Papayas are a perpetual Fruit & Grow like Crazy - 1 of our best crops for sure - Life is Good
🌳 Papayas are a fruit production line, Always something heading to your plate and they grow and produce very fast 🌳
You can see in this picture that as the tree grows it flowers on top producing fruit as the tree grows and the fruit matures and turns ripe a couple of feet from the top about a month or so later.
This tree is around 8 months old and is 8 feet tall, so they grow at about 1 foot per month.
The stalk on this tree is very thick, about the same as another that has been growing for close to 2 years.
I'm new at growing papaya but will venture a guess that this one is doing so well is because it's growing in imported dirt from a landscaping project.
Conditions seem to be very important as many we have planted just never grew or fell over.
But when they like where they are at watch out, you can almost watch them grow :-)
<---To the left is our first viable Papaya tree.
We live in a very dry area so I planted this 1 at the base of our shower outfall so the area is always atleast a little moist.
It's now near 2 years old 20 feet tall and has been producing since 5 months old.
This tree has over 20 Papaya and around 12 are near the ripe stage where we will pick 1-2 every 2-3 days as they ripen.
It's the middle of rainy season now so it's producing fast and furious, In the dry season we still get fruit but not in the same volume after about 2-3 months of no rain.
They also come in Male/Female variety's, Only the female's produce fruit and it doesn't seem necessary to have males for cross pollination because we don't keep them.
So that is our Papaya adventure so far, learning as we go... I'll leave you with a post I read yesterday about Papaya seeds and there uses. I'll try it out when the first 1 comes ripe very soon.
Thanks for reading and supporting my Blog :-)
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I know nothing of growing papaya's. Is it possible to prune the tree so it does not get so tall and still collect fruit from it? I'm just trying to figure out how I could safely harvest fruit from 20 feet up in the air, haha.
Yes they can be cut and some times 2-3 other shoots grow but it takes a while.
I need to invent a pole maybe 2, If you make one with a container on the end and another with a sharp knife you can work them in combination so the fruit does not fall.
I only have a step ladder and I'm at the end of my reach now.
Extention ladders would work. The connecting stalk is quite robust and when you turn the fruit to break it off some times takes near 2 turns before it breaks.
I wouldn't suggest cutting rather than just planting more as they grow so fast.
That's amazing that a fruit so large can come from a tree that grows so fast. In my area of the U.S., we grow apples, peaches and pears. It takes years to get a harvest and lots of pruning work to the trees.
I traveled to Central and South America once and saw fields of small trees with what looked like several white bags tied to it. I'm assuming they were tied around some fruit to protect them. I could be wrong. Does this sound like anything you've ever seen before? It looked like great care was taken.
You must be North somewhere, I grew up in the Niagra region, Best seasonal fruits in the world :-)
I know the fruit you speak of, and we had 1 tree in our yard till my wife pruned it in the dry season :-( The fruit are delicate and bugs eat it so breathable bags are tied over them. They do that for bananas too.
My wife just came home to ask...It's a Guava Tree.
Papayas grow so fast because the trunk isn't really wood, it's soft and doesn't have much a of a root system so many fall over when laden with fruit and have to be supported with poles.
I'm In Kentucky, mid way up in the U.S.. Ah, guava's. No wonder they are so expensive here. They looked like a very labor intensive crop. Tell the wife, thanks for me.
I haven't had real good luck cutting the tree back. They have a hollow center and it seems rot sets in very easily. Even if i cover the top so water doesn't get in there.
it's hit or miss, but the new stocks will come from old papaya stems usually.
I love eating papayas but didn't know they grow like this. Upvoted and Followed.
Really nice having fruit all year round. Did you read the linked article on the seeds too ?
Following back :-)
Cheers
bon travaille merci @azziz