Garden Blog - Top Tropicals
How to have fresh Papaya fruit year around
Papaya fruit: Waimanalo, Sunrise, Maradol
Papaya tree
- 🟠 Many people include Papaya fruit in their daily diet because of its healing properties for digestive system. You can eat Papaya fresh as a tasty dessert, add to salads ripe or green, use fruit and leaf wraps in cooking - possibilities are endless.
- 🟠 Buying papaya fruit from the store every day can become costly. So you can plant your own tree - Papayas are heavy producers. But like with many fruit trees, the question may arise:
❓ What to do with so many fruit at once, and where to get the fruit when it's out of season?
- 🟠 The answer is: plant several varieties. Different Papaya cultivars, similar to Mango and Avocado, have different crop seasons.
- 🟠 If you want to enjoy fresh delicious Papaya fruit year around, plant several Papaya varieties in your garden that have different ripening times.
- 🟠 Papaya tree doesn't take any room in your garden: similar to a palm tree, all its leaves/crown is up high, so you can plant as many trees as you want in a very limited space and still use the room under Papaya tree for other plants.
For example:
Waimanalo - ripens from July to October and sporadically throughout the year.
Sunrise - ripens from January through September and sporadically throughout the year.
Maradol - ripens from August through March and sporadically throughout the year.
🛒 Limited time offer: Papaya collection - 3 trees for half price!
Shop Papaya varieties
📚 Learn more from previous posts:
The secret facts of Papaya's private life
Top 3 most wanted Papaya varieties
#Food_Forest
🏵 TopTropicals
The truth about Papaya:
Papaya fruit
Papaya tree with fruit
Papaya fruit
Papaya trees
1) it is grass, and
2) it can go transgender!
The secret facts of Papaya's private life.
- 📌 Did you know that Papaya technically is not a tree? It is a large herbaceous plant, usually with a single, straight trunk that can reach 30 feet!
- 📌 Many dwarf varieties available in selection, reaching only 6-8 ft tall, but producing large crops of full size fruit - they are easy to harvest.
- 📌 Papaya trees have very complex gender mechanism, but the bottom line is - the tree can chance its sex based on conditions! Many varieties are self-fertile, but it always recommended to plant a few trees for cross-pollination and better yield.
- 📌 The sweetest Papaya is from so called "Solo" cultivars: the fruit is usually round or oval, on a smaller side, but super sweet.
- 📌 Fruit from Solo cultivars are not susceptible to fruit flies.
- 📌 Being officially a tropical plant, Papaya is pretty cold resistant and can withstand light freeze without significant damage.
- 📌 Surprisingly, Papayas are also hurricane-resistant plants and can take strong winds without damage. They still stand when other trees are down!
- 📌 Papaya is one of the Super-Foods thanks to papain - a natural enzyme containing in this fruit. Papaya fruit offers the best digestive aid! Eat some papaya after each meal to maintain healthy digestion.
- 📌 Try papaya leaf wraps for cooking meats - you won't need a meat tenderizer!
- 📌 Easy to grow trees, Papayas don't take any space in the garden, but bring so much goodness into your life!
🛒 Shop Papaya Trees
#Food_Forest
🏵 TopTropicals
How to make a zippy Papaya-Citrus Marinade
🍗 🍖 The Papaya enzyme papain makes this fruit especially suitable for tenderizing meat in marinades. Use this zippy marinade for beef or poultry.
✔️ 1 cup papaya puree- ✔️ 1 tbsp lime zest
- ✔️ 1/3 cup grapefruit juice
- ✔️ 1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce
- ✔️ 1 tbsp honey
- ✔️ 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
- ✔️ 1 tbsp coarse black pepper
- ✔️ 1/2 tsp basil leaves
- ✔️ 2 tbsp olive oil
🍊 Combine and mix all ingredients except olive oil, then gradually mix in olive oil. Marinade meat for 2-8 hrs and cook over grill.
📚 From previous posts:
- • How to have fresh Papaya fruit year around
- • Top 3 most wanted Papaya varieties
- • The truth about Papaya
🛒 Get your own Papaya tree
#Recipes #Food_Forest
🔴 Join 👉 TopTropicals
Date:
Saving Fallen Papaya Tree
Q: Hope there is help for my beautiful amazing papaya tree! There where a loooooooot of fruits on it, but it broke! First of all, it was leaning and friends tried to straight my beautiful tree. What can I do? Will it get fruits again?
A: A couple months ago we also had a Papaya tree loaded with
fruit that fell down (see photos). It was heart-breaking. We secured it and it
continued growing for a couple of weeks but unfortunately, at the end the tree
still died, leaving us a million fruit.
The Papaya tree has a very sensitive root system and is hard to
re-establish once the roots are damaged.
However, if it just has a broken top, it has a good chance to grow back
from the side shoots.
Of course, remove all the fruit so they don't take energy from the
recovering tree.
When a tree is loaded with fruit, it is important to provide support for
heavy branches and for the trunk if needed. Always support the fruiting tree to
prevent from possible falling BEFORE it starts leaning down and may become
broken by even a light wind.
In the photo, you can see how we fixed boards around, but it was already
after the tree fell. Unfortunately, it was too late since the roots got
damaged. Always need to stake the tree up before the branches get too heavy!
RECOMMENDED FERTILIZERS:
Fruit Festival Plant Food - Super Crop Booster
Mango-Food - Smart Release Fruit Tree Booster
SUNSHINE-Honey - sugar booster
Only local pick up from our
Garden Center
Hurry up, while supply lasts!
Top 3 most wanted Papaya varieties
Papaya Maradol
Papaya Solo Sunset, Semi-Dwarf from Hawaii.
Papaya Solo Waimanalo, Dwarf
Papaya fruit is one of the superfoods as we mentioned earlier. Below are the top 3 most interesting varieties: a full size tree, a semi-dwarf and a dwarf.
- Maradol. Vigorous full size plant with high yield. Commercially grown throughout Central Mexico, these papayas are 3 to 5 pounds in weight and the shape of an elongated melon. Soft and juicy, they have salmon pink or red flesh that is very sweet with a slightly perfumed, fruity flavor. Cut them in half lengthwise. Delicious and irresistible with a sprinkle of fresh lemon or lime juice.
- Solo Sunset, Semi-Dwarf from Hawaii. Commercially grown primarily on Kauai, it has dark pink to reddish-orange flesh. The fruit is medium to small size, shape is somewhat round. This is the sweetest Papya variety we ever tasted!
- Solo Waimanalo, Dwarf - oval, large size yellow fruit with dark yellow flesh. Low bearing tree makes harvesting easy. Grows wonderfully in Central Florida in both a container or in the ground. Will go from seed to fruit in just one year. Waimanalo has yellow-orange flesh.
❓Do you eat Papaya fresh or you also cook with it? Share in comments👇
🛒 Shop Papaya Trees
#Food_Forest
🏵 TopTropicals
