The MGS Forum
Plants for mediterranean gardens => Fruit and Vegetables => Topic started by: Charithea on September 22, 2013, 04:47:34 PM
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Here are 2 pictures of our latest pomegranate harvest. We shared this year's crop with the birds. I was assisted by our very enthusiastic granddaughter.
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We just love pomegranates. Which variety would you recommend for a small garden? I am anxious to plant one.
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I have to apologise for not being able to recommend which variety of pomegranate would be suitable for your garden. The variety we have is very old. It appears in most gardens in Cyprus. The old generation of gardeners never bought pomegranate and fig trees or vines. They were normally acquired from friends, relatives etc. The hardwood cuttings were pushed into the ground and almost always survived and produced fruit. Ours were given to me by the youngest of my brothers who took the cutting from his own tree. Usually the fruit is ready in October but we harvested ours early before the birds ate them all. We share figs and pomegranates with them every year.
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What do you do with this many pomegranates. It's limited how many you can put in your salad and there is also a limit to how much pomegranate jelly we need. Does anybody have any suggestions, preferably something that does dot require too much work? Collecting enough seeds to make 3 liters of juice for the jelly was quite time consuming. I still haven't harvested the second pomegranate tree.
(https://c4.staticflickr.com/6/5173/29967553731_252982a2ca.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/ME8xET)
_9303394 What shall I do with all these?.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/ME8xET) by Jorun Tharaldsen (https://www.flickr.com/photos/46063510@N03/), on Flickr
(https://c3.staticflickr.com/6/5122/30120410906_4344ba48b3.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/MTCYMq)
_A063560 More pomegranate jelly.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/MTCYMq) by Jorun Tharaldsen (https://www.flickr.com/photos/46063510@N03/), on Flickr
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What a lovely sight, Jorun! Would you let me use the top one as a cover picture on our Facebook page sometime?
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Of course, Alisdair, I'll send you the photo.
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I'm jealous of all those lovely pomegranates, as my tree is still very small and has not yet flowered. How about pomegranate molasses - probably a reasonable amount of work, but delicious!
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Thank you, Caroline, I'll have a look at the recipe and see if it's not too laborious.
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Jorun, what a crop of pomegranates! Don't you have birds to eat them? We don't make jams/jelly/preserves with them as far as I know but there is now a NEW TREND. The last few years a lot of pomegranates trees have been planted for the sole purpose of using the juice to make shoushouko. Traditionally is made with the juice of the grapes. I will post a photo of this after St. Lukes festival at the village which takes place on the 18th of October. Shoushouko is simply almonds which have been threaded on thread and dipped in the thickened juice of grapes but in this case it is in pomegranate juice and left to dry. Another new trend is to use pomegranates in salads with wild rocket. Traditionally pomegranates were cut and hung somewhere dry to be used for mnimosina. This is an old religious custom here in Cyprus. On the anniversary of somebody's death, parent, relative etc... a tray containing cooked wheat mixed with blanched almonds and a lot of pomegranate seeds is taken to church for the priest to bless and then handed out to the congregation to eat. I hope I have not bored you with all this information but I thought if you didn't want all your pomegranates you could offer them to the church and they can then be given to those who want them.
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Thank you, Charithea, this was not boring at all, but very interesting. I have managed to give away four full plastic shopping bags, so there are not that many left,except for small ones and the ones have haven't picked yet from the second tree. Actually, everybody around here seem to have their own pomegranate tree, and they are not that interested in getting more fruit. But the jelly I made is very popular.
Yes, the birds eat some, I leave a few fruits on the tree for them, but mots of the seeds end up in the soil around the tree, I have plenty of seedlings all the time and have to weed them out.
The shoushouko sounds nice, but must take a lot of time to make. I often make rocket salad with pomegranate seeds (and slivers of parmesan cheese), delicious.
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As promised I am posting photos of shoushouko. I went round the stallholders and asked them about their produce and the process of making shoushouko. I have bought different flavoured ones from different stalls so that I could discuss the subject with the vendor. Jorun it definitely is a long process. Collecting the almonds, shelling them, soaking the nuts to be threaded, drying the nuts for 3 days before dipping them in the mixture of the juice that has been filtered and thickened. Each thread has to be dipped in the mixture at least three times to get the shape and each time hung to dry and the process is repeated with fresh mixture being prepared and then hung to dry before being sold. I prefer the traditional one made out of grape juice but I have been informed the pomegranate is popular with the younger generation and so is carob. I have included a photo of the terebinthus seeds which are used to make tremithopittes. Tremithopites were a favourite with my mother and aunt.
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Thank you, Charitea, for all the information, which was very interesting. I´m sorry I haven´t been ablel to answer before, but my laptop broke down and I had to get a new one.
The prosess of making shoushouko is a bit more laborious than I´m up to, so I ended up with gelly, whic I made of 5 liters of juice, I needed a lot of ´koukoutsia´ to make that, the rest of the pomegranates, about 2/3, I gave away. The result is delicious, and it is a popular gift.
