Early Pawpaws
May 27, 2009
We have pawpaw trees along the side of our house. Last year they had SO much fruit. Pawpaws, if you haven’t eat them, are pretty amazing. Native to this area they taste like tropical fruit, sort of like a papaya/mango/banana. The fruits are just starting to develop.
I think we need to thin the trees out a bit but won’t do this until late fall. Josh transplanted two small seedlings onto the other side of the creek and they both survived and had blossoms this fall so we may just spread the trees out. The pawpaw trees were THE deciding factor when we were contemplating buying this house.
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Erin, they are an amazing little fruit, but I’d never before made your astute observation about their tropical qualities. Your great grandfather Helton, an avid fruit cultivator, never (that I recall) cultivated pawpaws, most likely due to their growing so abundantly in the woods that he didn’t find it a challenge.
Your thoughts now have me wondering about their nutritional ( and possibly medicinal?)properties. Mother Nature seems to have sewn the trees broadly and given them such survival ability, including vast numbers of large seeds for easy propagation, my guess is they are spectacular in ways other than taste.
Your blog is very interesting and I am enjoying it so much. (The compliment is down payment for a bag of ripe paw paws.)
Phyllis
Thanks
we will definitely have pawpaws for you, nice comments or not!
How amazing that they were so abundant…now they are almost a delicacy but I think they’re making a comeback. I used to buy them at the Lexington farmer’s market when they were in season (the guys selling them were driving in from Eastern KY somewhere where the trees were, like you said, growing wild) and almost nobody at the market knew what they were…but now I hear more about them. I’m not sure about their medicinal value but that is worth looking into…they seem like they’d be full of vitamin C for sure.