Why aren't maypop fruit popular in Louisiana?

Yeah, my grand dad introduced them to me. I've tried growing them, but was never really successful. I gave up easily. They have a pretty unique taste.

May Pops were everywhere in the River Parishes back in the day We ate them often as they were sweet treats and were found in the woods between sub-divisions.

About 5 years ago, I planted a passionfruit vine in my backyard specifically for the butterfly it hosts, the Gulf Coast Fritillary. The fruit was a pleasant surprise! I'm not a huge fan of it fresh, but I pick the fruits up off the ground, remove the seeds, and freeze the pulp. When it's totally done fruiting, I usually have enough to get about 2 quarts of jam out of it and it's freaking great. I give out 8 oz jars of it for Christmas and people love it.

I will say, the vine pops up all over the place because it spreads underground. If you care about having a monoculture lawn, definitely keep it in a pot.

You sometimes find cultivated imported passion fruit in big groceries like Albertsons. The pulp and juice make some great cocktails LINK

it will vine over and crowd out the low plants in the bed. It freezes back every winter so it’s not like it takes over and that’s that though

mine grows in a bed next to a lattice wall and climbs up that. The butterflies I think prefer it growing vertically to lay their eggs

we had probably a hundred gulf frittilaries this year, clouds of them. It’s amazing

There are different types you can buy to grow. I wanted to host gulf fritillaries and i ordered a passion fruit vine online. Beautiful plant, produces good fruit. No pests and vigorous growth. Only problem is the fritillaries don’t like it because i got Passiflora Edulis, apparently native to South America. Passiflora Incarnata is the native one here that the fritillaries like. First time in my life i’ve been like “Something please eat my plant!” It’s huge and fast growing. Super healthy.

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Did they produce fruit? I ordered the ones from South America also. They claimed that they can produce fruit here. Purple possum and giant granadilla were the two I ordered. Im going to be pissed if they don't produce.

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Yes, and it’s good too. I started mine from a rooted stick on Amazon just over a year ago. Not much happened that first fall. I had it in a big pot and put it next to the house and covered it with a sheet during the freeze last winter. This year it had 2 bloom cycles, one in early summer and one now. The first cycle gave me 6 or 7 fruits. I started hand pollinating the flowers (it’s self-fertile, meaning it doesn’t need a genetically separate plant to make fruit, though some varieties do.) I’m getting more fruit this time around. Idk what specific variety this one is, but i know it’s some kind of Passiflora Edulis. I also don’t know which varieties require another separate plant.