Post by coppertone on Aug 8, 2015 10:04:24 GMT
After about 4 years of getting a mere handful of these delights each season, I decided this was the year to find the solution of getting a fair share or destroy the bushes which get pretty big with rampant growth. The birds and monkeys left me no choice!!
Netting did not help as the bush grew though it!
It is a bit time consuming but before the fruit starts to ripen and the 'lantern' casing dry out, pick the fruit choosing the larger berries. This is a bit labour intensive as you have to feel each fruit for (reasonable) size.
Put them into an orange nylon pocket and hand up in a warm sunny place. Within days the fruit starts to ripen and the casings dry out.
You can then select the fruit as you need it and leave the rest to ripen nicely.
One of the local upmarket shops sells 200g for R40 so to me it is well worthwhile the effort as I have several kgs bagged this way!
Hope this helps someone else - mine all go into our daily fruit salad as I seldom eat jam
BTW shake up the bag daily so as to re-arrange the fruit and give it a equal chance of getting some sun/preven it going moldy
Netting did not help as the bush grew though it!
It is a bit time consuming but before the fruit starts to ripen and the 'lantern' casing dry out, pick the fruit choosing the larger berries. This is a bit labour intensive as you have to feel each fruit for (reasonable) size.
Put them into an orange nylon pocket and hand up in a warm sunny place. Within days the fruit starts to ripen and the casings dry out.
You can then select the fruit as you need it and leave the rest to ripen nicely.
One of the local upmarket shops sells 200g for R40 so to me it is well worthwhile the effort as I have several kgs bagged this way!
Hope this helps someone else - mine all go into our daily fruit salad as I seldom eat jam
BTW shake up the bag daily so as to re-arrange the fruit and give it a equal chance of getting some sun/preven it going moldy