I have never made fruit leather, but I’m open to learning how to do it.
We are off grid so I am canning and drying to preserve what I can.
I also enjoy fermenting.
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Haven’t tried, but I hear pawpaw beer can be pretty good?
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Pawpaw fruit leather is the long standing joke amongst enthusiasts. Whatever you do, do NOT make pawpaw fruit leather. Your bowels will thank you. You can freeze it, make bread, sell it on the internet, just don’t make fruit leather. Leave the fruit leather for persimmons.
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Was just reading that wondering if anyone was going to bring that up. Yes, everyone should try dried pawpaw at least once.
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What makes it different when dried? Too concentrated?
I actually bought Nikita’s Gift and Saijo trees in hopes to make hoshigaki after I get fruit. I was thinking I’d get most of the crop before critters because I can pick them unripe for drying.
We do not use the freezer portion in our Solar fridge, requires too much energy. So no freezing for me. Only canning and drying for preservation.
I am hoping I like them fresh too. I have had Hatchiya and Fuyu fresh and they were bland. Are persimmons normally bland?
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I’m just speaking on the experience of others, and the concensus is overwhelming…
I’ve learned over the years that it’s ok not to reinvent the wheel and learn from others experience in certain situations!
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Yes, I’ve seen several reports of this “reaction”. It is a shame since I’d imagine dried pawpaws would be really tasty.
Maybe if dried without heat or some other technique it might work, but I will wait for those bold enough to try to figure it out.
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I’m slightly north of and about 100 miles east of New York. My pawpaws don’t start ripening until October. My earliest is Shenandoah, which I’ve seen described as an “early” pawpaw. What are people planting to get September fruits?
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1 of my 3 Sunflower and 3 of 5 Wabash pawpaws dropped yesterday, just in time before low temp of 27 F last night.
I decided to picked them all, anyway. All 5 Wabash are large and the 3 Sunflower are small.
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My pawpaw season is complete, as my last fruit dropped in September. Another good year for my best tree, producing over 60 pounds of mostly 8 oz. plus fruit. That tree produces very sweet fruit, slightly cantaloupe flavored, not seedy, medium orange colored, and mushy when ripe. The tree grows fast, produces quickly, suckers a lot, and one of the four year old suckers has set blossoms for next year. Three other seedlings produced fruit. Two had smaller but still good sized fruit, with firmer, tasty yellow flesh, that wasn’t very seedy. The last one had fruit that tasted fine, but it was very seedy and only 5oz, so I’ll probably graft it over unless it produces something better next year.
Pollination was better this year than in the past, when most of the fruit was from hand pollination.
Racoons/possums/squirrels were slight pests this year, stealing a few fruit from the trees, and rabbits damaged some that had fallen. At the peak of the season I had to check the trees twice a day to keep the damage to a minimum, as the creatures and I both waited until the fruit was ripe before sampling. Deer came through the orchard at least twice but continued to ignore the pawpaws. No other pests except the early in the year ambrosia beetles.
There was more fresh fruit than I could eat and give away quickly enough. Because I find them such a pain to process, I froze about 9 pounds of whole fruit. I tried one a couple of weeks ago and was pleased with the results. We’ll see how these frozen fruits hold up over the winter.
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I ate the largest Wabash today. It had stronger fragrance than the rest.
The flesh was firmer than Shenandoah, Mango or Sunflower. It was meaty butcalso had 15 seeds. It was mildly sweet but I also detected bitterness while eating it.
I will leave the rest on the counter for a few more days before trying them again.
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Anyone tried “Collins Select” pawpaw cultivar?
I decided to try ungrafted pawpaw trees this time, since grafted was such a disappointment for me.
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I’ve never heard of that; It sounds like someone named Collin has a seed source they believe makes good seedlings.
Many times this holds true but doesn’t mean it would be described as a cultivar.
I hope your experience with this route goes well.
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Don’t think it’s are real variety. Willis Orchard is the only place that has that and I think it’s just what disc4tw just said. Other nurseries will have better seedlings of real named varieties.
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What nursery’s do you know of selling named seedlings (not grafted)? Thanks for any help.
Willis also has a pineapple banana I was interested in - not sure if that is real either.
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I would think twice before ordering anything from Willis Orchard. Use a search engine here to find out what people have said about this nursery.
The search engine is a symbol of a looking glass on the top right corner of the page.
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Thank you.
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Edible Landscaping, OGW, ect. all have seedlings of named varieties.
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I’m new to pawpaw and wanting to learn more about them. You mentioned two different pawpaw species and I want to know if you can grow these are they true from seed.? I’ve read that many are wild and wonder if all are. Are the named ones grafted onto a wild rootstock? I would be interested in buying seeds if you or someone else has them for sale.
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Luke,
Are you sure I was the one mentioning there are two pawpaw species?
I don’t know much about pawpaws. All I know is that there are the wild ones and the cultivated one.
There are several people/groups who have worked on breeding good quality pawpaws such as Neil Peterson and Kentucky State U.
I wish you ask me about pawpaws seeds in Oct. At this point, I have nothing left. I hope someone here can help you.
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