Join the club of husbands with “hater” wives!! LOL
But that sounds like a pretty darn good wild pawpaw. It definitely has an undefinable quality.
Cheers!!
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I don’t know if you can answer this question; now that the tree produced a ripe one how many days until a green one like the snake in my previous post ripens. I realize there are a lot of variables but I don’t want to go there daily but don’t want to miss them. Do the fruit ripen suddenly?
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They don’t instantly ripen, they go from glowing green to light green to very light yellow to yellow to tan to brown … over maybe two weeks total.
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Right - yeah, you don’t need to go every day. They will not ripen quickly.
If they are rock hard on the tree, if it were me I might check every week at most.
Of course you are competing with the wildlife, so there’s a lot of luck involved!
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I went back Friday and picked about 15. Some were so ripe they brused from just touching others were ripe but firm enough to put in a bag. I have eaten most of them. I will need to finish them today. They were good but cultivated ones with fewer seeds would be great.
Also I took a hike around a reservoir near me but saw no trees. The soil is too shallow, if you see cedars you won’t find pawpaws.
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I wish i could just have at least one more pawpaw this year, but i think it’s a pipe dream.
I visited some trees that are in full sun in a park but they were bare (not surprising given the season).
I did see some near a creek last week but they were rock hard. There’s a chance i may go back this week or weekend and might get lucky.
I do have a small amount of pulp i froze about 3 weeks ago and plan to use it in a dessert recipe.
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My pawpaws are just starting to ripen. All of my early blooms froze this year so I spent more time hand pollinating them to make sure I would have a decent crop. I ended up having to thin them because they were just loaded with fruit. I should have thinned them more because my fruit size is down from last year. Here are a few that I picked today.
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Nice! What varieties?
I apologize for taking so long to respond. The bottom one is KSU Atwood. The others are Mango I think.
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It’s all good! What are your flavor impressions of the 2?
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I think I slightly prefer KSU Atwood, but both of them are quite good. I have found that eating them at the right ripeness effects the flavor considerably. There is also some variation in flavor from different fruits on the same tree. The fruit size is generally larger on the Atwood. I have had several in the one pound range. BTW, I spent most of my life in TN. I lived a little south of Jackson. Most of my family lives in that area.
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Oh that’s cool! I’m more in middle TN versus west.
I agree on how the ripeness affects the flavor. I think most people are crazy for eating “under ripe” pawpaws 
I’ve also heard about the variability even on the same tree. In a way that’s a drawback but I guess it also keeps things interesting.
I hope I can get some one pound fruits someday!
I have all 3 KSU varieties and may have fruit on Atwood and Benson next year.
Wow, those look really happy! Nice work. Just the sight of pawpaw trees warms my heart 
Do you have issues with varmints?
Thanks!
No, I haven’t had any trouble with varmints thus far.
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man, you really have the jackpot there! That cut fruit looks gorgeous…nice picture!
Did you get the seed to fruit weight ratio on that particular one? Looks pretty fleshy for a wild fruit and also given its size.
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