Not Taking it for Pomegranate

One year ago we planted four "dwarf pomegranates" next to our house. They were about 2-3 feet tall when planted and after one year they range between 6-9 ft tall. Just amazing growth. This one is almost up to the underside of the roof.

Starting around March-April, the plants produce gorgeous bright orange blooms that become flowers and then start turning into the fruit.


Here's a little bundle of buds that will become flowers. The fruit start growing around May at the end of most branches. Despite being called a "dwarf" pomegranate for some reason, these plants produce full baseball-softball size fruit that is ready to pick in around October-November. Here's what it looks like right now, in early July:


We collect them up and get the juice out of them. I tried a variety of ways to harvest their juice. Asking them to release their juice was my first idea. Not only did they not let their juice out, but they didn't even talk back. Now, if you've seen a pomegranate on the inside, they have like a bazillion little fruit-coated seeds inside.
See? It would take at least four to five days to squeeze all the juice out of each of those individually. So what I do is cut each one in half and squeeze the half really hard so that all the juice is removed by force. There will be some little bits of seed and stuff in the juice that comes out, but you can easily use a strainer, sieve or clean underwear to filter it out and get just the juice. Most pomegranate juice is a little bitter, so we just add it to glasses of ice water for a refreshing drink loaded with anti-oxidants, which apparently are good for you in that they kill ugliness. That's right. If you drink stuff with anti-oxidants and you are ugly, they will either turn you beautiful or kill you. Cheers!