Thanks! Mine is turning red pretty fast, but I will wait for it to get fully red before picking it. I will also put some netting over it, just to make sure, since I already have the netting. I'm not sure how effective it will be, but it will be easy to do.

I had all but one of my flowers in the same branch, and so I'm not sure it could have supported too many more fruits - I hope to get a lot more next year. If I get too many to eat at once, I can make sorbet.

Yours looks very pretty!

I was waiting for the fruit to get larger, but good thing I went and felt the fruit -- it was getting soft so I picked it! Sorbet sounds like a great idea and I hope to get lots more fruit in the future to make some. Let us know when your fruit ripens, and how it looks in the inside and taste.

Here's how the fruit looks this morning, and it is starting to split, which makes me think I should go ahead and pick it. Also, I found an ant on it, which I washed off, but I'm afraid more might find it. I have very few ants in my yard, and so this is pretty rare.View from slightly different angle, before an ant found it.

It does not feel very soft, but I don't think it can stay on the plant much longer. Will it ripen inside, or do I need to eat it right away? I was thinking of keeping it in the fridge for a day. I never got around to putting netting on it - perhaps the electronic critter repeller is working.

I hope an expert responds to your questions, and I would like to know why it's splitting that way.

Pick it, with it split open the ants and fruit flies will be all over it. That is pretty much as red as it will get, the fins won't turn red. The insides of yours will stay white and not turn translucent like the one in Eloise's photo. To go by for ripening, the white usually take about 35 days from bloom to harvest.

I like to eat them chilled. The outside should have a little give when squeezed, but I wouldn't call it soft (kinda like a orange, maybe). Put it in the fridge, you could eat it tomorrow or wait probably as long as a week or more, but flavor-wise, sooner would be better. The longer it sits after picking, to more the flavor goes downhill.

The splitting is usually caused by water, if you had good rains after the fruit was full sized, sucking up water in excess just makes it expand more than it can and something has to give.

Not a expert but hope this helps some.

Thanks! I did pick it yesterday evening - there was only one tiny ant on it (which I washed off) and no fruit flies. We did get rain recently, and so that probably contributed to the splitting.

I wasn't ready to eat it right then, and so I wrapped it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to have today for lunch. I'll post another photo after I cut it open. I did not expect it to get as red as Eloise's - I think we have different types, and I guess mine is white. I don't remember what was on the tag, since I bought it seven years ago!

I don't know whether there is much flavor difference between the white and the red varieties, but I did find this YouTube video with some comments

It appears that Pitaya is spelled Pitahaya in Australia, as that seems to be where the video was made, judging by their accents.

The exterior of the fruit looks amazing and exotic, but the inside reminds me of a very bland, flavorless kiwi.

I would use this as decoration in a fruit bowl, or as an interesting looking ornamental in a cactus garden. I wouldn't grow this just for its taste. I've also seen it in fruit salads mixed with other fruit, it mostly just adds something exotic, especially the pitaya varieties with purple flesh.

Beautiful coloring Lars, and thanks for that link. Per the info on the video, I must have at least one white, and the others will either all be reddish like the one fruit I got, or who knows what else -- here's photos of the spines on my plants. Although your fruit is white, the stems don't appear to have bigger spines or do they??? BTW, Edgar Valdivia pronounces it as pitahaya so that's how I say it.

Parker, my fruit was very good and sweet so are you saying the white isn't?

I've only tasted them at the local market, they were magenta colored inside. Maybe homegrown fruit tastes a lot better, that's certainly the case with many other types of fruit.

I cut it open yesterday and put it on a dragon plate.Then I cut it into wedges, as in the video I found. I stored the other half for later in the day.I peeled it before eating, and for me it was very tasty. I'm glad I chilled it first, as I think that enhanced the flavor. It is a bit on the bland side, much like a kiwi with a bit of honey on it. I love it just the way it is, but then I also like kiwi, and kiwi is a lot more trouble to peel. I might consider putting it on a lemon curd tart, as I have done with kiwi in the past.

Here's one I made last September

I like the idea of cutting DF into slices and then peeling. I ate mine before the video, but will use this method in the future. I LOVE kiwi, so would most likely enjoy the taste of the white DF. Lars, that tart looks amazingly delicious!

