A Mys-Tree Solved

We have this tree in our yard which neither C nor myself remember planting.

Every spring it flowers (right of pic).

Then, in autumn, it produces a small hard fruit.

I've always suspected that the fruit is edible as they smell like guava.  However, even after they've dropped off the tree, they remain rock hard.

Then last spring, I chanced on a tv gardening show, which identified the tree for me: it is a feijoa and the fruit is edible.  It is also sometimes called pineapple guava.

I also learned that you need to keep the fruit after they've fallen off the tree and they will ripen fully and soften.

About a month ago, the fruit started falling and we started collecting them.

It was good eating, a bit like pineapple, very sweet with a bitter aftertaste.  Hard work, though, as each half yields only about a teaspoonful of flesh.

The fruit kept dropping daily and we must have got a total of about 5 kilos.

Too much to eat, so we made jam.

That would have been the end of the story, except that a friend of ours who had tasted our fruit, sent me this photo which she took at her local fruit and veg shop a few nights ago.

I had never seen feijoas on sale before.

I haven't been to the shop to check it out, but these do seem to be a bit bigger than the fruit I got.