Papaya dreams........

I am dreaming that these papaya fruits will ripen before cold weather comes.........

I saved the plant in a tub over the winter and planted it back out this spring. It's over 6 feet tall.

R.

How long did it take to get to that size? Is this the first time it set fruit?

I planted the seeds in spring, 2006, and they bloomed in September.

I had three dozen plants, :-0

Here is the plant late September after being potted up for about a month.

Hey there raydio, Keep us posted on the progress of the fruit. Would be interesting to have papaya produced in NC!!!

Hi Radio

I also planted papaya seeds this spring.They took a long time to germinate.I have 3 seedlings growing and gave some away.The seedling are growing very well but no flowers yet.When I did this in S.Florida I had humongous fruit in less than a year.I'm still hoping for flowers and fruit.We still have over 2 months of hot weather.

Where did your seeds come from?I took mine from the delicious red papaya they sell in Costco.

Oha I saved seeds from the fruit I got Saturday. I now have hope of them growing here.
I will start them in pots also.
Great pictures and hope I have fruit in a year or so.

Lavina

raydio, I am both impressed and inspired. I wonder if the fruit would ripen in a GH over winter. I wanted to plant both mango and papaya this year but it didn't pan out. The tree is lovely.

Hi all~

Oh, if I only had a GH to overwinter my plant!

I only had a very low-light area to keep it over last winter and it was tough going--watering enough to keep it alive but keeping it dryish to avoid rot and to hold back growth in the poor light.

The trouble with digging up a papaya is that they resent the disturbance. My plant wilted badly and dropped leaves but eventually recovered and grew some in late summer and fall. I'm afraid the shock would cause the fruits to drop and I would basically be starting over.


The seeds were given to me by a friend and came from a papaya he ate. I planted the seeds en masse in a single pot, not knowing about the transplanting difficulty. I didn't mark the pot, and later thought they were Mexican sunflowers (LOL). I transplanted them to a cell-pack flat and grew them a bit then transplanted them to the ground.

All that transplanting held them up a bit each time, but papaya are great growers when they get going, so they made up for it. I think mine bloomed in about six months, a bit later than I had read at 5 months to flowering, due to the cool temps of spring and transplanting stress.

I got lucky when I saved this plant. Papayas can be male, female, both or have both types of flowers on the same plant. (I think I have that right....) My plant has flowers with both parts in a single central flower with a male flower to each side. Otherwise I may have had little chance of pollinating a female plant or no chance of fruit from a male.

I haven't done any pollinating and have been watching the fruits to see that they don't abort due to not being fertilized, but so far, all is well.

They really are easy and the rapid growth is amazing. Do try one next year. If I plant them again, I'll either plant in the ground when it is very warm--no cool nights, or plant them singly in gallon pots for easier, less stressful transplanting.

The picture of the whole plant shows the foliage as drooping a bit, but that was from heat. The foliage is usually held flat out, facing upward to catch all the sun.

R.






This message was edited Aug 21, 2007 12:12 PM

I have some mountian papaya seeds I'm going to try out in Sept. Supposingly they're more cold hardy so the idea is to get them growing over the winter, plant them when it gets warm out and hopefully have fruit next year. Also they should be big enough to have a shot of over wintering in the ground. I've had pretty good luck with tropicals dying back to the ground and coming back the next year. Since their roots are already good size they grow quickly and get pretty big. On the otherside I have killed some stuff off trying to do this.

radio-I think it takes 9 months from germination to producing fruit-not 5 months so you are doing ok time-wise. This was in Hawaii, where they grew all over the place-the quickest tree to set fruit, I think.

I have some dwarf papayas growing, that I started in late December in the grhouse and transfered to one gallon containers in the early spring. I was hoping that the dwarf ones would grower better in containers, and set fruit. I put one in the ground in May, and gave all but one other away to friends. The one I kept in a container , I let get really rootbound before I upped the size-which I think will delay the flowering. I will take pictures of them later this afternoon-too hot right now! lol

It was so much easier in Hawaii to grow these plants!! the timing is hard here...

core, where did you get those mtn papaya seeds... i've been interested in them, but i didnt know anyone else that was interested in them or knew where to get them

tigerlily hope you make it to the round up at Lake Benson Park on the 8th.

Folks I have seeds and am gonna plant a few and see what they do.

Lavina

This is where I got the mtn. papaya. http://www.tradewindsfruit.com/

What I was really after was these seeds. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/51550/index.html

Those Cassia leptophylla where not easy to find. I looked all over for plants and none to be found. Even finding seeds was hard. The papaya was just something I saw and thought I would give a try.

tiger~

I guess I got lucky by having several bloom when they did.

I had read that Papayas can bloom "as early as 5 mos." and didn't mean that it was to be expected, but that it can happen that quickly.

I can see that in 9 mo. there would be better fruit set....I don't recall that the first side male flowers opened, and the few central male-female flowers never set fruit or got to a point to indicate that before the cold halted it all.

I think sowing them in a greenhouse as you plan, core, would be a great boon. Kept in containers, you could return them to the warmth in early fall and perhaps get any fruits to maturity. Some do that with their bananas and citus here. My papaya, like the bananas I grow, are true tropicals preferring to grow year-round.

I know they prefer full sun here and would hope that there would be sufficient winter sun in a greenhouse to ripen the fruits. Good luck to all who try it!

The mountain papaya seems like a better selection, but alas, is still a bit too tender to overwinter unscathed here without protection, but might surprise in a good micro-climate and give good results with less heat in the greenhouse.

R.