I make quite a few of these tarts when my Meyer lemons are in season. I also have Eureka lemons, as a back-up, and I planted that tree hoping it would make fruit at a different time, but they seem to be more or less in synch. If I get too many Meyer lemons, I freeze them in FoodSaver freezer bags, generally three to a bag, and then I can have them the rest of the year. The tart uses a lot of lemon juice and is one of my favorite things to make.

It is really easy to remove the peeling from the DF after it has been cut into wedges - it just peels right off, and so I do recommend that method. When I eat fruit from my epiphyllum, I just remove the soft peeling and eat the insides, which look like my dragon fruit. The epiphyllum fruits often have a very pleasant and interesting floral scent to them but are always very small - only one or two bites each.

At my previous house, we had the most productive Meyer tree ever. When we first moved there, I juiced the lemons and froze them in ice trays, then into baggies. A year later I realized the tree bore fruit all year long so it wasn't necessary for me to freeze for later use, lol!

I have a white-flowering epiphyllum, but I've never seen fruit on it, unless it's a different type of epiphyllum?? This is what I have:

Quick kiwi peeling; dunk in boiling water for 30 seconds, then in ice water. The peel comes off smoothly, leaving a perfect fruit. I use a wire egg slicer to cut them, but it's very hard on the egg slicer.

Thanks steiconi; I use a potato peeler to peel, unless I just cut it in half and spoon out the flesh.

Eloise, I believe epiphyllum like yours (and mine) require different plants for cross pollination. I have a bunch hanging in my back yard plus more that are on a bench, and so I have several varieties that bloom at the same time and therefore can be cross pollinated. I don't remember getting fruit from them when I only had one plant. Although the fruit is very small, it is still very tasty, and I got a lot of them this year.

The Meyer lemon tree that I had in Venice made fruit most of the year, and the Valencia orange tree did make fruit all year, and so I was never out of oranges.

I prefer freezing the whole lemons to freezing just the juice, as I am able to get zest from frozen lemons - but not after they are defrosted. I often freeze lemon rinds to use in making stock or for stuffing inside chickens that I am roasting.

I have a white flowering epiphyllus called Queen of the Night, and it does not make fruit for me.

Photo taken with a flash. These flowers are extremely fragrant but close up by dawn, and so I put the plant on my front porch so that I can easily go outside to see it in bloom.

In the ground, I have two, white flowering plants of epiphyllum and they bloom every year. I'm in the process of potting them up because they are close to the house that is being painted. Lars, do you have the red flowering epiphyllum? I'll have to try freezing the entire lemon, thanks.

Here are some red ones that I have - the first one is called Red Chrome - I'm not sure about the second one. They make very small fruit but are still tasty.

Here you can see three different ones blooming fairly close together, and so they can get cross-pollinated. I'm not growing them for the fruit, but I still do eat whatever fruit I get from them.
This yellow one makes bigger fruit, and the fruit has a sweet, fragrant flavor. I have moved this plant to a hanging pot hung fairly high in a tree/bush because it hangs down so much.

For me, freezing the whole lemons is a great time saver, as I do not have to juice them all at once. To defrost a lemon, I put it in the microwave for 10 seconds, turn it over and then 10 seconds more. After being defrosted, they are extremely easy to juice, and I use the inverted lemon squeezer, as the rinds are very soft by this time.

Beautiful flowering plants Lars; I really like the first red! I was excited when my white first bloomed, but now I find it boring. I have an electric juicer which is easy and fast. Will have to try freezing fruit and see how it works for me. Thanks.

Pitaya is blooming again, and I pollinated two flowers last night at 9:30. I checked them at 9:00 PM, but the pollen did not come off easily, and so I waited another half hour.

There is one more bud on my plant, but I am hoping I will get at least two fruits this year. Last month when I was in Brazil, I had pitaya juice (several times), and it is now my favorite fruit juice. It has a very unique sweet flavor. The juice I had in Brazil was red (or magenta), but I'm not sure how much that affects the flavor.

Here's my brother having Suco de Pitaya with me at a juice bar/restaurant in Rio:

I think we were in Ipanema, but it might have been Leblon.

That red juice looks delicious! My pitahaya had tons of flowers, but none seemed to have been pollinated. I am waiting for blooming to be done so I can cut down my plants into a more manageable arrangement. Last year, I only got one fruit, and it was red and tasty.

Oh, and now I have this epiphyllum!