Fruits and Veggies Monday - Pomegranates in their Red Glory

Red, Red Pomegranates

It is pomegranate season and our tree made us proud this year as you can see in this post from a week ago.
https://steemit.com/fruitsandveggiesmonday/@mariannewest/fruit-pomegranate-guava

What I didn't tell you then is that quite a bit of the tree is growing over the fence into my neighbor's yard. Actually, I think there was more fruit on his side than on mine. When I noticed that the rats had found their favorite snack (or one of their favorites) I called him up and asked him to harvest the fruit before it is too late.

He was very happy to do so. He loves to garden - but has no time. His work leaves him little time for anything else. Pomegranates are some of his favorites, but without my call, he might have never known that they were ready for the picking.

You see, I am growing a bunch of trees along the fence to my neighbor's house.

They are fulfilling quite a few purposes. If you are at all familiar with Permaculture, you know that most everything in your environment needs to have at least 3 functions.

Let's see how the trees along the fence are doing.

They hide the ugly, ugly chain link fence.
They give out neighbors some privacy from us.
They give us some privacy from our neighbors. Duh!
They give us food to eat.
They provide free food to our neighbor from a tree he does not have to water or take care off.
My neighbor likes the free food and it makes us better neighbors.
They provide food for all kinds of wildlife - from insects to - yes, you guessed it - rats. But possums, birds, raccoons and who knows who else are getting a share as well.
They provide shelter for lots of critters and a safe nesting space for many birds.

That is a pretty good list, don't you think? And if I think a bit more, I can probably come up with another list. Or maybe you can share in the comments some other benefits such a fedge - a hedge grown from food plants - might have.

We ended up with lots of beautiful pulp like this.

This, I am freezing and it will give me lots of smoothies for my future self.

Did you notice that I left all the white stuff in with the red? And maybe you even see a little of the peel?

The white stuff right under the peel is called Albedo and the section dividers are called membrane. In some descriptions, they call it unedible pith.

Until not so long ago, I believed that to be unedible as well. Then we hosted the Festival of Fruit in San Diego through the California Rare Fruit Growers.

One of the speakers was a Pomegranate researcher who said to eat it all - that it is healthy. Even the peel. A company is grinding the peel and mixing it in the juice. They are selling it as super healthy for super amounts of money.

The peel tastes pretty awful, but a little bit in a smoothie is not too bad. And if the white stuff turns out to be of little nutritional value - at least it adds some fiber.

That is why I am leaving it in!!

Now, fixing all these Pomegranates comes with a price!

Witness the battleground.

Pomegranate battle ground.JPG

It looks a bit like blood was spilled here.

And there is quite a bit of waste waiting in the kitchen sink for its final destination.

Pomegranate _waste.jpg

If we were a bit more ambitious, I am sure we could have figured out a good use for the rest of the peels and the pieces I chopped off because someone had nibbled on the fruit.

Maybe as a dye?

Pomegranate _stain.JPG

As you can see here, the Pomegranate juice makes a pretty color. And it seems to set well. No fading and washing out for this baby!

But, we just had clear run out of white T-shirts in need of a dye job and gave the peels and such to the chickens instead.

They were happy!

This post set out as a short entry to the #Colorchallenge by Hive account@kalemandra as #Mondayred

For some reason, those Pomegranates just didn't want to shut up and made my fingers keep dancing on the keyboard. I swear! I had nothing to do with it! And it told me that is really wanted to be part of the Fruits and Veggies Monday by the awesome creator Hive account@lenasveganliving