Native to the Andean Valleys of Peru & Ecuador. Large aromatic fruit weighing up to 1 kg or more with white creamy flesh and a wonderful flavour. Pick when skin changes colour to a lighter green and is still quite firm. Handle carefully to prevent bruising. Eat in a few days when soft to touch - it is delicious. Eat fresh or you can make a firm creamy sauce mixing the flesh with mashed bananas and cream. This is a great filling for layer cakes or base for trifles, add to fruit salads, milkshakes, yoghurt or chill and serve wedges - very moreish. First time tasters of this fruit usually rave about it. Plant in free draining soil and protect from wind and frost. Mulch well to keep moist all year round. Cherimoyas are self fertile, but will bear even better if hand pollinated. Or you can spray with a 1:5 solution of sugar to water and let the insects do the pollinating for you! Once established they will tolerate an occasional mild frost. These are all grafted trees and should fruit in 3 or 4 years. Fruiting season from July to November ish in NZ.
 
We have several varieties.
 
BURTON'S FAVOURITE - Very popular NZ variety. Smooth skinned fruit of excellent flavour ripening mid to late season. Heavy cropper.
 
PERLA - Excellent NZ variety just as its name suggests - a little pearler. Well shaped fruit, good flavour, mid season producer.
 
RAWANE - This is a smallish tree with fairly smooth, sweet fruit of medium size and good flavour. Ripens mid-season.
 
WHITE - Produces very large fruit, with less seeds than others.  Excellent eating also.
 
WOOKIE - A variety developed in Northland, this has very large white-fleshed fruit and fruits over a long season. The trees are strong and vigorous.
 
DAISY - Another variety developed in Northland. Tasty, large fruit with fewer seeds than some of the other varieties. Great for the home orchard, they have a long fruiting season, giving reasonable quantities of fruit for many months to help brighten the winter.
 
RERETAI - Produces good quantities of very tasty fruit. Early fruiting and ripening.
 
DUKE - A really good cropper, large fruit (biggest we have had is 1.6kg), and one of the best tasting Cherimoya we've tried. A later maturing fruit, ripening Aug - Nov.
 
CONCHA LISA  - A commerical variety form Peru, large fruit with a smoother skin that others.  Great tasting. Early ripener
 
SPAIN - Medium sized, smooth and conical.  Creamy with notes of banana flavour.