Miracle Fruit needs warmth and humidity to grow (so I’m told). My apartment is sunny, but when I started trying to grow Miracle Fruit I didn’t think it would be warm enough to get the seeds started. So, I decided that it might be a good idea to set the seeds out on the windowsill, where it was nice and sunny and warm. I had been doing that for about 2 weeks now, without any trouble.

Unfortunately, it was too good to last. When I came home tonight my roommate told me, with a look of sadness, that something had happened to my seeds. Somehow, my mini green houses had fallen off the windowsill and onto the deck, spilling the seeds and the soil all over the place. By the time I came home my roommate and cleaned up the mess. A lot of the soil was gone and it appeared that the seeds had blown into a hole where no one can escape.

Miracle Fail

To be continued…?

This week, I made some mini greenhouses for my Miracle Fruit. I’m hoping that they keep the seeds warm and hold in the humidity. More waiting…

A few weeks ago I read this article in the New York Times about a berry called Miracle Fruit. About Miracle Fruit, Wikipedia says:

The berry is sweet, and contains an active glycoprotein molecule, with some trailing carbohydrate chains, called miraculin. When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue’s taste buds, causing bitter and sour foods (such as lemons and limes) consumed later to taste sweet. This effect lasts between thirty minutes and two hours. It is not a sweetener, as its effects depend on what is eaten afterwards, but has been used to cause bitter medicine to taste sweet.

I was intrigued, so I bought some seeds. They arrived this week and I started planting them right away.

I bought my seeds from Gold Crystal Garden via Amazon. They took a few weeks to arrive, and, when I they finally came, the instructions indicated that they needed to be planted right away.

I’m not much of a green thumb, so I followed the instructions that someone named Putzer posted at Instructables. Putzer said I needed 50/50 mix of Perlite and Peat Moss. So I mixed up a batch and planted each seed in a small biodegradable carton.

Now I wait…