Pawpaws, it's pawpaw time

Leo in N E Illinois

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On the blueberry farm, SW Michigan. First frost was last night. Knowing the freeze was coming I made sure I could get out and pick a few pawpaws. Asimia triloba, the pawpaw, it is a winter hardy member of the Anonacea, cousins are cherimoya, soursop, sweetsop and other custard apples. In Dutch and Afrikaans pawpaw refers to the papaya which is not at all related to the north American native fruit I'm talking about. Found throughout eastern half of North America, from Ontario to Florida. Most people never heard of it. University of Kentucky has a breeding program where they are trying to develop commercially acceptable cultivars. So far it is not showing up on the farmers market circuit in any quantity. The farm has several hundred trees scattered around in the wood lot understory. Deer, racoons and other critters love the fruit before it is fully ripe, so no fruit will be found low enough for a person to pick. So to harvest you take a walk in the woods, and shake every pawpaw tree you see. Fully ripe fruit drops easily. Green fruit stays hanging. For various reasons only one in 10 or more trees will have fruit, so the box of fruit pictured below took 2 hours to pick. But it was a beautiful day and I was also scouting hornbeams to collect for bonsai.

A good pawpaw is probably the best tasting fruit you can imagine, better than a tree ripened peach. Imagine the flesh has the texture of smooth flan, or custard. Vanilla, pineapple, caramel, peach, and banana fragrances all mixed together. Each tree will have it's own flavor profile. Pretty often the banana flavor dominates. Some the vanilla or the caramel flavor dominates. Others the pineapple flavor is more forward. Rare but most exquisite is when the peach flavor is forward. Totally delicious. Each fruit can weigh up to half a pound, though smaller is more common.

Unfortunately, there is a downside, wild strains are very variable, and a bad pawpaw is very off putting. Green pawpaws have a chemical taste that reminds me of vinyl or styrene or terpentine. The seed coat and the skin can retain this flavor, and in inferior cultivars it can be pretty bad. But the good ones make it worth sorting through the lot to find them I save seed from the very best.

Pawpaw is a warm summer fruit. In southern Illinois they are ripe by the end of August. In Michigan they barely ripen before first frost. Some years they don't quite make it and there won't be any harvest that year. Late frosts can kill the flowers too. So this is a treat that doesn't happen every year.
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So if you live in Michigan, Northern Illinois, or Wisconsin, right now is the time to take a walk in the woods and find your own pawpaws.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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By the way, pawpaw would be a terrible bonsai. Leaves are larger than many magnolias, 8 to 12 inches, and quite wide. Branches are sparse, bark is smooth. Wood is soft and brittle. I would say even catalpa and eastern white pine have more bonsai potential than pawpaw. So plant two in your yard for fruit but don't waste bench space trying to make bonsai out of pawpaw. You need two or more different cultivars or clones from different seed for pollination. A lone pawpaw won't bear fruit.
 

CasAH

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Yes, I have heard papaw are great. The woods I am steward for in Cook County has one large clone that never produces fruit. Recently found a second plant about two blocks away and across the creek. Need to clear the brush between the two plants so the pollinators can do their job.

It is the second farthest North site in Illinois with Paw Paw. It is believed they were planted by Native Americans, as the area was a Native American Winter and Spring camp site. As well as a chipping station for tool making and arrow heads from the chert along the creek.

It also has seeps and springs that never freeze, so easy source of water in the Winter. There was also a white sucker run in the creek until the late 1970’s when beavers built a dam and stopped the run.
 

coh

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Hey Leo, I have 2 pawpaw trees growing here, I've lost track of the varieties...think one was a named variety and the other a seedling but no longer sure. Unfortunately they are not among the better tasting pawpaws I've had. When we lived in Virginia there was an eccentric farmer not too far from us who had a large number of pawpaws, all kinds, he was trying to "popularize" them. That's the first time we ever had them and I remember them tasting great, very complex and tropical. Mine up here have some off flavors and are somewhat bitter, maybe it is partly the climate. Anyway, they are just ripening up here, we haven't had a hard freeze yet though there was some snow last night.
 

cbroad

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I've seen hundreds of pawpaws, only seen fruit on a couple of occasions, never had the pleasure of tasting any :( I'm jealous...

I see most near the river here, plus the occasional native persimmon. Not a big fan of the Asian types of persimmon, but our native ones are so delicious, assuming you find some on the ground after the first frost that haven't been ravaged by bugs...
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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Yes, I have heard papaw are great. The woods I am steward for in Cook County has one large clone that never produces fruit. Recently found a second plant about two blocks away and across the creek. Need to clear the brush between the two plants so the pollinators can do their job.

It is the second farthest North site in Illinois with Paw Paw. It is believed they were planted by Native Americans, as the area was a Native American Winter and Spring camp site. As well as a chipping station for tool making and arrow heads from the chert along the creek.

