Tzimbalo Melon Pear

These spent two years in a pot, flowering ( hot dry climate), finally produced three fruits and died. Fruits are mediocre, nothing special. Nice curiosity, but really not worth the trouble for real fruit production...

I grew a couple of these in 2 gallon pots in full sun. They did very well and produced a substantial crop. Fruit did not drop: it was easy to allow the fruit to fully ripen until they were quite sweet. Fruit was also very rot resistant on the vine: I was able to pick firm, unblemished fruit even after the vines had died. My problem was the aftertaste, which was worse than artificial sweeteners. I ate a total of about 4 fruit. Various visitors liked the fruit: maybe most people aren't as picy about sweetener aftertastes as I am. That's the reason I won't grow it again.

tried this to add another fruit to our menagerie. this was the worst fruit I have ever eaten. I tried it in all stages and thought it was awful. The plant gets quite large, easy to germinate and grow in zone 7.

Not much can take direct Texas summer sun... but this plant can. I think it's an attractove plant. And it got hail and abhurricane, pruning, irregular watering schedules, nothing slows it down. If i didnt know what to grow and needed a sunny. 3x3 area covered, id happily grow this again. It does get pests, but ... i dont consider the fruit edible, so i dont really fight them much. Oh- you need to pick how big youll allow the tzimbalo to gr8w, them mercilessly cut it when it steps outside. This thing grows and grows, it's amazing ? Oh, yeah, and about the fruits... That fruit is, uh. Not edible. Like, i tried it green and white, white, and white and green/purple. Im pretty sure it's poison at all color stages. It's beautiful anyway. In a famine maybe id eat it. I dunno, i think id starve instead. Im pretty sure im gonna have 50,000 of these all over my yard next year from the fruits. But i would just grow it for the plant.

I grew 2 of these. Germinated in febuary, moved outside in midmarch. I put one in a container, as its recommended as a container plant. It is doing terribly, about 3 inches tall, but does have like 6 fruits. Whatever. I put the other in the ground, and Zimmy has grown and grown. Ive repeatedly cut back the lowest draping foliage, and some excess foliage. I finally topped some of the stems. I didnt really want to grow it up poles tied to the poles, and cut it back to only 3 branches as recommended, because i like its nice bushy look. I rigged up some support for it though, to keep it and its fruits from lying on the ground, and to make it so i can easily oick up part of it and check the fruits. It is about 4-5 feet wide, because ive controlled its growth-- it would be wider. De-rocked clay soil, mixed with compost/wood chips. Mulched once it was hot in the day. Pests arent any worse here than other edible solanaceae. youll need to control them.