Well, of the half-dozen or so pawpaws I ate last year, and few dozen seeds I started, two made it to seedlings that have so far survived. I’m not exactly sure why the germination rate was so low but my suspicion is I accidentally used hydrophobic soil mix (grabbed what turned out to be an old bag from the hardware store) and they dried out.
These I labeled “PPP” — “Potential Peterson Pawpaws?” — and the question mark is because they’re really open-pollinated mystery seedlings from Robson’s Farm in New Jersey that put together a bag of pawpaws from their many varied trees and left them hidden at their PYO for me since I was only driving through after hours. They were really great fruits to eat. Here’s what I I wrote last summer:
I hope that these guys make it. Right now they are in 14" tree pots on the back porch, where they receive some afternoon sun shaded intermittently by the railing. At some point I might transplant them to 5 gallon buckets while I wait to put them in the ground somewhere. One of them had a broken taproot so I don’t know if that dooms it longterm.
cc @weatherandtrees since I had DM’d you about this.
