Red Pummelo

[Mira]

Does anyone have red Pummelo tree? if you have, can you spare some seeds for me? I would like to plant them in my garden. Thanks,

[Doug Kanter]

Are the home grown ones better than what's found in the stores? I just had my first one and it had as much character as cardboard soaked in milk. :-)

[Mira]

I'm not sure if home grown are better than you can find in the stores. In where I live (zone 7), these fruits are rare to find and rarely in the Chinese store. I just found some recently in Costco and they're not as mature as I want it as virtually no seeds inside. It would be nice to have them in my garden and be available when I want to eat them..if they can grow in my zone. I bought this big juicy mango from the grocery and is growing ( 7 feet now) from a seed in my backyard. It may not bear fruit but I will take a chance.

[Pam - gardengal]

Pummelo is a tropical or semi-tropical member of the citrus family related to grapefruit. I doubt very much whether you could grow one successfully in zone 7 - most citrus need a zone 9 or higher climate. I doubt the mango will be very long-lived either.

FWIW, pummelos are delicious - very juicy and slightly sweeter than a very good grapefruit (of which they are a parent species). I'd have to assume that the one you tasted was insufficiently ripe. Hard to tell with all that fleshy pulp and skin surrounding them. I love 'em, but eating one is a complicated process to remove the flesh from all that thick wrapping :-))

As an aside, pummelo reminds me of the French word for grapefruit, which is pamplemousse. Don't know why but this strikes me a being a rather humorous word.

pam - gardengal

[Doug Kanter]

The one I got was at least 50% pulp around the outside, and cost $2.50. What was left was about the size of a large orange! A waste of money compared to a decent grapefruit, even out of season when they're marginal.

[J. Del Col]

The pummelos I've had have all been very good; sweet, tangy, much better than grapefruit. They do, however, produce an awful lot of debris.

J. Del Col

[Doug Kanter]

Are you suggesting that the one and only pummelo I tried may not have been statistically significant? :-)