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Hello Jorun. We have been away attending the AGM of the MGS and I had no time to check the forum. I had the good luck to meet Hilary there too. While visiting gardens in Athens, Nikos Vlachakis, the new head of the Greek branch and I were discussing the use of different mediterranean fruits that we were encountering. He told me he had made some very tasty jam(marmelada) using quince, lemons, pomegranates and apples. He sent me the recipe and I will try it out. I have just about enough pomegranates left. I will then post the recipe with the photos on the web site. Could you send your pomegranate jelly recipe to Fleur for the web site so we can try it too. The commercial pomegranates will soon be in the shops for me to buy.
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I had expected to come home from Sparta today with bags and bags of pomegranates.
However, it rained and rained for most of the five days we were there.
So no pomegranate picking.
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Poor pomegranate crop this year due to 2 winters with very little rain, but we we have had some and some for the birds.
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Do you normally harvest them this early?.
Our pomegranate crop will not be as good as the last couple of years, but the pomegranates look very healthy. We probably had a lot more rain than you did.
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Not normally this early, Jorun, but with the 2 year drought we've been suffering the overall food supply for our feathered friends has been severely reduced, so they are taking more than their normal share. We had to get in while there were still a few left for us.
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The rats have eaten ALL of my pomegranates this year.
Daisy
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We planted 3 pomegranate trees, of the new variety, a few years ago. ( the trees came free) The middle tree produced one fruit. Luckily the birds have not eaten it.
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Does anyone know about how long before a Pomegranate usually starts to flower/fruit? I have a very healthy little tree on the back lawn which I am scanning for the first sign of a flower (remembering that we are now late spring here). I was given it about five years ago and it is now about 80cm tall. I planted it to remind me of one in my mother's old garden, which was probably 90-odd years old, and which every spring would be covered with those waxy scarlet flowers, and glowing red fruit in autumn.
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I read that it usually takes 4-6 years before they start bearing fruit, but that they can get 200 years old, see some more info here: https://homeguides.sfgate.com/long-pomegranate-tree-grow-61116.html . My two pomegranates took longer, though, our soil is not very good, but they now give us plenty of fruit now, although not every year. This year was not a bad one. I got 6 kg pure pomegranate juice out of these, and my fingers and nails were dark brown for weeks afterwards.
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4917/44914116415_66013351ce_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2bqUA2v)
PA091512.jpg Punica granatum (https://flic.kr/p/2bqUA2v) by Jorun Tharaldsen (https://www.flickr.com/photos/46063510@N03/), on Flickr
(https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1953/43789062230_4a4a58f64b_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/29HuoBy)
IMG_20181010_180240.jpg Pome granate jelly (https://flic.kr/p/29HuoBy) by Jorun Tharaldsen (https://www.flickr.com/photos/46063510@N03/), on Flickr
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Jorun, what are you going to do with all this jelly? Our neighbor has started farming pomegranates a few years ago and he sells to the market. I bought some to make jelly but we have been eating them instead. I will ask him the name of the variety and how long it took for them to fruit.
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My Pomegranate tree, planted four years ago when probably about three/four years old, produces many flowers but sadly, so far, the most fruit it has set is three. That was this year when one matured into a large fruit whilst the other two remained very small. Fortunately the birds do not seem interested in them, either don't notice them or are too content gorging themselves on the abundant Kaki fruit nearby.
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Here I am again with the information promised regarding names and time needed to produce fruit. I asked our neighbour and one of the variety is called Wonderful. It took only two years to produce. The fruit is juicy but has big pips. He gave me a pomegranate to try this morning. Variety name unknown for now but it took 3 years to produce fruit. It is his favourite pomegranate and I think he is correct in his choice. The fruit is very juicy and has tiny pips. They planted the cuttings in the ground in the winter because it is cooler and in the hope of rainy days. I also like to say that our pomegranates seeds do not pop out when you hit the fruit with the back of the spoon. They are embedded in so well they have to be cut open with a knife. We get very badly stained fingers. No rubber gloves .
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The only way we could harvest any pomegranates is by netting.
However it doesn't keep them all out!
cheers
fermi
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I wish our pomegranates attracted something as glamorous! (But we do get golden orioles attacking our cherries in SW France...)
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Once again we've had to resort to netting our pomegranates! We noticed this morning that a few fruit had been plundered so knew there was no time to waste - I just hope this year's effort is more successful ;D
There's a lot of small fruit so I know think that ours is one of the named selections,
cheers
fermi
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My Pomegranite is just coming into leaf and there are still two old, ungathered fruits hanging on it. I love to see some fruits left during the winter and in fact one friend commented that she liked my 'Christmas Tree' Our birds do not seem to like them at all as one or two poor fruits were left cut open on the ground for them and left untouched.