Uploaded March 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
pawpaw is my all time favorite fruit and most people have never even heard of it. Pawpaw is north america's largest tropical fruit and you can find it growing in the wild in Ohio and Kentucky along with other states. When I first started to build my homestead, I bought 5 varieties of grafted pawpaw that were only about a foot tall and planted them in 2016 as one of the first improvements and additions to the lifestyle I live where I try to raise, grow, hunt, forage 80% of all the foods I eat. About the same time as the pawpaws, I also planted around 9 blueberry bushes of which only 5 of them survived. The next year I started planting fruit trees including cherry, pear, peach, plum, and multiple varieties of apples. I am up to around 70 fruit trees now along with other things like blackberries, elderberries, raspberries, strawberries.
The nice thing about pawpaws, deer have never bothered them (can't say that for any other fruit or berry I grow). The pawpaws have attempted to fruit each of the last 5 years except, a lot of the forming fruit gets damaged by a late frost but I still get some to eat fresh the last 2-3 years, just not a lot. I know you are probably thinking, why don't you just cover them when frost is a danger and well, easier said than done lol.....because the news doesn't always get it right, aka there isn't a frost warning but we seemed to get frost anyways (part of that could be that they are planted midway down a hillside too and cold always goes to the lowest point). Even when there is a frost, it doesn't always get all of the forming fruits so whenever I see a lot of potential fruit buds, I always know even if it frosts .... it won't get them all so I will get at least some.
For the people that don't know about pawpaw, they often ask what they taste like and the best example I can give is it is sort of like a banana and a mango had a baby together and the offspring tastes like a mixture of those two with the consistency of a custard or tapioca without any hard bits. The reason you don't find them on store shelves for sale is because they don't store very well. When pawpaw is ripe they fall to the ground and within about 24-48 hours they are history .... the ants will destroy them. Even if you can collect them, they will go bad within a few days. So you have to be ready to harvest and eat them right away and have some recipes ready. They taste best when they look like they are heavily bruised and on its last days lol
If you have never had pawpaw, you should definitely try them and then you will understand why its my all-time top favorite fruit.
If you wanted to grow pawpaw, people will often sell the seeds on etsy/ebay or if you can find them growing in the wild you can simply collect the seeds. They are very large seeds, about the size of a peach pit. You simply collect the seeds, let them dry out for about a week or two, then place them in the crisper drawer of a refrigerator (I usually use a zip lock bag not closed completely with a damp paper towel in it). You leave them in the crisper drawer for about 4-6 months. Next, remove them from the crisper drawer, use a fingernail file to nick the hard shell, then soak the seeds in a glass of water at room temperature overnight. Finally plant the seed just under the soil and keep in a warm area of the house until it sprouts - making sure the soil doesn't dry out. Once it sprouts, let it grow until it gets a couple of leaves then transplant outside. Some people just plant the seed in its permanent spot outside but I prefer to sprout them indoors first.
The varieties of pawpaw that I grow are wells, prolific, saa overleese, pennsylvania golden, and sunflower.
pawpaw is my all time favorite fruit and most people have never even heard of it. Pawpaw is north america's largest tropical fruit and you can find it growing in the wild in Ohio and Kentucky along with other states. When I first started to build my homestead, I bought 5 varieties of grafted pawpaw that were only about a foot tall and planted them in 2016 as one of the first improvements and additions to the lifestyle I live where I try to raise, grow, hunt, forage 80% of all the foods I eat. About the same time as the pawpaws, I also planted around 9 blueberry bushes of which only 5 of them survived. The next year I started planting fruit trees including cherry, pear, peach, plum, and multiple varieties of apples. I am up to around 70 fruit trees now along with other things like blackberries, elderberries, raspberries, strawberries.
The nice thing about pawpaws, deer have never bothered them (can't say that for any other fruit or berry I grow). The pawpaws have attempted to fruit each of the last 5 years except, a lot of the forming fruit gets damaged by a late frost but I still get some to eat fresh the last 2-3 years, just not a lot. I know you are probably thinking, why don't you just cover them when frost is a danger and well, easier said than done lol.....because the news doesn't always get it right, aka there isn't a frost warning but we seemed to get frost anyways (part of that could be that they are planted midway down a hillside too and cold always goes to the lowest point). Even when there is a frost, it doesn't always get all of the forming fruits so whenever I see a lot of potential fruit buds, I always know even if it frosts .... it won't get them all so I will get at least some.
For the people that don't know about pawpaw, they often ask what they taste like and the best example I can give is it is sort of like a banana and a mango had a baby together and the offspring tastes like a mixture of those two with the consistency of a custard or tapioca without any hard bits. The reason you don't find them on store shelves for sale is because they don't store very well. When pawpaw is ripe they fall to the ground and within about 24-48 hours they are history .... the ants will destroy them. Even if you can collect them, they will go bad within a few days. So you have to be ready to harvest and eat them right away and have some recipes ready. They taste best when they look like they are heavily bruised and on its last days lol
If you have never had pawpaw, you should definitely try them and then you will understand why its my all-time top favorite fruit.
If you wanted to grow pawpaw, people will often sell the seeds on etsy/ebay or if you can find them growing in the wild you can simply collect the seeds. They are very large seeds, about the size of a peach pit. You simply collect the seeds, let them dry out for about a week or two, then place them in the crisper drawer of a refrigerator (I usually use a zip lock bag not closed completely with a damp paper towel in it). You leave them in the crisper drawer for about 4-6 months. Next, remove them from the crisper drawer, use a fingernail file to nick the hard shell, then soak the seeds in a glass of water at room temperature overnight. Finally plant the seed just under the soil and keep in a warm area of the house until it sprouts - making sure the soil doesn't dry out. Once it sprouts, let it grow until it gets a couple of leaves then transplant outside. Some people just plant the seed in its permanent spot outside but I prefer to sprout them indoors first.
The varieties of pawpaw that I grow are wells, prolific, saa overleese, pennsylvania golden, and sunflower.
