Pawpaw Fruit??? Continued

Just another picture of a cluster of pawpaw fruit that I found growing in my parents' back yard.

Pawpaw Fruits???

If

I went to my parents' house to dig up some more pawpaws. The four previous trees that I transplanted from their yard suffered no ill effects, which is strange considering how fragile pawpaws are. My parents' pawpaws seem to be robust. I have learned that pawpaws like to be mulched by fallen leaves, twigs, and bark. This debris enriches the soil and helps hold in the moisture.

My only concern is that they are all clones of the same plant and therefore unable to pollinate one another. Well, I inspected my parents pawpaw trees and it seems that the largest tree has the start of little fruits. I hope that this is the case because this would make me think that all the pawpaws are not clones of each other. Maybe several birds or possums ate pawpaws from some other location and excreted several pawpaw seeds. If different seeds germinated, then all the pawpaws would not be clones of each other. I guess it will be several years before I figure this out.

If the fruit start to develop, I am going to cover them with some sort of netting or breathable bag so that the wild critters don't eat them before I do. I have never tasted a pawpaw, but Lord willing, perhaps I'll get the chance the coming fall. I am so excited to be learning about pawpaws. It's hard to believe that my parents have had them growing in their backyard for at least 5-10 years judging from the size of some of the trees and no one knew what they were.

Planting Pawaws

I planted the four pawpaws that I dug from my parents' yard. I hope they make it. I await the pollinator pawpaw.

Pawpaws a Plenty

I can't believe it. I went to my parents' house to look at a couple of volunteer peach trees that are growing on their property. A deep-red/burgundy flower caught my eye.

About 1.5 years ago, I really started getting into edible gardening. I found out that pawpaws, asimina triloba, were not just some fantasy fruits in a song. They actually exist and are native to the southeast US. Well, I ordered two pawpaw plants from Gurneys. They were small when I got them, and they haven't grown much in the year that I've had them.

Imagine my surprise when I looked around my parents' backyard and spied not just one, but a whole patch of pawpaw trees. I don't know how long they've been there, but I don't recall seeing them when I was a little girl about 20 years ago. Some are of fruit-baring age, so they had to have been there for at least 8 to 10 years. My dad said that he remembers seeing the red flowers but never has seen any fruit. If you look closely, you can see a flower hanging in front of the large limb. There are many more flowers, but they are so spread apart and high up that my cheap camera won't photograph them clearly.

If you look at the picture, there is a cluster of 3 trees just right of center. The right-most and thinnest of the trio, the one towering above the edge of the building, is a pawpaw - the largest pawpaw and probably the father of all the offshoots. The next two trees on the left are not worth mentioning. If you look to the left of the largest tree in the trio, you will see two tall, skinny twin trees in the background. Those are pawpaws too. And there are many more. It is just hard to photograph them all.

Well, I got a shovel and started to dig immediately. I removed 4 small trees and the dirt surrounding them. I am going to attempt to plant them on my property. My research shows that transplanting pawpaws is generally not successful, so I hope they all make it. These plants should cross-pollinate nicely with the two trees I purchased from Gurneys if they ever get larger. I started thinking about what my dad said about never seeing any fruit. My research indicates that he needs a genetically different pawpaw tree to cross-pollinate with his existing pawpaws. You see, if all those little trees are root shoots from the larger tree then they are all clones and incapable of pollinating each other. I just ordered two more pawpaw trees from Hartmann's Plant Company. I plan on planting one in my parents' backyard and the other in my yard. If my trees ever start producing, I'm going to have more pawpaws than I know what to do with, not to mention the pawpaws in my parents yard once they get a pollinator.

Apple tree

Last year, my seven year old nephew decided to sprout an apple seed. When it started growing, he decided that he needed to find it a home (his parents' rent their housing). Well, he knows that his Tia is a sucker for a seed so he sent his little sprout to live with me. I don't even know what type of apple it is. I am trying to keep it in a container until he is old enough so that I can send his tree to live with him. By then, it should be producing apples. I don't know how realistic this is, but I love my little nephew and I'm going to try.

After I finish this blog post, I am going to call him and request that he sprout two more apples of a different varieties. I know that in order to get pollination, he will need more than one tree. To be continued in 10 years...

Peach Fruitlet Thinning

As much as it agonized me, I thinned my peach fruitlets today. My research indicates the sooner the peaches are thinned, the better. I don't know exactly how to select a viable peach from a non-viable peach, so I plucked off the smallest fruitlets and those that appeared to have a blemish. Really, I had to remove some that I felt were perfectly normal just so that I could remove enough to conserve sugars and energy for the remaining fruitlets and growing stems. I still need to remove at least 6 more peaches; according to my research, I should probably quit 10 more fruitlets given the small size of the tree. I am going to wait until they get a little bigger. I don't want to take off all the fertilized peaches and the ones left on the tree be unfertilized and eventually drop off. Then I'd be left with nothing. I really don't know how to discern a fertilized peach from an unfertilized one. Oh well, ya just gotta hate the learning curve.

I was curious, so I dissected a couple fruitlets. Not much to report. Just a peach in training.

Peach Tree Fruitlets

My Belle of Georgia peach tree is loaded with fruit. I am going to have to remove some of the fruit so that the small tree does not deplete all her resources growing the fruit.