I’m only going to mention it one more time … we had the summer from HELL. But then the weather turned cooler, we had a minor flood and everything returned to normal.
Remarkably my garden survived on half the usual amount of water, which probably means that I have, in the past, overwatered. A lesson learnt. Some more fragile plants succumbed whilst others like the Black Sapote toughed it out and even fruited tentatively for the first time.
Not knowing a lot about sapotes, I now realise that I harvested the fruit a little early. Instead of taking 7-10 days to turn black, it took nearly a month. And I wasted a few by cutting them open prematurely. You pick the fruit whilst still green but slightly yellow, and when the calix starts to lift. Then you have to wait until the whole fruit turns black and feels mushy all over when you squeeze it – in fact when it reaches the stage that you would normally throw fruit in the compost – it’s perfect!
As each fruit ripened, I scooped out the pulp and stored it in the freezer until I had enough to make a batch of ice-cream.
I will shortly be posting my recipe variations for Black Sapote ice-cream, or mousse for those of you who don’t have an ice-cream machine, or can’t be bothered waiting!
A Bellingen Diary 