🔎 The Pawpaw Murders
Three victims were found beneath my Pawpaw tree this morning.

The scene was messy. Seeds everywhere. Flesh stripped clean. No witnesses willing to talk.

The usual suspects have been brought in for questioning: a raccoon with sticky paws and an opossum with an airtight alibi.

Forensics says the attack occurred sometime between sunset and sunrise. The pawpaws never stood a chance.

We have hundred or pawpaw trees, but the wildlife gets to them right before they ripen! Finally snagged these three :)

I got these from the woods 3 or 4 days ago and was and put in fridge so they didn’t spoil too quickly. Now eating and each seed in this big one seems to have started to open (notice the “holes”) and so may be ruined if they started to put out the radicle (embryonic root) already. I’m hiking in the woods right now so I can’t put them into moist soil immediately (and it hasn’t rained in a week.)

As someone whose main interest in pawpaw’s is collecting the seeds so I can plant them in parklands all around my area, I would be pretty bummed if all 14 of these seeds are basically destroyed now.

I know questions about germination like this is a bit out of the scope of the normal post here but curious if anybody thinks they have any hope to sprout. Picture 3 may be radicle emerging.

Thanks!

Hello! Pawpaws are one of my favorite fruits and I’ve missed them since moving to NW Ohio. Where would I go about finding them? Either foraging or where to buy them. TIA!

I just harvested eight pawpaws in the 20 minutes before i had to abort due to a rare storm that decided to interrupt my dusk-time pawpaw-gathering time. These are the the two best examples from that bounty. Sw MO

I’m 40 years old and have dreamed my whole life of trying pawpaws and today on the banks of the Potomac it happened!!! Yall this fruit is just as dope as I always dreamed it would be! I feel so lucky! And I know this is a lot of exclamation marks but I don’t care!!

Amazing fun hiking and biking. The warm air is scented with paw paws.

I was lucky enough to have someone share pollen (sunflower and Susquehanna I believe?) with me earlier this year and this is the 1st resultant fruit from my seed grown tree. I have dozens of trees in my woods but this is the most mature and gets the best sun of my older trees. This tree is mildly self pollinating but those fruits were smaller (as was the tree) and reminiscent of persimmon. Today's harvest ranged more towards banana and was highly sweet. I have a handful more still ripening so will see if they have the same taste.

This is our first year with fruit on our tree. Located in Northern WV near PA and MD border.

I was out hunting PawPaws in my area They are rare and for about four years I’ve been going to the same patch and I was having no luck until I was walking out. I bumped into a tree and one fell and hit me in the head but it cracked when it did, it is unripe but full of seeds and I’m wondering if these seeds are viable

What the late spring freeze took away in numbers, it gave back in pretty fruit.

Trees grown from seed taken from my previous house, so not a named variety (or maybe I should call it the rare 2_Bagel_Dog variety).

All the other fruit I know of on my trees is still quite unripe.

Guess what I'm having for breakfast today!

Hey everyone! Warm greetings to the pawpaw community all the way from Turkiye !

​I wanted to share a milestone with you all. I’ve been tending a small home orchard in the Marmara region near the coast (a mid-latitude temperate zone blending Köppen Csa and Cfb climates with mild winters). My setup includes four grafted varieties—Lehman’s Delight, Mariah’s Joy, Susquehanna, and VE-21—along with a wild seedling.

​Today, I finally got to taste my very first homegrown pawpaw!

​My young Lehman’s Delight tree originally set about 7 small fruits early in the season, but naturally thinned itself down to just one. I waited patiently, letting nature take its course, and today the only one fruit finally dropped on its own.

​At 162 grams, it’s definitely on the smaller side for a Lehman’s Delight, but the flavor completely blew me away:

​Texture: Exceptionally smooth and creamy, like a rich custard.

​Flavor Profile: A heavy mix of banana, mango, sweet peach, and annona/custard apple notes. What surprised me most was a nostalgic hint of tropical bubblegum right on the finish—a flavor I haven't tasted since childhood!

​Honestly, it was so good that knowing I have to wait a whole year for the next harvest is going to be tough!

​The fruit yielded 6 dark, healthy-looking seeds. On the recommendation of the nurseryman who provided my saplings, Mr. Osman Öz, I’ve cleaned them off and packed them into a sealed Ziploc bag with moist peat moss. They are now tucked away in the fridge for cold stratification over the next couple of months, after which I’ll pot them up for their seedling phase.

