PASSIONFLOWER -- MAYPOP

Passionflower  (Passiflora incarnata)

The Franklin County Herb Demo Garden has a beautiful Passionflower vine. During our fall cleanup we found the Maypop fruit among the leaves. It was not fully ripe. It tasted both sweet and tart. You may eat the seeds. Very interesting. Here’s some TRiViA facts:

Maypop is a common name for this vine because of the loud popping sound made when the fruits are stepped on.

Maypop is the fruit. 
Usually wrinkled when ripe.

The fruit pulp is both sweet and tart and somewhat like tropical fruit. It can be made into jam or jelly, some baked goods, and ice cream. It is flavoring for homebrews, kombucha, wine, or drinking vinegar.

Each unique flower lasts about one day, appearing in the summer and early fall. 

It grows well vertically on a trellis or against a wall or fence.

Although thought to be an annual in Zone 6 it has proven to be a dependable perennial in Zones 5-9. It is native to the southeast U.S. and Central America.

 Fire Risk: This plant has an extreme flammability rating and should not be planted within the defensible space of your home. Select plants with a low flammability rating for the sites nearest your home.  -NCarolina Extension 

Grown on a trellis in the herb garden

This is a good native and pollinator plant attracting hummingbirds and butterflies in the summer and fall. For other wildlife, the foliage provides good, dense cover year-round. It is somewhat deer resistant. 

Passionflower vine can become a pest and invasive weed. When they escape cultivation they can become problematic weed in areas such as no-till agronomic crops, pastures, hay fields, and roadsides. Due to their thick, deep rhizomes, mechanical or cultural control can be very difficult. - Univ Missouri

The passionflower blossom, especially the flower of the purple passion fruit (P. edulis), is often used to symbolize events in the last hours of the life of Jesus Christ. Other plant parts may represent other people or events at that time.

CKagan, Master Gardener

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Winterizing Strawberries

 

Photo courtesy of StrawberryPlants.org

From a news article by Karly Regan, Penn State Extension, Franklin County

As winter sets in for our area, the fresh berries of summer may be far from our minds! However, to have delicious strawberries to eat, we need to make sure to tuck our plants in for winter properly. If you haven’t already, now is the time to put mulch or row covers over strawberry beds to protect them from winter temperatures.

In matted row production, straw mulch is an essential tool for protecting the crop from winter extremes. Apply four inches of clean mulch (about two tons of straw per acre) after temperatures have dropped into the mid-20s F for 3-4 consecutive days. At this point, plants will have developed some cold tolerance and gone dormant for the season. In our area, this typically occurs between late November and late December. In addition to protecting above-ground tissue from cold temperatures, the mulch protects root and crowns from exposure due to frost heaving. In areas exposed to wind, straw mulch can be held in place by laying wire or plastic fencing over the mulch with bricks or other heavy objects weighting the fencing down. Avoid using leaves as mulch since these can trap too much moisture and lead to ice formation.

For plasticulture production systems, floating row covers are applied when daytime temperatures reach into the low 70s to enable continued growth and crown and bud formation. The row covers will also provide winter protection by reducing desiccation and exposure to low temperatures.

In the spring, you can remove straw mulch when approximately 25% of your plants are producing new growth and temperatures remain above the critical temperatures for strawberry blooms, around 20° F. Another good metric for if it’s time to remove the mulch is when soil temperatures reach 40° F at a 4-inch depth. If early-fruiting is a goal in plasticulture beds, row covers should be removed early in spring.

If temperatures are fluctuating, it is best to partially remove mulch so that photosynthesis can begin but some mulch is still insulating the roots. Once removing, move mulch into the aisles between rows or other area nearby in case it needs to be reapplied for a springtime cold snap. If using row covers over plasticulture, follow the same practice of removing to between the rows in case it needs to be put back over plants for colder temperatures.

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°Brix- Measuring Sugar in Fruit and Vegetables

Black Cherry Tomatoes

Update: A post asked what is the sweetest cherry tomato. Aha. More poking around on the internet. 

A large tomato may have a Brix reading from 2.3 to 8.2; a small tomato from 4.5 to 11.7. In a tomato challenge one bag of Sungold won out over a different bag of Sungold.   These were the F1 hybrids. What I find is that there are three varieties that show up often: Sungold (9-10), Isis Candy (8-9) and Sakura (8.8) . (‘Rosada’is the sweetest variety tested in the UK - ‘Rosada’ is a baby plum variety with a Brix rating of 10.5.- Hard to find.)

IMPORTANT TO NOTE: Many factors influence a tomato crop and the crop’s Brix level. Variety selection and crop maturity are two key factors. Environmental factors, such as moisture, fertility, sunlight, and temperature also have an influence on Brix levels. 

This article has lots of good information. 

I am always amazed at what I learn when checking a fact for a post. In checking if the Black Cherry  tomato is open-pollinated before I posted I discovered a notation of a °Brix rating (note the symbol preceding the B).

And so I begin my "but I digress" internet time. Here's the interesting information I found. It is not a game or misspelling of bricks.

Degrees Brix (symbol °Bx) is the measure of sugar content in an aqueous solution. One degree Brix is 1 gram of sucrose in 100 grams of solution and represents the strength of the solution as percentage by mass. There is a digital refractometer that takes the measurements.

Drop of juice to measure sugar content

This measurement is used in fruit juice, wine making, carbonated beverage industry, starch and the sugar industry (think produce crops-corn, tomatoes, apples, citrus, melons).

At a Yara North America internet site (which piqued my interest even more to find out about this organization.) I found this explanation.

“Sugar levels in tomatoes:

°Brix is a measure of the Total Soluble Solid (TSS) content in the tomato or tomato product. The TSS in tomatoes is mainly sugars (fructose). A tomato juice, which is assessed as having 20 ° Brix, has 200g/litre of soluble sugars.

"Tomatoes for processing require a minimum °Brix of 4.5. This compares with an acceptable range of 3.5 - 5.5 in fresh tomatoes. The TSS of processed products is measured by refractometry.

"The °Brix content of the finished tomato product is largely controlled by the processor and manufacturing process. However, some processors do pay a higher price for higher dry matter tomatoes. In general, smaller, cherry tomatoes have a higher °Brix ratio and are sweeter than larger round or common tomatoes."

Penn State Video Capture

Ohio State has a more scholarly online article and Penn State has an online video of how to use a Brix refractor.

And this, my friends, is why, as a life-long learner, I find getting on the internet sucks up so much time. (2 hrs, w/photo finds and research)

Since this is research-based information, I am signing this as

~ Carol Kagan, Master Gardener

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