit and the pepino.  I'm confident they'd taste better if tree-ripened.  This dragonfruit was imported from Viet Nam, and the pepino from Ecuador.  Not sure where the starfruit/carambola came from.  

Not sure if I'll plant the dragonfruit seeds.  The label said the fruit had been irradiated -- do you think the seeds will still germinate?

Mike


Three fruits 



Dragon fruit - halved. 



Dragon fruit, sliced.


Pepino from Ecuador.  (in incandescent light).



Pepino, sliced.  (in incandescent light).

This is true.. So so sooo true. I picked a ripe dragon fruit, and wooh boy, it was fabulous. I like the white flesh.

Jennifer

A dragonfruit lover's post in china fruit forum.
http://bbs.shuiguobang.com/thread-170509-1-1.html

he said the best sweet dragonfruit which he knows  is "hong shui jing" (means Red crystal) and "bai shui jing"(means White crystal).

Hi everyone,

We have dragon fruit around the year in Malaysia either the red or white meat.  The white meat was first introduced here followed by the red as commercial and garden crop.  Lately the red is more popular as it is sweeter and easily available everywhere in our market .

I never plant the tree (cactus like) but like the fruit very much.  What i understand the tree is easy to plant and grow.

I have about 30 varieties of pitaya/pitahaya/dragon fruit.  Most are in very bad shape with the cold frosty weather we've had this year but one next to my house is fine and I have some small back-ups in my greenhouse.  I need a bigger greenhouse.  Most of the white-fleshed ones (Hylocereus undatus) are not very tasty though some are better than others and in recent years some of these imported from Vietnam by air shipment have reportedly tasted very good.  The pink-fleshed types, generally H. guatemalanesis are pretty good and the favorites I've eaten so far are ones of an unknown species (selection named 'Houghton' and a hybrid developed by CRFG co-founder Paul Thomson using 'Houghton' as one of the parents, simply numbered 8-S (s standing for seedling).  Most seeds from these fruits can be germinated but be prepared to wait 4-5 years for fruit.  When referring to the tasty "yellow dragon fruit" people are usually referring to H. megalanthus (previously classified as Selenicereus megalanthus) which are a slower-developing fruit that is smaller and thorny (others pretty much only have thorns on green fleshy stems of cactus).  A friend recently visited South America and was served some version that was much larger and very nice tasting.  I've had native versions during my visits to Nicaragua but the dark red ones from there have never been sweet enough for my tasting but making fantastic juices when sweetened (a grower in Kona, Hawaii further states the addition of lime juice makes a fantastic drink).  For some photos of some of the different types available, http://www.tropicalfruitnursery.com/dragon/index.htm is a nice place for some photos. Please note that many of the rock music names of some of the varieties offering by PIN were created by Paul Thomson and others and simply re-named by PIN.

I'm an active member of a Yahoo discussion group called "PitayaFruit" and suggest more discussion be taken up there instead of upsetting fig fiends. :)

Sooo; pit = dragon?!