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While everyone is posting fruit while I sit in pawpawless agony, I transplanted a few trees I grafted this spring to larger pots. These were all in 2L propagation airpots and upped to 1 gals. You can see how nicely they root prune. I wick them occasionally in storage bins of water to keep them moist. This cawood got the taproot out the bottom and aggressively grew through the shallow remaining water. Check out the girth of that taproot. I had to cut up the bottom of the base of the airpot to keep from damaging it.
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So I’ve had a brutal summer with a bunch of work/life things and had to put all my gardening/fruit tree plans on hold. Wanted to come back to the thread with a few updates and questions from my pawpaw friends though.
First: I got some pawpaw plants in the spring from Blake and from Buzz. I was in the process of moving so I had to put them in buckets rather than in the ground (which to be fair and clear Blake warns explicitly against). Here are some of those plants — the two tall ones are from Blake, a Kentucky Titan and a Florence White. The short one is a Potomac from Buzz. They are all a little worse for wear from a summer in a bucket, but I’ll be planting them soon and hope they survive and recover. Life happens.
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The worst-for-wear one is my Nyomi’s Delicious from Blake, which both has the unhappiest looking leaves and also maybe (?) seems to have sprouted from the rootstock below the graft (before I bought it, since it’s behind the kiwi tape). Not sure if these leaves are a sign of disease or distress.
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My one solitary surviving seedlings from the really good pawpaw I ate last fall — the only seed that sprouted and survived — is doing incredibly well, though. It’s been in a 14" tree pot all summer and in mostly unprotected afternoon sun since July, down in Boston. It has withstood whatever irregular watering I was able to give it as I traveled and moved and keeps growing. Now I’m just trying to figure out where (in the Boston area, where I live full time, or in NH at my parents’, where they’ve cleared some land for me to plant some fruit trees) and when (this fall, or next spring) I plant it in the ground. I’m both incredibly fussy about my baby, and also aware that I’ve been neglectful and it’s been strong w/o my careful attention.
Hard to tell, but the circled looks like the w&t graft to me. I think all of the ones I’ve gotten from him have been w&t. Did you take any of the parafilm or rubber band off? It’s hard to see what’s going on under the lightly filmed portion in the pic, but I doubt he wrapped a graft like that before shipping. The only thing I can think of is he was using it to straighten out the leader a bit.
Do you have drainage holes in those buckets?
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I didn’t take anything off — this is how they came.
Yes, drainage holes in the bottom of the buckets.
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Funny enough, I tried to raise a couple pawpaws in pots that I bought from Blake several years back as well. They did the same tip browning on the end of the leaves that I see yours are doing. I immediately planted them outside in a permanent location, and they recovered. I put tree mats around them, and the ants built a nest under Allegheny and killed it. However, Nyomi’s Delicious is still alive and has grown a couple of feet taller over the following two summers.
Thanks — I plan to plant these no later than next weekend.
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Grabbed a random seedling from Buzz yesterday when I went to pick up my persimmon. Had grown about 2 sturdy feet tall in its first year. He was reluctant to part with it but I thought it would be interesting to see how it did in 5b in NH. I’ll tag it as “Vermont Vigor” or something like that and keep an eye.
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an update for my baby tree, there’s now 3 left. one from seed which is 6 inches tall, this one from @Osteen and another from a friend back in PA that they sent bare root. all put on a little growth this year. I’ll be fertilizing more in spring, hope it gives them a better boost.
If you are curious I could stick a bud of it onto a mature tree to see if itll fruit faster. If you have a more mature tree you could try it too of course. Do the leaves seem larger than average?
I’m going pawpaw foraging with my brother today, I’ve never had one before. I hope we find some and that they’re real tasty. Wish us luck y’all!
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My Jerry’s Big Girl from Perfect Circle Farm has arrived! My neighbor sent my a picture of it at her place.
The rest my pawpaws are doing alright. My pics of those are from Aug 28th.
I’ve kept this one under a blue milk crate for shade. Can anyone identify the variety? Its either a Susquehanna or Chappell, one to the died ground, but I don’t know which.
The lower branch had dropped all it’s leaves and the tip burned, probably from fertilizer. That’s why it’s covered in new shoots instead of nice leaves.
For reference, this is my other confirmed Susquehanna, it gets full sun full day without any shade protection.
Finally, the pawpaw that had died to the ground did come back, but is root sucker form. I’m impressed by how tough these little guys are.
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