Save seed and grow your own! Looks like an ugly mango but tastes like a delicious banana persimmon custard. Spring blossoms that some say occasionally smell like rotting meat? Don’t be afraid!

It’s October in the HOEC Community Orchard and there’s a noticeable shift in the air…this is the month for harvesting pawpaw!

Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is noted to be the largest edible fruit indigenous to the United States (aside from gourds, which are botanically classified as a fruit).

If you are from the Pacific Northwest, you may have heard of pawpaw, but have not yet tasted one. Our harvest this year was strong enough that we were able to get samples out to all of our CSA members, most of whom had never before tried this intriguing fruit. Read on to learn how to eat pawpaw, how to save the seed, watch a fun video tour, and learn how to grow your own.

FUN FACT

Regarding that catchy tagline above mentioning the flowers of a pawpaw smelling like rotting meat?

Paw paw flowers are actually pollinated by flies and beetles! NOT by bees. However, we have never detected a rotten meat scent around our pawpaw blooms, so perhaps our sniffers aren’t as sophisticated as the common fly, thank goodness.

HOW TO EAT FRESH PAWPAW

1. Wash the fruit very gently. Paw paw tastes best when it is very soft & a bit mushy and even better after it has fallen from the tree. The skin will be very delicate at this point.

2. Carefully cut in half: Using a knife, make an incision all the way around the fruit. Be careful not to cut through the seeds if you want to save them and try your hand at growing pawpaw seedlings.

3. Spoon out the fruit, sort of like you would an avocado.

4. Eat the flesh but mind the seed! You will see that the inedible seeds are also covered with fruit. You’ll need to sort of slurp around them and spit out the seed.

*WARNING: DO NOT DRY OR DEHYDRATE THIS FRUIT!*

The fresh fruit is wonderful, but in its dried form this fruit can cause serious gastric distress. Some people also report a nauseous reaction from eating cooked pawpaw while others have no problem at all. Please don't let that scare you away - we just recommend trying your first pawpaw fresh and making sure not to over-indulge it if you choose to cook with it!

GROWING YOUR OWN

Did you manage to get your hands on some fruit? If you decide you love the taste, and want to try growing your own paw paw at home - be sure to save the seeds! If you did not find fruit, there are many pawpaw enthusiast groups out there who are probably willing to sell or trade seed with you, or ask in your local gardening or seed swapping groups. Either way, there are a few things you should know first:

LIKE MANY FRUIT-BEARING PLANTS, PAWPAW DOES NOT GROW TRUE TO SEED.

This means, when you plant the seed of a pawpaw, the fruit your new tree will bear is not going to be an exact copy of the fruit from the original tree.

Example: Let’s say you get your hands on some seeds from a named variety of pawpaw, such ”Sunflower”. You plant those seeds and grow a new tree. The resulting tree will not be a “Sunflower” pawpaw tree. It will be a “seedling” paw paw whose parent was Sunflower, and you’ll want to pass that information along when sharing seeds or seedlings in the future.

However…. when compared to many other fruits that do not grow true to seed, (such as apples and pears) pawpaw is considered to be moderately “true to heredity” with a high(er) rate of true-ness to the seed parent.

This means that seed-grown pawpaw trees are “somewhat likely” to resemble their parent. Of course you won’t find out until about 5-7 years down the road when your seedling begins to bear fruit! Nevertheless, if you have the space, planting pawpaw from seed is a fun and free experiment that encourages genetic diversity.

The pawpaw trees we have in the HOEC arboretum are un-named seedlings and they are pretty delicious!

HARVESTING THE SEED

Most importantly, NEVER let the seed dry out:

Do not at any point of the process let your seeds dry out, and if you order seeds online, make sure to ask about their seed saving methods to ensure the seeds will be kept moist even during shipping. Drying for even short periods of time can harm the dormant embryo inside of the seed and decrease the germination rate dramatically.

