Paw paw season is close
- Thread starter UglyBear
- Start date
Huh. They don't look anything like my paw. Or even my maw. Not anyone in the family.
NextJen
Raisin cane
We're from France.
GeorgiaCorgi
Member
Are these PawPaw trees? I have about 50 of these trees with most only 2-3 feet tall. I really wanted to try the fruit but there are none on these trees. This is the biggest at maybe 10-12 feet, another is around 6-8 feet. There was a huge one on the corner of my property but it died shortly after I moved here a few years ago. If none of them are fruiting, how did I get so many?
Could the issue be the plants are all from the same parent and cant pollinate? All of these trees are overtopped by 30-50 foot evergreens.
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UglyBear
Well-Known Member
Yep, those are paw paw trees!!!
they do form a nice undergrowth in the forest. maybe yours are too small to form fruit that’s worth picking.
From my experience, the best pickings are from a grove of paw paws that grew to be maybe 20-30 feet, that’s where the clumps and the biggest fruit will be.
As I heard, deer spread the seeds in their droppings far and wide, so yours might have all started from seeds from the big tree that died.
So PawPaws are the product of Bambi Poo. Do they go well with Civet Cat Coffee?
ontheriver
Well-Known Member
I had a pretty good sized fig tree. Big fat figs. Someone decided to SERIOUSLY cut it back. (I was not happy). It took about 3 years before it gave me any fruit. This year I had a bumper crop! Maybe paw paws are like that, just need some size.
Same with mimosa. I adore them, but you can't plant them. They grow where they please. First two years, no flowers. After that watch out. (And mimosa have a tap root that is hard to kill once they plant themselves)
GeorgiaCorgi
Member
They do seem to follow an occasional deer path along the side of my yard. I also read that a pawpaw "patch" is typically made up of clones that shoot up from a common root system, and so they wouldn't be able to pollinate. Seems like I could have a good patch in a few years, but I worry there will be no fruit if these are all clones. They basically sprang up in a line along the edge of my property and along a water runoff ditch.
Also not sure how long a single patch normally is, mine seems to be about 100 feet long by 5-10 foot wide. There are a lot more of these than I originally counted, but most are 1 foot tall, I found several more trees in the 10-12 foot size. The largest is still the one I pictured which has a trunk about about as big around as a silver dollar.
As I mentioned, no fruit. Also no evidence of flowers (would they still be visible, or do they completely disappear before the fruiting?)
Sorry for all of the replies, I'm just excited because I always wanted fruit trees but I can't keep anything alive except weeds.
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Double ew. Ew, not ewe.
ontheriver
Well-Known Member
Think mushrooms!!! Ewwww
black dog
Free America
jrt_ms1995
Well-Known Member
Pawpaws aren't easily pollinated; bees and other major pollinators don't like them, so it's usually ants or such crawling insects that incidentally pollinate them. Are the trees reasonably close together? Like within 5-10 feet of one another? Much further apart and pollination is less likely. Most of the ones you describe are just too small though. But for good news the Zebra swallowtail caterpillar loves them!
UglyBear
Well-Known Member
Went to my favorite county park to my favorite paw paw grove. Lots of juicy ripe fruit on the ground, yet enough left on the trees.
Tried using my “small child and a stick” method, that got us mostly unripe ones.
Then shook some trees, and got a hailstorm of perfect ripe fruit!!! Some of them split when they hit the floor, but got them anyway. Perfect!
Tried using my “small child and a stick” method, that got us mostly unripe ones.
Then shook some trees, and got a hailstorm of perfect ripe fruit!!! Some of them split when they hit the floor, but got them anyway. Perfect!
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PeoplesElbow
Well-Known Member
Picking up paw-paws putting them in a basket...
UglyBear
Well-Known Member
Kings Landing in Calvert. If you are really interested, PM me and I’ll give exact directions on how to get to the grove.
I have found paw paw groves in every single park in SoMD, by any body of water (which is like most of them?). Fort Washington park, Piscataway Creek Park, etc.
UglyBear
Well-Known Member
Argue with the Mrs. where the best trees are, spend half an hour staring up into canopy trying to see the fruit, stop ten fights between the kids, spank one of them for hitting me in the head with the long stick, disentangle the other from the briars, oh crap where is one of the kids, find them all and make them stand together, finally give up all reason and just randomly shake the nearest tree, kiss all the kids’ heads because they were standing just where a hundred or so of the biggest fruit fell, spend ten minutes Running back on the trail trying to find the baskets that the kids enthusiastically carried and lost an hour ago but suddenly can’t live without, and yes, then
Picking up paw-paws putting them in the basket... ah, relaxing summertime activity with the family!