Growing Pawpaws Naturally

I wanted to make this thread to help me keep track of and document growing my pawpaw trees, with hopefully minimal work and maximum harvests!

They won't be irrigated, fertilized, or sprayed with anything, not even organic fertilizers or sprays, just naturally healthy soil, rain and sunshine!

They will be minimally pruned, if pruned at all. With minimal care, they can be truly enjoyed to the fullest! Bring on the yummy harvests!

Hopefully it can be helpful to others also!

If you'd like to stay up to date with the latest videos of what I'm growing and see monthly food forest tours, you can subscribe to my Youtube channel HERE by clicking the red subscribe button! I'd love to have you join me for this journey!

This paw paw is a few years old and is really starting to get big and putting on a lot of new growth. I hope to get the first fruit next year.

Paw paws have a neat kinda tropical look to me.

This sucker is coming up from the roots of the paw paw above. It has grown a few feet already this first year.

I hope to transplant it to the food forest once it goes dormant this fall, to have a new paw paw tree.

Steve Thorn wrote:This paw paw is a few years old and is really starting to get big and putting on a lot of new growth. I hope to get the first fruit next year.

Paw paws have a neat kinda tropical look to me.

When you say "a few years old," exactly how many years are you talking about? I planted mine last year when they were about a foot and a half tall, and they don't look anywhere near as good as yours does. They've put on maybe six inches of growth, but they haven't leafed out much at all. Now I'm wondering if I should be worried about them.

I wouldn't be worried. It seems like paw paws take a while to get adjusted after being transplanted.

The one above is probably 5 years old I would guess.

It was about year three before it really started to thrive, if I'm remembering correctly. It seemed to really like a good leaf mulch.

It's finally growing pretty fast now, and hopefully will produce some paw paws next year.

Steve Thorn wrote:I wouldn't be worried. It seems like paw paws take a while to get adjusted after being transplanted.

The one above is probably 5 years old I would guess.

It was about year three before it really started to thrive, if I'm remembering correctly. It seemed to really like a good leaf mulch.

It's finally growing pretty fast now, and hopefully will produce some paw paws next year.

Ah, good. I'm relieved. I've got three pawpaws for my pawpaw patch planted in dappled shade, and by the time they get big enough to need more sun, I'm hoping to have saved up the money to get more pines down. We've already had 46 trees taken down, some of which I was able to do myself but most of them $$$ endeavors. I'm really, really, really looking forward to having pawpaws!

i'm starting to see next year's flowerbuds on my pawpaws - at this stage they're very obvious round buds as opposed to the long thin leafbuds. have you been getting flowers yet, steve?

I had a handful of flowers two years ago and they fell off. This spring, there were about 30 flowers or so, and a handful of tiny paw paws started forming but they fell off. I think the tree still wasn't big enough to support them, but it should be able to next year.

The pawpaw flowers started to open a little about a week ago!

This will be the second year this pawpaw has bloomed. The first year they had just a few flowers. It seems self fertile and had a few tiny fruit begin to form, but the fruit fell off since the tree was still pretty young.

I hope to get my first harvest this year!

Who knew pawpaw flowers could be so beautiful!

I am so excited to find flower buds on my 4 year old pawpaw grown from seed! This is the biggest one of the two dozen I planted in 2021. It is such a slower grower, gaining less than 1 ft tall in the frist year; 2.5 ft the second year with two short side branches. Then it took off from the third year on. It's a beautiful structural tree with side branches always coming out perpendicular to previous year's wood. Also, I started to see zebra swallowtail butterflies since last year though I couldn't see the caterpillars.

Here is the backbone of the tree in January 2024, I colored it to demonstrate the growth annually.

My paw paw tree is blooming and I counted 18 flowers. I hand pollinate the flowers and they seem to be taking except the very first one. I don't know what variety this tree is but even if you have one tree, it won't hurt to try. Timing is critical since the male and female parts of the flower don't mature the same time. I collect pollens from flowers that are mahogany in color and the petals starting to flare, and pollinate flowers beginning to change color from green to red.