Gardeners outside Hawaii, Florida and Southern California must protect guava (Psidium guajava) trees from chilly, and even cool, temperatures since the tropical shrub, hardy to U.S. Department of Agriculture planting zone 10, develops best when summer temperatures are over 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Whenever your guava fruits, starting in its second to fourth year, do not allow the care you’ve put in your tree go to waste by harvesting in the wrong moment. Baseball-sized guavas immediately go from hard and sour, to overripe mush. Learn to pick and eat guavas in their summit, and that means that you can, quite literally, enjoy the fruits of your labour.
Look at the colour of the fruit. If it changes from bright green to light yellow with a touch of pink, depending on cultivar, it’s ready to choose.
Smell the fruit. As stated by the California Rare Fruit Growers, the odor of this guava changes when it’s ripe becoming musky, candy and”penetrating,” so you need to be able to smell it without needing to put the fruit up on your nose.
Press gently on the rind of this fruit. Though the skin may be thin or thick, depending on variety, a ripe guava should be slightly soft under stress.