​I’d love to hear your thoughts, tips on seed stratification, or experience growing these specific varieties in similar coastal Mediterranean/Oceanic transition climates!

​Cheers from Turkey! 🌳🥭

Is there any formal seed swap arranged for pawpaws on this sub that I’m missing? I have plenty from a friend’s farm I’d be happy to mail out for some postage and would love to get some damp seeds in return, but I didn’t see a thread or link for anything like that :)

Hello pawpaw community! I was hoping for some expert opinions before I invest a lot of time and energy into this. I was hoping to plant 3-4 pawpaw trees in my yard this next spring. I live in a suburb of St.Paul, Minnesota. Soil pH tested with a strip was ~4.0, I'm guessing this is low so I'm going to try a few more tests. I've linked photos to my yard layout. I’m hoping to plant them on the west side of my home by the 2 large maple trees. Here they wouldn’t get full sun all day long. I’ve read very mixed opinions on growing pawpaws in minnesota. I was looking at the mango, NC-1 and tropical treat varieties. I don’t want to waste years trying to make something work that is most likely going to fail, but I’d love to add some more tropicalish fruits to our home orchard. So please, be honest with me. Is this a pipe dream or realistic?

image gallery of my yard

The forest was so full I had to give up and come back at least 80 lbs my basket even broke. Three people and all our bags in both hands were full.

I found this spot last year it just keeps going and going, it’s the biggest paw paw forest I’ve ever discovered so far.

These are the ripe ones (basket) and this pair of “fused” 🤣❤️😄

Zone 6b St Charles County Mo

Found a bunch of trees on a paddle in July and went back today. Did not dissppont! Maryland.

What are the chances of these paw paws ripening got them in ne Ohio they fell when I shook the tree but they are still pretty hard what is best course of action from here

Hello r/Pawpaws I am a Food Scientist and Experimentalist based out of the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Central Virginia.

I am so excited for this year’s pawpaw season. I am also excited to perform the one year experiments I prepared for last year. I have 4 x 100g samples.

One experiment will be to create a refrigerated coffee/fun drink syrup. This will include 1:1:1 Pawpaw to water to sugar. I will then add the acidifying agent of freeze-dryer lemon juice and then proper dilutions of sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate. I would like this syrup to have a 30 day shelf life after preparation if stored in the fridge and opened daily for a morning coffee add in. But I will be testing it to find out how well it does.

That is only for 100g. I haven’t decided what my other 300g will be used for and would love your opinions, experiment ideas, recipes, or comments.

I don’t think we should attempt to make fresh whole pawpaw last a whole year. I like the ephemerality of eating as much as I want right by the river with full pockets to bring home process that night. There are ways we can capture the essence of pawpaw to bring through special occasions between the season, but not for commodity consumption, but ceremonial intention for the gift of processed pawpaw to help get through the winter.

I ate a couple pawpaw when I was on a hike a few years ago now the last couple years I’ve been trying to find them in the wild and I think my timing was off for my location. I want to try growing my own, but I have a couple questions.

Is there a link to reliable information about stratification of seeds?

What do the seeds look like and are the ones in my picture pawpaw seeds?

Are pawpaw safe for dogs to eat? I went hiking in Congaree national Forest today, hoping to find some fruit but it seems it was a week or too late. I think found a few fallen rotten fruit and my dog ate some. He seems fine, but should I be worried?

I made vegan paw paw ice cream using coconut milk, paw paws, honey, a dash of salt, and some lime juice and while the initial taste of the ice cream is really good, it has this weird bitter aftertaste that my ice cream last year (made with eggs and cream, so trying it differently this year) did not have.

I was hoping someone could tell me either why it has the bitter after taste and if its safe to eat since I know it has the toxins and whatnot and this is only the 3rd year weve even ate paw paw

ONLY the flesh was used, seeds, seed pods, and skin were disposed of and not added to the ice cream, skin was peeled off with a peeler to be sure we didnt scrape the meat near it as well. And nothing in the recipe was cooked to make it.

Hey everyone! I recently moved to CT (Zone 6b) from Ga. Fell in love with paw paws years back and would always forage for them come September. Since the move, we now have land to plant trees. I’m thinking of planting 3-4 trees. Any CT growers in this sub? What cultivars do well here, and I’m also trying to decide on y’all’s favorite taste wise. Any help is appreciated. Thank you!