Though grenadillas flourish in Dukuduku Forest, they’ve been rolled back like most twines, to make way for space for building homes and road s
talls. In St Lucia Estuary, they grow along the hedges and fences of MacKenzie St – more as decorative plants rather than fruit plants. I always filled my backpack with ripe fruits on the way home, though they were abundant at the women’s craft and fruit market at 1kg for 25 Rands. The women pick up most of them from Dukuduku Forest and make quite some good money from the fruit while each season lasts. Only problem is that the fruits are not treated as they grow freely. They are readily attacked by pests during storage, which makes them crumple up. The result is that most of the bags being sold are thrown away into the dumpsters by the market when they fail to sell. Again, all the granadillas are of the light green variety, which is very sour, and not of the above sweet and reddish variety. Evidently, a hybrid species would make more sense in the forest and estuary.
In parts of tropical Africa where they grow, granadillas remains fruits of the commons – growing free, and free for anyone to harvest and eat if you belong to the neighborbood, vicinity or community. I found several colonies of granadillas in the six hectare garden above: one that had taken over a fence and the frontage of a partially abandoned large shade house in the distance behind the dome, another to the left over the fence with Bro’ Musa’s farm garden, and still another, on the fence with the side footpath that leads into Khula Village. While not being a scientist or farmer, I have followed the plants on the streets of St Lucia, in Manukelana Garden and Dukuduku Forest almost weekly as we went collecting butterflies for the dome. They bear several times a year, but have been either rolled back as intrusive or cleared to make way for space for other activities.In other words, the granadillas are invisible to the project managers and tour guides.For over several months, I kept checking them, and I found them visited by bees, butterflies, insects, birds, and sometimes green snakes.They are a fruit of the commons, and nothing delights me when we come across pupils rushing into the bushes to harvest them and eat on their way home from school early afternoon as we return from collecting butterflies in the forest. Sometimes they throw the empty balls at one another and dart. It is great to know that when the kids are hungry, the forest gives them freely to eat. They do not have to buy, at least, for now. Granadillas only grow on the subtropical coastline of Kwa-Zulu Natal from Margate, where the reddish variety grows (you’d find them in MacBanana Farm, where there’s a butterfly dome and a lovely grocery and fruit store) up along the coastline till Kosi Bay). Hardly do African communities grow them for the market. I was always attracted by their greenery and the frequency with which the twines regenerated each season and bore fruit.