Growing Naranjilla

    One of the other weird plants I’m trying to grow this year is Naranjilla (Solanum quitoense). I saw it advertised in Baker Creek Seeds catalog, and thought it looked interesting. Also called ‘lulo’, this plant is more commonly grown in South America, where I believe it is popular enough to be found at markets and grocery stores. It’s another tomato relative, with large pointed leaves and dark purple veins. Some varieties have thorns, and judging from pictures I’ve found online, some do not seem to have the purple veins.

   The plant is, of course, frost sensitive and must be brought indoors during cold weather. It will fruit the same season it’s started, but needs a very long growing season or an early indoor start. It can take up to 12 months for fruit setting and ripening. So in most temperate climates, starting seed indoors in the fall seems like the best way to go about it if you don’t have a greenhouse.  They’re pretty sissy, it seems, being very intolerant of heavy wind and intense sunlight. Light shade is necessary for them to thrive.

“Ripe naranjillas, freed of hairs, may be casually consumed out-of-hand by cutting in half and squeezing the contents of each half into the mouth. The empty shells are discarded. The flesh, complete with seeds, may be squeezed out and added to ice cream mix, made into sauce for native dishes, or utilized in making pie and various other cooked desserts. The shells may be stuffed with a mixture of banana and other ingredients and baked. But the most popular use of the naranjilla is in the form of juice. For home preparation, the fruits are washed, the hairs are rubbed off, the fruits cut in half, the pulp squeezed into an electric blender and processed briefly; then the green juice is strained, sweetened, and served with ice cubes as a cool, foamy drink. A dozen fruits will yield 8 oz (227 g) of juice. Commercially, the juice is extracted mechanically from the cleaned and chopped fruits, strained, concentrated and canned or put into plastic bags and frozen.

Sherbet is made in the home by mixing naranjilla juice with corn sirup, sugar, water, and a little lime juice, partially freezing, then beating to a froth and freezing. Naranjilla jelly and marmalade are produced on a small scale in Cali, Colombia.”