It also has seeps and springs that never freeze, so easy source of water in the Winter. There was also a white sucker run in the creek until the late 1970’s when beavers built a dam and stopped the run.
I think I know which forest preserve you're talking about. Totally cool. A lot of history there.
But I think " they" are off on pawpaw distribution. I know of 3 places in Lake County Illinois and a couple in Wisconsin with pawpaws. They are wide spread. Deer droppings spread them pretty wide and far.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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Hey Leo, I have 2 pawpaw trees growing here, I've lost track of the varieties...think one was a named variety and the other a seedling but no longer sure. Unfortunately they are not among the better tasting pawpaws I've had. When we lived in Virginia there was an eccentric farmer not too far from us who had a large number of pawpaws, all kinds, he was trying to "popularize" them. That's the first time we ever had them and I remember them tasting great, very complex and tropical. Mine up here have some off flavors and are somewhat bitter, maybe it is partly the climate. Anyway, they are just ripening up here, we haven't had a hard freeze yet though there was some snow last night.
Hey Chris,
You are right on, the pawpaws I get at my sister's house in southern Illinois have much better flavor than my Michigan pawpaws. They really need a long string of 80+ F degree days to fully develop their flavor. Up north here, we haven't had a day over 75 in weeks, not good for getting rid of the off flavors. I bet when we have an unusually hot summer, your named pawpaw will taste better. Global warming could have an upside for the pawpaw business.
Deer love them while still green, so the seed keeps getting spread around. They are not an endangered species. Any moderate to rich forest soil will support pawpaws.

Lack of heat is why we are harvesting now, where southern Illinois was done by Sept 10th according to my sister.
 

coh

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Where can I get seedlings worth planting?
Edible Landscaping (ediblelandscaping.com) sells a bunch of named varieties as well as seedlings. Located in Afton Virginia, possibly a nice day trip. I went there once, quite a few years ago...
 

cbroad

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Where can I get seedlings worth planting?
Hollybrook Orchard, they're out of Eastern shore Virginia.

They sell a lot of different fruit and nut trees and bushes, and some semi unusual/hard to find stuff. My store would get 7gal pots and they were some of the best looking fruit trees I've seen around. I'm not sure if they sell seedlings though, I'm guessing they probably don't.

They don't sell directly to the public but they have a store locator to help you find a retailer.
 

Carol 83

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They are in southern IL? Never heard of/seen any around here.
 

JudyB

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I have several wild ones here, the deer always get them before me, so I've only tasted ones not fully ripe. Interesting flowers though.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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Edible Landscaping (ediblelandscaping.com) sells a bunch of named varieties as well as seedlings. Located in Afton Virginia, possibly a nice day trip. I went there once, quite a few years ago...
If you are in the northern tier of states, zone 5 & 4, get seedlings from Oikios out of Grand Rapids MI. oikostreecrops.com

If you are in Maryland any of the more southern varieties will do. Unv of Kentucky released a few clones. Available from England's Nut trees www.nuttrees.net

Anyone zone 6b and warmer can grow any of the grafted varieties.
 

brentwood

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We're loaded with them, never get fruit tho. I've bought a few over the last couple years, hoping the diversity might help out. Never tasted it, always heard it was amazing.
Brent
 

WNC Bonsai

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Ours ripened here almost a month ago. This variety was so full of seeds all you could do was suck the flesh off each one and spit them out. To keep them from over ripening we put them in the refrigerator and after a day had to remove them as they stunk up everything else in there. Put them in a Rubbermaid container on the back porch and they stunk it up. Took several cycles through the dishwasher to get the stink out of it and then a few more cycles ot get the smell out of the dishwasher.

They are easy to germinate but don’t let them dry out at all. First I placed seeds in some damp sphagnum moss and kept it in the regrigerator for the winter. Then I placed them in plain old potting soil and all of them germinated. One seed got stuck in the soil and broke off due to the pressure of the stem pushing upward. I ended up transplanting one at the end of the summer and it is doing fine down in an opening in the lower yard. We now have five of them.
 

Velodog2

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I live near the Potomac River in md and there are many along it. I’ve rarely seen fruit though. There is a town some miles upstream called Paw Paw in WV. So they are prevalent here.

I’ve a few acres of mostly wooded land that I don’t plan to leave soon, so I’d like to start some trees. How large/old do they have to be to fruit? I will check out the resources some have posted here.
 

coh

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I live near the Potomac River in md and there are many along it. I’ve rarely seen fruit though. There is a town some miles upstream called Paw Paw in WV. So they are prevalent here.

I’ve a few acres of mostly wooded land that I don’t plan to leave soon, so I’d like to start some trees. How large/old do they have to be to fruit? I will check out the resources some have posted here.
I think it took mine 5-7 years or so to start flowering. The first couple of seasons each tree only produced a few flowers and fruit, now there are too many. Flowers are pollinated by flies, the first couple of years I pollinated by hand to make sure I got some fruit. Now I don't bother and still get plenty.
 

BuckeyeBonsai

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The university I attend has a large number of pawpaws growing in their forest, I will have to see if they produced any fruit this year.
 
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