I've been working on cold hardy citrus, 5 trees and Dwarf cavendish bananas. I'm warmer then you so it's easier for me to fool around with this stuff. We will see what happens.

here is a picture of the one in a container. I think that I should have transplanted it sooner, it may have been stunted a bit by waiting-although the one in the ground is not much bigger. I think the dwarfs do stay shorter

here is the one in the ground-its really hard to see it because of all the plants around it. It is about 5' high. I am not digging it up-just bringing the one in the container into a grhouse. Surprisingly, there is not much difference in size between the two.

Beautiful plants, tiger. That potted one is pure-T charming!

Core~ I have Musella lasiocarpa that come back no prob with absolutely no mulch or protection and have just added Musa basjoo this spring and I don't plan to mulch it either.

Last summer, I had nice clump of "Sumatrana" that I think I did completely wrong in mulching it 2 feet deep. I believe that the corms died out more from being too wet than from too cold, but since it was out in the yard and not near the house, it may have been too cold anyhow. I planted it quite deep, encouraged by Brent and Becky's saying they had them return in Virginia, but no such luck here. I saved a pup over indoors, though.

I have potted "Dwarf Cavendish" and "Super Dwarf Cavendish" but won't risk them though.

BTW~ My Cavendish did a funny thing this spring. The central mother plant wasted away down to the corm (which was on the soil surface) and I thought the corm would rot but it didn't. There is now just the tiniest little bit of green showing but it just won't get going.

I thought maybe I should have seperated the corm from the clump (3 plants at the time I potted it up, thinking it might want to be under the soil. What do you think?

Corrected the cavendishes to dwarf.

R.


This message was edited Aug 22, 2007 10:25 PM

raydio, where did you get the musella lasiocarpa? that is really high on my wish list!

diehard~

I got my start as a gallon pot at a local garden center some years ago. I think it was part of their spring shipment from Monrovia.

R.

I had a dwarf cavendish come back from the winter, also my sikkimensis and red tiger sikkimensis. Also my pink vellutina came back like crazy-very reliable. It is blooming right now-has been for awhile now. The basjoos always come back. My lasiocarpa didn't, but I think its because it was planted in a place that stays too wet when it rains. I have another one in another place with better drainage, so I hope it will bloom next year. My two raja puris did not come back. Anyone else have any come back? I have heard that ice cream banana comes back. I had always thought they would not be hardy here. I also planted a few of the red iolones and bordelons this summer.

That makes me wish I had put a dwarf and super-dwarf in the ground in spring. Too late now, I guess, at least I prefer to have them established and growing all season.

Hmmmmm, maybe it isn't too late?

I keep seeing the lasio rated as not as hardy as the basjoo, but as I said, I have never mulched the lasios at all and over time, they seem to have acclimatized quite well here.

At first, the plant froze to the ground (but spouted *very* early in spring) and now, only the leaves die back and the trunk remains pretty much unaffected.

Here's a pic from March 31, 2007:

thanks raydio.... the search continues... oh nvm i just got ur dmail

This message was edited Aug 22, 2007 10:53 PM

About that picture...........

Basjoo is the hardist and I would watch out with the mulch because none of these plants like to be constantly wet or they will rot. Around here dwarf cavendish will come back and sometimes make it through the winter without dying back.

Here are my papaya fruits today.

The fruit in the center is the same one from my first post. The one to its upper left formed later but has grown larger.

The bud clusters are now in three seperate bunches at each leaf base. As many as 7 buds in each of the three sections. I never knew.

Still dreaming that they'll ripen or get close.....that is, if they can be picked green and "window ripened" like bananas. Anyone know?

R.

I think you are going to make it raydio! They looked like they will ripen soon. Unless they are the huge ones, you know the ones that are like 2' long? They would still have to grow so much more, but yours look almost ready to me.

Thanks for the encouragement, Tiger.

I didn't see the original fruit, but it was a supermarket produce variety, so I'm thnking it's not supposed to be "humongous. Just nice enough for the table.

I hope you're right about its nearing ripeness.......thankfully the heat is still holding out here.

R.

Well, they have the ridges formed at the base,and they are near to the size, so that is a good sign, and you have another month (hopefully) of warm weather, and I think that will be more than enough time. I would definitely pick them before a freeze though-as I am sure you would do.

Will do!

R.

Looks like it will be close. LOL. Looks like the color is starting to change so you may be a couple of weeks away from harvest. When do you start getting in the 40's? I'm not thinking papaya are going to like the 50's and I'm sure 40's will do something bad to them. Hope the fruit doesn't end up just dropping off before it's ready.

Core~

We've had some high 50s at night awhile back, but lately the 60s prevail. Days getting up in the 90s again.

But, I saw a forecast that seemed to predict a bit of coolness again, as early as this weekend :-((( with highs in the 80s and nights going back into the 50s.

We shall see............

R.

There is a great thread in the Tropical Gardening forum called "papaya 101". Check it out.

Oh, thanks, fancyflea.

R.

We had nights in the 50's all the time in January/Feb in Hawaii and the papayas didn't mind-never slowed them down. I remember many nights wearing sweat pants and a sweatshirt at night in the winter. Also the higher the altitude-the cooler the nights, and in certain parts of Hawaii, it is real easy to live higher up. I don't think I would pick them until it got in the high 40's at night.
Keep us informed on their progress, Raydio!

Thanks for the cheers, Tiger!

R.

Our temps are doing the fall swing: days have been high 70s to 80F and nights in the high 50s and 60s, so my papaya plant is still going great guns.

A good number fruits are full and heavy and I'd say they are mature. I'm just leaving them on the plant as long as possible.

And I found out that the fruits *will* ripen on the kitchen counter in about a week and with a ripe apple (for the ethylene gas) in about 4 days, so I'm getting my mouth set for a feast!!!

R.

You may have convienced me to try to plant and take care of one of these as I love the fruit.

Lavina