Off to the Ranch #19: Planting maracujá (passionfruit)

Heeeyho Readers! More updates from our little ranch!

Employing our passion to plant passionfruit. Pa-dum-tss.

"We're going to use the compost", says Dad. I grumble and shake my head. Our earthworms took months to grow. It's hurtful to use the compost right when life begins to flourish. After a wrangle about the purpose of composts, I finally give up — earthworms are not pets and earth is for cultivation.

The saga starts months ago, during the summer, when I like to drink maracujá (passionfruit). In Brazil, passionfruit is known for its relaxation property, helping to ease anxiety and stress. I won't doubt my granny. Other than that, the so-called superfood is an excellent post-training drink. Anyways. Let's not get passionate about the properties of passionfruit and get to the cultivation instead.

Dad collected hundreds of seeds and casually mixed into the compost. Teeny green leaves sprouted after a few weeks. Surprise, surprise. We transferred them to a new box to let nature do nature tricks. Fast forward a couple of months and the maracujá are ready to be cultivated into the soil.

^{Maracujá (passionfruit) sprouts}

Our soil is not naturally rich in the surface. For that reason, we used our previously prepared soil, consisting of months worth of grass, kitchen waste, chicken manure, etc. It still hurts to see the earthworms departure. Live a long adventurous life little fellas. This layer of compost will provide enough nutrients for the maracujá to grow.

^Compost

^{Full of earthworms}

I learned a lot making the compost. Next time I won't add as much saw dust and focus on a better mix of greens and browns. I also plan to build a compost tumbler to see if it works; wooden boxes do the trick, but rot away too fast. We're currently testing an open-bottom wooden box, to let the earthworms come from the ground into the compost. On our first and second compost (the one you see here), I added the earthworms manually.

^{Carrying compost to fill the tires}

Dad has been using car tires to fertilize trees since his previous property. It's great the repurpose an item that lasts for a hundred years if buried, and that has no real purpose after its use cycle. If you want to know more about that, check Off to the Ranch #17.

Off to the Ranch #17: Repurposing car tires & fertilizing the trees

After filling the tires with compost, we began to add the maracujá sprouts.

^{base layer}

^planting

Baron showed up to sniff the cultivation and check the progress. It's time to take a break, sit on the wheelbarrow and pet the inspector. He's in charge controlling the chickenian army, who's now under arrest.

^Baron

^{All good}

Although the chickenian army is under arrest, there's still a member or two still terrorizing the fields. Those punks are so intelligent that they don't leave traces, leaving us clueless of how the hell they escape the fence. For that reason, we are chicken-proofing our plants. They can still penetrate our defenses, but its a start to shift the war.

^{A row of maracujá}

^{chicken-proof}

I came up with the idea of using a plastic fence to chicken-proof the compost, but soon realized the hooligans could easily remove it, breaking the sprout on the destructive process. Debris is more effective.

^{Maracujá sprout}

From what I briefly accessed online, the first fruits appear between 6 to 9 months after cultivation. I'm curious to see them grow. If this first try works out, we should expand to the front field, where there's less shade and more space.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. See in next time.

Peace.

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Disclaimer: The author of this post is a convict broke backpacker, who has travelled more than 10.000 km hitchhiking and more than 5.000 km cycling. Following him may cause severe problems of wanderlust and inquietud. You've been warned.