Babaco (Vasconcellea × heilbornii; syn. Carica pentagona)

This one is from Raintree. it took a while to get established but is growing well now and starting to produce follower stalks that drop off. I once successfully grew 9 fruit in one year from a standard papaya. That papaya was grown from seed this Babaco is sterile and grown from cutting or graft took longer to get established.

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I have grown Babaco. I like it in fruit salad but find it’s a little bland on its own.

Papaya is a weird fruit with me. My first experience with Papaya was ever fresh papaya juice drink. Which I now understand tastes nothing like Papaya. Even the sweetest most flavorful papaya I have ever had taste nothing like it. I have grown to enjoy the mild flavor of Papaya but really we eat far more green papaya in Thai and Vietnamese green papaya salads then we do ripe

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Yes, my neighbor is from Thailand. She grows the Mexican papaya and uses it green in salads. I prefer the Caribbean papaya, eaten ripe in the orange stage.

You fruited papaya in zone 7? How did you do it? Perhaps you just harvested at the green stage?

Yes, Yes and a bucket of fish guts.

So the backstory goes, during Thai new years around April 15th, Silver spring MD Wat Thai temple.I I bought a 1ft starter plant around April 15th. Green house grown by a local Thai lady. She recommended they go in the ground May 15th which it did. I also feed it a bucket of fish heads and guts but it did not grow till I balanced that with some lime. so I lost at least a month of growth. Then it took off and I got nine fruit that year. 2 started to ripen the others we used green. Dug it up and gave it to a local dell. It never recovered going back in ground the next year. The Babaco is a natural dwarf so I dont plan to unpot it. The first flowers have started to show up and I only fed this one 1 huge blue fish head.

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LOL. I’ve grown Babaco planted in the ground in a very temperate zone 9b into a 15 ft branching tropical tree – and I’ve seen others in southern CA that are easily 25 ft high and wide.

I’ll guess that you can control its size in a 10-15 gallon pot to suit seasonal indoor/outdoor growing.

6 gallon pot. Will see how it goes. Its already flowering so I am satisfied so far.

Actualy 2 fruit set so far.

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getting some fruit set.

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lost one

Fruit bud, or whole plant ?

just one of the fruit. I think it was a damm squire or something I dont see it on the ground any ware.

Brought indoors for the winter. The fruit is still growing larger.

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Out here they flower in the late summer and then ripen around April-May. At that time they’re about 3" diameter at the stem end.

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Looks like I have a while to wait if I dont want to make them into green papaya salid first.

In my opinion, Babaco makes a terrible green papaya salad.

oh really? why?

I love papaya. While in Hawaii of vacations, I would have a glass of Lilikoi juice in the morning with a ‘watermelon’ papaya. I think it was called that because of its deep pink color. It had a hint of strawberry to the taste. It was wonderful. All of the canned juices were way too sugary for me.

Babaco does not have the flavor of papaya – neither green nor ripe. It’s not even in the same Genus.