I took one photo of a Che Fruit tree on the Judd property.
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Oh my golly these were two of the sweetest kiddos! Wish I would’ve made the real life connection! It’s so nice to meet in person and chit chat.
I was at the house of my old Pawpaw connection, Bill Merrill,in Fremont,CA,who moved to Hawaii,earlier this year.The new home owners were very nice and gave me a bunch.Brady
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Ate a Shenandoah and a Pennsylvania Golden #1 tonite. Shenandoah is so much richer in flavor. It’s literally twice the flavor.
Nice harvest, Tony. Beautiful gems.
Dax
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Clark in KS gave me directions to a Paw Paw honey hole. I was a few days late and didn’t have a pole picker or I could have packed out ten bushels or more. Next year I will be ready. Hopefully I have a plan to process the tasty fruit with zero shelf life.
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I have always wanted to try pawpaw’s and finally found some. There not very many so I need to time my harvesting correctly. How green can they be picked and still counter ripen with good flavor.? These are wild ones. What are good tips for determining ripeness?
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The gold standard for determining pawpaw harvest readiness is the feel test. Color is not reliable.
It must be at least a little soft at the base of Neck where the fruit connects to the cluster or tree.
Gently press at this junction and make sure there is some give. The more give the better.
(Avoid squeezing the main fruit or you could bruise it. )
The fruit should release pretty easily from the peduncle.
If these conditions are not met, the fruit if picked will not ripen properly and may make you sick.
If you are able to catch them at perfect picking stage, you can decide how long you want them to ripen up on the counter. Everyone has their own preference.
The flavor can be strong “tutti frutti” for the first 2-3 days and then it begins to mellow and take on a caramel flavor. They can even turn black and still be edible but for me that’s often too far.
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Thanks for the response and info.
I love your avatar and name.
If you don’t mind saying, where in TN do you live?
And when are they typically ripe in TN?
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Thanks!
I’m in the middle part of the state, a bit south of Nashville.
Trees that I frequent which are in full sun at normal elevation can begin in the first week of August believe it or not.
Wild trees in the forest are usually much later, as much as 4-6 weeks later. Higher elevations may be even later.
Much of it depends on the location of the tree, growing conditions, and the weather.
Good luck!
Those ripening times/conditions make sense. I may bring a hand saw with me to open things up for future years. The area is quite shady.
We are almost neighbors I live in Nashville.
Oh cool! There are some other pawpaw fans in our area too.
Yep if you can, getting more sun to the trees will help.
How much fruit did you find and how is the size?
Having trees at home is nice but there’s just something special about foraging in the woods.
The patch is roughly 100 yards by 20 yards. It has about 20 trees 15 to 20 feet tall. Of these about 5 have fruit some with one others with three or four. There is a hundred two foot tall trees. I think it is time for some light.
The size is small with respect to what I see on this form.
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Good deal! Sounds like a good ol’ fashioned pawpaw patch - pretty typical.
Also as you probably know, the crop was really impacted by our late freezes in April. So maybe next year if we have better weather there will be more.
I checked on the pawpaws today and found a ripe one. It fell when I shook the tree. The small one I picked from the tree. It’s still hard but came off the tree fairly easy. I’ll see how it counter ripens. I’m totally new to this so I’m going to have to learn about harvesting.
I can’t wait to try it but I will
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Wow that smaller one is crazy! Never seen a snake shaped one before LOL
I don’t want to rain on the parade but if the one was hard when picked, I would caution against eating it. It most likely will not ripen properly and could cause nausea.
The one that fell might be ok, especially if it was somewhat soft. Sometimes though even unripe fruit will shake from trees.
The one that fell - I would be sure it’s nice and fragrant and soft before trying it.
I just would hate for you to have a bad pawpaw first experience- that’s all!
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The one that fell is fragrant. It brushed easily where I squeezed it. You can also see a color and skin change in it. The snake is still hard. So your saying that if I try to counter ripen the snake it will most likely be bad?
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Good news on that one!
Yeah, I would not attempt to eat the snake one. Plus, it’s going to be like 90% seeds I’m willing to bet.
Check out below. Particularly the opening paragraph and item #3
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I liked it, smelled like pineapple and undefinable floral aromas. The taste was of banana and undefinable tropical flavor. There was no metallic or bitter after taste. There are too many seeds to efficienly process. I can see where named varieties have an advantage there. My wife said don’t bother planting any or go out of your way to get some.
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