Cleaning the seed

The easiest way to remove seeds from your fruit is simply to eat if and spit the seeds into a container. If you aren’t a fan of this approach, you can remove them by hand. The seeds will be covered in pulp and under the pulp you will find a thin membrane coating. Removing this protective coating will help your seeds germinate.

Method #1: Colander - After removing the seeds from the fruit, dump them into a fine mesh colander and place the colander under a running faucet. Using your hands move the seeds back and forth across the fine mesh to wash off the pulp. Eventually the pulp will be gone and the clear seed coating will be visible. A light “sanding” of each seed back and forth motion on the mesh screen should loosen the coating allowing you to peel it off by hand.
Method #2: Fleshy fermentation - Don’t worry about rinsing the seeds or cleaning them off manually. Just dump the messy pulp covered seed into a jar and add a bit of water. Stir up your concoction and leave the mush on your countertop for a few days somewhere out of direct sunlight, and give the jar a good shake or stir a couple times each day. Don’t worry if the contents begin to bubble or smell funny - that just means it’s working! After a few days, strain out the seeds. They should look much cleaner and any remaining pulp should be very easy to remove. If it isn’t, you can let them ferment longer, or follow the instructions in method #1.

STORING THE SEED

Pawpaws require a period of cold stratification for 90-120 days prior to germination. There are different ways to accomplish this and pros and cons to each method.

Method #1: Store in the Fridge - Keeping the seeds in the fridge gives you the most control. It allows you to keep a close eye on the seeds, minimizes the possibility they could dry out, and eliminates the possibility they might be dug up by critters, or heaved out of the ground by a heavy freeze.

To store them in the fridge until you are ready to plant, you will need a container with a lid you can poke holes in or a plastic bag, and a substrate you can keep moist like a mixture of sand and sawdust, coco coir, or paper towels. Remember to poke holes in your plastic bag or container and check on your seeds periodically for mold. If you do find a bit of mold, don’t worry, just wash them off with a little peroxide and give them new bedding and a little better ventilation.

Storing seed instead of planting in the ground now, also allows you to get a head start on germination in spring and start your seeds on a heat mat indoors while it is still too cold outdoors to break the seeds dormancy.

Method #2: Store Outdoors “underground” - If you have a large amount of seed or can’t afford to take up valuable fridge space, you might choose to store seeds outside over winter if you live in a cool climate. You can get creative with this method, but the idea is to keep the seeds cold, (but not freezing) moist, and safe from predators.

One way to do this is to fill a bucket or large nursery pot with a well draining medium and bury the seeds inside of the bucket. Add a rodent proof screen or lid with holes and bury or mulch the bucket heavily. Make sure to poke some drain holes in the bottom as well, and to check on your seeds periodically to make sure they aren’t swimming or drying out. If you choose this method, you’ll need to be sure to remove and plant them before they germinate in the pot when the weather warms.

Method #3: Plant them now - Skip all the fuss and just plant them outside now.

Just know that if you plant directly in the ground, you won’t have as much control over mishaps over winter due to critters or weather, and that pawpaw does not like its sensitive tap root disturbed if you want to move it from the ground into a pot or to another area later. Pawpaw sends out a long and tender tap root even before any top growth is visible. Another option if you have a greenhouse or a creature proof nursery area, is to sown the seeds now into individual nursery pots. You will want to choose pots as deep as you can possibly find to avoid damaging that precious tap root. You can purchase “tree pots” or “root trainers”: that are approx 12”-18” deep for this purpose, or make your own temporary deep “pots” from empty half gallon milk cartons with drainage holes poked into the bottom or any other similar container.

HUNGRY FOR MORE?

Our friend Buffy Rhodes, a Master Food Preserver over at OSU Extension Service wrote up this fun & informative article called “Meet Me In The Pawpaw Patch”. Here you will learn about pawpaw "The Forgotton North American Tree Fruit", its place as an indigenous food, read a magazine article shared by Master Food Preserver volunteer, Don, and finally watch this inspiring video tour of a wild pawpaw grove in a nature preserve.