The 3rd Thursday of September is national pawpaw day. I put a reminder note in my pocket to go squeeze some of my pawpaws when I get home to see if any are ripe here up in Maine yet.
Greg, are pawpaws like some other fruits that continue to ripen (for example, if unripe ones are left on the counter) after being picked?
"The only thing...more expensive than education is ignorance."~Ben Franklin
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." ~ Plato
in my experience, if they’ve developed just a little bit of give when you give them a squeeze, they’ll ripen off the tree indoors. unfortunately the raccoons don’t always wait until that point. biggest pawpaw year yet for us here anyway! i should have taken a picture of the boxes of big ones i sold last week.
I was trying to figure out whether they could be shipped, on a small scale, & figured they'd probably ship better, a little before they were fully ripe. I'm VERY interested in possibly buying a few.
"The only thing...more expensive than education is ignorance."~Ben Franklin
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." ~ Plato
in general shipping pawpaws sounds like a nightmare to me, but just a few, before fully ripe, would probably work. especially if shipped priority. i have a feeling that being enclosed (as in a box) makes them ripen somewhat faster.
i have a few right now that might make good candidates if you want to try.
"The only thing...more expensive than education is ignorance."~Ben Franklin
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." ~ Plato
greg mosser wrote:
apologies if the wrong greg answered!
Not sure, but pretty sure that all Greg M's are completely encouraged to answer for each other here on Permies!
I know I encourage it.
LOL! Well, I was asking Greg, then greg responded, then I responded to greg, and greg responded to me, lol. Greg seems a little late back to his own party!🤣😜 I'm happy to try, either way - maybe both.
They came!! One had a scuff about the size of a quarter, on top, another had a tiny one a little smaller than a dime, on the bottom. We (very happily) at those two, and I popped the 3rd into the fridge, to eat tomorrow - IF the pawpaws like is a much as we like them, tonight. In the meantime, the seeds from the first two are in prep to be planted.
My side thought - even if the pawpaws don't like us, those seeds can be planted, and *hopefully* they'll draw the attention of the local wildlife away from my poor peach tree, so I might eventually be able to harvest more than 8 in a year (my biggest 'haul' in the 6 summers we've been here). Either way - at least some of those seeds will be planted, very soon!
Other side thought: Now to collect pear & plum seeds to plant, so we can have... a porchard. Persimmons, peaches, pawpaws, pears, & plums. I'll see myself out...
20250924_120650.jpg
3 pawpaws, shipped
"The only thing...more expensive than education is ignorance."~Ben Franklin
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." ~ Plato
Very nice! Mine are still rock hard. We usually get our first frost by the end of October due to the south-west hill we're on, which delays our frost by weeks and gives the early varieties enough time to ripen. So still looking forward to that.
Carla, I got 2 peaches this year out of the hundreds. We shared a lot with our wildlife this year too! Not sure if it was the drought we're having or other factors, but this year we had the most wildlife pressure on everything that I've ever witnessed.
I've decided I need to plant at least another 6 peach trees(only have one, right now), as well as at least a dozen more of other fruit trees. Maybe THEN the wildlife will let me have a few more. If I could just have enough for a couple batches of jam, and say half a dozen pies & cobbler, I'd be a very happy camper.
"The only thing...more expensive than education is ignorance."~Ben Franklin
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." ~ Plato
The only cure for that is hours of television radiation. And this tiny ad:
montana community seeking 20 people who are gardeners or want to be gardeners