growing pawpaw trees Archives - GoatKeepers Press

Although people might have heard of pawpaws, few of them know what a pawpaw is. When we first moved to the Ozarks, we didn’t know anything about the amazing pawpaw.

The Patch

Along a pasture fence was a patch of these strange trees. Their huge leaves had a tropical look to them. Their purple flowers opened upside down in the spring, but there was no fruit.

Down along the river were some other patches of these trees we identified as pawpaws. These had a few fruits, if you can call green potatoes fruits.

When these ripened in late summer we tried eating them. The next year we gathered pollen from the river trees for out pasture trees. Now these had fruits on them.

Since mid spring blooming pawpaw flowers aren’t interested in having bees, wasps or bumblebees visit, they point down and advertise for flies and beetles. As the tree gets taller, it gets harder to get the flowers pollinated although the amazing cluster is nearly ten feet up.

Pawpaw Facts

These semi tropical trees are a native fruit probably from Florida or the Gulf Coast. Indians liked them, eating the fruit and using the inner bark as fiber. They spread the trees all through the eastern U.S.

Pawpaws are an understory tree near, but not in, water as in ravines or along creeks. With their large leaves, they can and do grow straight even growing in the shade. They prefer growing in the shade. When they like a spot, they put up sprouts around them and become a patch.

In the spring the flowers open facing the ground. They attract flies and beetles as pollinators. There must be two different trees, not another sprout, for pollination.

I hate climbing up ladders and needed to go up one more rung to get eleven fruits in the picture. One is always hidden in the back or underneath. Even with only nine showing, this is an amazing pawpaw cluster. It is not two clusters joined together, but a single cluster. Now we need to keep checking on it to pick it before the resident groundhog with a burrow at the base of the tree gets it. All of the fruits are still hard. As soon as they start to soften, we can pick the cluster.

Fruits

The clusters of green potatoes soften and take on a yellow tinge in late summer to early fall. Usually there are three or four fruits in a cluster. This year we have an amazing pawpaw cluster of twelve!

We pick the fruits as soon as they soften. They ripen on the windowsill. Once they are soft, we can eat the custardy insides discarding the large seeds. If any are left over, they make great sweet breads.

Those left on the trees are soon chewed on. We aren’t the only ones who like the sweet, custardy fruits. Deer, raccoons, opossums, foxes and others like them too.

After a couple of lean years due to late frosts, this year is a pawpaw bonanza year. The kitchen window sill and counter are piled up with these delicious fruits.

Although pawpaws can be used in most of the ways bananas are, we choose to eat them fresh. I do little dessert baking now, so freezing them for this is pointless.

That is one of the annoyances of growing old. I look at desserts and spend a couple of months taking the extra pounds off.

Once spring has warmed up, the pawpaws open their flowers. These red/purple bells hang down in lines from new twigs. Often a line of flowers from green bud to fully open line the same twig.

Can Pawpaws be Commercial?

There is again talk of making pawpaws a commercial fruit. The idea is doomed as a pawpaw bonanza year is not reliable and growing them is not easy.

First, pawpaws are a true understory tree. Others like redbuds and flowering dogwoods are called understory trees, but they grow is many directions seeking light. Pawpaws grow straight and tall in deep shade with their large leaves spread out.

Redbuds and flowering dogwoods grow happily out in full sun. Pawpaws, if they survive the first couple of years as UV light kills them, grow with their leaves hanging down as if to show their misery.

Second is pollination. Many of our fruits are pollinated by bees with their hives moved around on trailers. Pawpaws are pollinated by flies and beetles farmers like to assault with sprays.

Pawpaw fruits can be single or up to seven in a cluster. Larger clusters have smaller individual fruits. They spend the summer growing from tiny green tubes to these large green potato-shaped fruits. Raccoons move in just before they ripen and nibble the ends off or toss them on the ground, breaking branches as they move through the tree. For home use, pick the fruits as they start to soften. They will continue to ripen in the house and are ready to eat when soft.

Third is their fruit. Pawpaws look like green potatoes. They have two rows of large seeds. Not everyone can eat them without reacting to the flesh.

Our Pawpaws

We don’t mind. Our pawpaw bonanza is disappearing rapidly. We’ve been planting them for years and have many patches in addition to the original one now. The trees tend to have large fruit on them.

Smaller fruits are left for wildlife. They are popular with raccoons, opossums, foxes, coyotes and deer among others. They appreciate the pawpaw bonanza too.

A plus for us is having a native fruit tree growing in our ravines needing little care. The apples, Asian pears, pears and plums we planted have mostly perished from insects and disease in spite of our attempts to care for them.

This makes the year’s native persimmon and pawpaw bonanza even better.