Papaya Update
When we last left the Papaya Tree we had the start of a small fruit. As you can see below, it wasn't too impressive, only about the size of my thumb.
A month has gone by, and my little papaya has grown. Now I would estimate it's about 4-5 inches long. Still not close to a ripe papaya that you would eat, be steadily growing. I'm still pretty sure it won't have time to fully grow and ripen. Maybe if we have a really, really mild fall and a very late frost/freeze.
Apparently the tree is happy in the back of the Tropical Garden. As you can see below, my papaya fruit isn't alone anymore.
There are at least three more growing now, maybe even a fourth depending on the fate of the closing flower on the left side of the picture. (I don't like to count my chickens before they're hatched)
How have your gardening experiments gone this year? In gardening you win some and lose some, but the Papaya (in this case) definitely goes in the win column.
Congratulations on your growing papaya fruit. Even if the fruit doesn't ripen, the foliage is gorgeous and I can see why you'd grow it again next year.
ReplyDeleteI had seen them grown at the Arboretum here and loved them. They had them in the middle of a bed of annuals. We don't have any beds like those, but it sure does look great in our backyard jungle.
DeleteIt is always fun to grow fruit and this one is a specialty. Good for you.
ReplyDeleteFunny thing is, I don't even know if I like Papaya. I've never had it before.
DeleteIt looks promising, Rebecca. The fruit sold by my local market is often quite green when it arrives on the shelves so maybe it'll ripen in a sunny window if you're forced to cut it in advance of a cold spell.
ReplyDeleteGood to know. I've never had one before, so I was hoping to try it and see what I thought.
DeleteI hope you manage to get a ripe fruit. Much will depend on the weather. They grow so quickly but because of that are so fragile when it comes to frost. One year I had these large fruits and I did try to protect but lost it. It was certainly fun while it lasted. This year I had hundreds of plants trying to get started but have left only one. It has grown 4' in the last 2 months. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteLots of the plants int he tropical garden are like this. We move everything that needs the greenhouse for the winter before the weather changes, but even with that after the first hard frost it is BAD out there. We try to be realistic about what we can and should save.
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