Dragon Fruit will not ripen to there full flavour potential once picked.
Some commercial growers pick and ripen dragon fruit in the sun in creates. This does work but we find the flavour and individual dragon fruit qualities are not as strong.
A homegrown dragon fruit has flavor. There is no comparison between commercially picked fruit and back yard fruit.
How to Test if your dragon fruit is ripe:
- Fruit will be ripen 35 - 40 days from flowering, Some megalanthus dragon fruit do not follow this rule and can take up to 90 days for there dragon fruit to ripen.
- Wiggle test - this is compared to a wiggly tooth. If your dragon fruit is nice and wiggly it may be time to pick. An unripe fruit won't move much where a riper fruit will wiggle more if gently moved backward and forward.
- Blushing - The colour begins to change slowly. Your fruit will begin to notice changes from green to red or purple or yellow depending on your variety.
- Splitting- pick when they split or crack they are really ripe and super sweet. I leave mine until they do this but you do need to beat the birds and bats. They will smell you yummy dragon fruit when the flesh is exposed.
- Carefully remove only the node with the fruit on it - all the other nodes on the limb will still be able to produce fruit in the future. Once all dragon fruit thorn nodes have produced fruit its time to remove that dragon fruit branch.
