Pawpaws about ready?

[loudgroove]

City Boy here......
What the hell is a pappaw??

it's a fruit. Don't think they are mass sold commercially. I've never seen them in stores.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

City Boy here......
What the hell is a pappaw??

 

[Leadeye]

Hard to get ahead of the forest critters here, raccoons usually strip the trees before I find them. When ripe you can smell them in the woods, strong sweet smell, I just follow that like a dog.

 

[ancjr]

"Indiana Banana"

 

[Cameramonkey]

Ive eaten ONE in my life. Tasted kinda good. 40 years ago. Boyhood home and the 3 acre woods next door had dozens of trees. Would produce fruit, but I seldom saw a ripe one even though I'd see them growing on the trees.

Sadly critters are more in tune than we are and they will nab them the night they turn ripe.

City Boy here......
What the hell is a pappaw??

Also known as the Indiana banana.

 

[tmschuller]

City Boy here......
What the hell is a pappaw??

Indiana bananas.. fruit that sorta kinda tastes like a banana to some people
Here’s one of my grandkids eating one

 

[DragonGunner]

Been eating them since the 70’s. Grew up near a bog and river low flood lands. Have to get back this week and check. Some years you find hundreds and other years a dozen. Use to bring home on the 3 wheeler and show kids about them and send them home to their parents to try. They say they are great with ice cream but have never tried. Gotta be like a banana split.

 

[spencer rifle]

As a picky eater, I still like them. Once you see them falling, you can go into the patch and give the trees a little shake. The more ripe ones will fall. Sometimes you can get them to ripen on the windowsill and sometimes not.

Many or a few trees growing close together could be clones - they freely send up root sprouts and expand. Problem is that, as clones, they will not cross-pollinate. You need more than one genotype to get cross-pollination.

The Corps of Discovery survived on pawpaws for quite a while on their return trip, due to bad planning and that being all that was available then.

 

[cosermann]

How do you know when a pawpaw is ripe? They're ripe the day AFTER the 'coons eat them.

 

[two70]

Hard to get ahead of the forest critters here, raccoons usually strip the trees before I find them. When ripe you can smell them in the woods, strong sweet smell, I just follow that like a dog.

The trees and especially the leaves themselves have a strong smell if damaged.

Indiana bananas.. fruit that sorta kinda tastes like a banana to some people

I think they taste like a cross between a banana and a cantaloupe but better than either.

 

[shibumiseeker]

Give the tree a very gentle shake. Those that fall are ready. One year we picked several 5 gallon buckets full. They do not freeze very well, but we have not yet tried freeze drying them. They undergo a chemical reaction if stored too long, whether frozen or not. Fresh, they are awesome. As said above, a cross between banana and mango. even after a couple of weeks frozen, they start having a weird taste. I don’t find it pleasant. Pawpaws are everywhere in the southern Indiana woods.

 

[Leadeye]

2012 was rough on most of my pawpaw trees, probably lost 80% of them to the drought.

 

[tmschuller]

2012 was rough on most of my pawpaw trees, probably lost 80% of them to the drought.

I don’t know if you want more but I have plenty of starts to be dug or if you want seeds. Just an offer

 

[tmschuller]

Grandkids and i went today. Some ready many more hanging. Go back next weekend when the kids are back. All 4 on a mission to find them. They actually remembered what to do when they got into nettles
Dog rolled in coyote crap.. = bath when we got back to the house. Overall a great ending to the day. We all needed it!

 

[Leadeye]

I don’t know if you want more but I have plenty of starts to be dug or if you want seeds. Just an offer

Thanks, I have plenty of small trees coming up in my woods, but it's going to be some time before I see anything.

 

[DadSmith]

 

[Michigan Slim]

All gone around me.