“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in’
– Greek proverb.
My friends, do you grow passion fruits in your backyard gardens? I do but recently, I wasn’t too happy to discover I had only one fruit on the vines.
Someone once said flower gardens reflected the kind of care they received.
I guess the presence of only one solo fruit shows I have not been caring much for my backyard garden for the past few months.
On my days off, it rained almost every afternoon and this prevented me from going into the garden.
But I knew deep in my heart, sooner or later, I had to visit it.
One day, to my alarm, I noticed that my passion fruit vines were climbing higher and higher onto a neighbour’s wall.
“I hope they don’t climb up to the roof. I must really do something about the plants soon,” I told myself.
Then one hot day, I told myself, “It’s now or never!”
Armed with a pair of big scissors, I decided to cancel all the outings I planned and lock myself in the garden. From then on, it was snip, snip, snip until the vines looked neater with fewer leaves.
While I was pruning the vines, I noticed there were many flowers but some were hidden behind thick leaves. So I studiously removed some of these thick leaves to allow the flowers to face the sun.
While I was sweating in the sun, my younger dog, Bailey, kept banging on the front door. It wanted to join me in the garden. But I just ignored the din the naughty canine was making.
After learning from the internet that chicken manure encouraged flowering and fruiting, I bought two big bags of soil mixed with chicken manure and a small bag of chicken manure from a gardening shop.
I have already put the soil on my passion fruit vines. Today, I am happy to see another small passion fruit on the vines today. That’s fruit no.2. I look forward to seeing more passion fruits in my garden.
Passion fruits gained a lot of attention among members of the public recently because they are sources of powerful antioxidants and contain vitamins A, B and C, fibre and postassium.
The passion fruit has a soft pulp and lots of seeds inside a hard rind. You can eat the seeds and pulp, juice them or add them to other juices.
In Sarawak, we normally see two types of passion fruits —purple passion fruits and yellow passion fruits.
Do you know that the purple passion fruit plant originated in subtropical South America, and is native to an area that stretches from southern Brazil to northern Argentina (Morton)?
Although the origin of the yellow passion fruit is unclear, it is also believed to have originated in Brazil. Hence, I am not surprised to learn that Brazil accounts for 50-60 per cent of the world production and that it is the largest producer and consumer of fresh and processed passion fruits.
I have the yellow passion fruit in my garden. I believe I planted the seeds of fruits I bought at the MBKS Stutong Community Market for RM10 per kg.
I love to eat the fresh fruits; some are very sweet while some are sweet but a bit sourish.
My first encounter with the passion fruit was in Kapit, a small town in the Upper Rajang River That was in the mid 1980s when an European woman, married to an Iban civil servant, served me a glass of fresh passion fruit juice in her home.
I was interviewing her husband for a story and also on my way to cover a story at a longhouse further up the Rajang River for a Brunei-based weekly then.
My second encounter with the passion fruit was in Johor Bharu. That was the first time I saw the fruits on sale. I bought some and later planted the seeds in my backyard garden in Kuching.
From the seeds grew many vines and many passion fruits. I remember my family enjoyed the sweet fruits from the vines for a few years.
Besides the passion fruit vines, I have a lime tree and a few banana trees in my small garden.
Although the lime tree is old, it still bears fruits every year. it was originally planted by my younger brother, Seng, who died in 2002 at the age of 40. Every time I eat the limes, I remember him.
The first Kepok banana tree in my garden was planted by my late mother many, many years ago. She loved to make banana fritters which we — her children and grandchildren — loved to eat. The old lady died two years ago. Every time I look at the banana trees, I remember my mother.
Now, when I eat the passion fruits from my garden, I remember the European lady I met in Kapit and the cool refreshing passion fruit drink she served me.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.
