Feijoa

If you are looking for a hardy, attractive plant that earns its keep ten times over, let us introduce you to the feijoa (Feijoa sellowiana), also affectionately known as the pineapple guava. This stunning evergreen shrub quietly pulls its weight as a windbreak, a visual screen, and an absolute powerhouse of autumn fruit.

Why We Are Obsessed with Feijoas

Feijoas are a permaculture dream plant. They fit beautifully into small backyards or expansive orchards, offering unique benefits across the seasons:

• Edible Flowers: In early summer, the tree bursts with gorgeous red-crimson and white flowers. The thick, fleshy white petals are completely edible and taste like natural, sweet sherbet! Toss them into salads or use them to garnish desserts.
• The Taste & Aroma: The fruit has a sweet, complex, bubblegum-like aroma. The flavor is a tropical explosion often described as a mix of pineapple, strawberry, guava, and passionfruit.
• The “Fedge” Concept: Because they are highly wind-tolerant and responsive to pruning, planting them tightly creates a fruiting hedge (a “fedge”). It acts as a brilliant privacy screen or protective barrier for more sensitive plants.

How to Plant and Grow Your Feijoa Tree

Feijoas are incredibly tough once established, handling temperatures down to -7°C (19°F), coastal winds, and even heavy clay soils.

• Sun & Soil: Pick an open, sunny spot that gets plenty of morning light. While they tolerate poor soil, they truly thrive in rich, free-draining soil mixed with organic compost.
• Grafted vs. Seedlings: Always choose named, grafted cultivars over seed-grown plants if you can. Grafted trees will reliably bear high-quality fruit in 2 to 3 years, whereas seedlings can take up to 10 years to produce anything!
• Pollination Secret: While some varieties are partially self-fertile, they will always crop significantly better if planted near a pollen partner. To save space in a small garden, you can even plant two different varieties in the exact same hole!
• Watering: They love naturally wetter winters and drier summers, but you should water them weekly during hot, dry, and windy spells—especially when the fruit is forming in summer and early autumn.

The Golden Rule of Harvesting

The absolute best part about feijoas is that they tell you exactly when they are ready. You don’t pick them—they drop!

Unripe fruit should never be forcefully pulled from the tree. Instead, place a thick layer of straw mulch under your trees. This creates a soft landing pad that prevents the heavy, falling fruit from bruising. Walk out to your garden daily during autumn, do the “feijoa shuffle,” and gather the treasures waiting for you on the ground.

Feijoas take about 3 to 7 days to fully ripen at room temperature after falling from the tree.

Becuase feijoas naturally drop when they are nearly mature (referred to as “touch-harvesting” maturity), they finish ripening very quickly once harvested.

• At Room Temperature (Countertop): Expect them to soften and reach peak flavor in 3 to 5 days. If they fall when still quite firm/hard, they may take upto 5 to 7 days.
• In the Refridgerator: Once ripe, placing them in the fridge will slow down spoiling and extend their life for about 1 to 2 weeks.

How to Tell When It’s Ripe

• Touch: Give the fruit a gentle squeeze. A ripe feijoa feels like a slightly soft plum or pencil eraser — it yields to gentle pressure but is not mushy or squishy.
• Aroma: A ripe feijoa produces a strong, sweet, hightly fragrant floral aroma.
• Interior: When sliced open, the seed-jellies in the center should be clear and gelatinous. If it is opaque/white, it is underripe. If it has turned brown, it is overripe.

Tips to Control Ripening

• Speed it up: Place firm feijoas inside a paper bag with a banana or apple. The ethylene gas released by the banana will ripen the feijoa faster.
• Prevent Over-Ripening: Check fallen feijoas daily, as they transition quickly from perfectly ripe to overripe/brown. Lay them out in a single layer on your counter rather than piling them in a deep bowl.

Eat them fresh by slicing them in half and scooping out the sweet, jelly-like center with a spoon! If you find yourself facing an autumn glut, they substitute beautifully for apples in crumbles and baking, or they can be preserved into aromatic jams and chutneys.

Grafting feijoa (pineapple guava) is an excellent way to turn a low-quality or slow-fruiting seedling into a highly productive tree that yields sweet, premium fruit within 1 to 2 years. While feijoa is known as one of the trickier evergreen fruit trees to graft due to its very thin cambium layer, high success rates are easily achievable by following precise timing and techniques.

Best Timing & Selection

• The Ideal Window: The absolute best time to graft feijoa is in mid-to-late spring (typically April to June). This is when the sap begins to rise, the plant “wakes up” from its winter rest, and temperatures settle around 70–85°F (21–29°C). Alternatively, a late winter/early spring window or a late summer window (August/September) can work depending on your local climate.
• Scion Wood Selection: Use hardened, woody pieces from the current or previous year’s growth. Avoid flimsy, soft green tips. Cleanly strip 100% of the leaves off the scion to stop it from drying out.
• Rootstock Requirements: Use a well-established, healthy seedling tree. Grafting onto severely root-bound potted plants often causes failure.

Acca sellowiana is native to the highlands of southern Brazil, eastern Paraguay, Uruguay, northern Argentina, and Columbia. It is widely cultivated as a garden plant and fruiting tree in New Zealand and can be found as a garden plant elsewhere such as in Australia, Azerbaijan, western Georgia, and southern russia. The German botanist Otto Karl Berg named feijoa after Joao da Silva Feijo, a Portuguese botanist born in the colony of Brazil.