My Secret RARE Fruit Tree, PAWPAWS!!

I'm super excited to bring you this video today. I've been waiting all summer for these. If you don't grow them yourself around here I don't even know where else to get them. They don't sell them in the stores. I've never seen them at the farmer's market but luckily my neighbor right on the other side of the food forest he's been growing pawpaws for 11 years. That's what we're talking about pawpaws. This is everything you need to know. Pawpaws are one of the few fruits that are actually native to the eastern U.S. which is where I'm located here in New Jersey. They're in the same family as the custard apple and the cherimoya. If you're interested in growing pawpaws typically they grow in zone 4 to zone 8. They'll grow in really any well-drained soil but they might grow up to like 35 feet tall so make sure you got some space. One great thing about pawpaw trees is where they'll grow. They'll grow in full sun but they'll also grow in partial shade and young pawpaw trees they actually like the partial shade and it actually benefits them. As a result of this pawpaws would be a great understory tree in a big food forest. Pruning and maintenance on a pawpaw tree is minimal. You really don't have to prune at all. You can just take out any branches that are in your way or anything like my neighbor did because one was in his way in a path and he just took it out and it didn't cause any problem. Another great thing about pawpaw trees is how little damage they get from insects. The reason for this is they have a natural insecticide in them known as acetogenin. This insecticide it's in the leaves the bark and even some of the small twigs and stuff so if you want it you can create your own insecticide spray at home. You can make it you can steep it make your own tea and then spray it on some of your trees or whatever you wanted for a natural insecticide. The flowers of the pawpaw are small and maroonish red. They're not very showy and another thing about the pawpaw trees is the scent of the flower sometimes isn't a very strong scent and they're insect pollinated which can result in low pollination sometimes but when the flowers of the pawpaw do have a scent sometimes they can have like a rotten meat smell and what that does is draw in some beetles and flies and that actually helped to cross pollinate the pawpaws and as a result of having low pollination sometimes it's advised that you plant at least two different varieties of pawpaws. Over here at my neighbor's house he's got two different varieties planted and he has a total of three trees. He's got a sunflower variety and a mango variety. The fruit of the pawpaw to me it's like nothing I've ever seen. It's way different than any of the other fruit trees around here. It almost reminds you of like a tropical tree but it's got large green to yellow fruit and some of them are really big I'll show you and they form in these little groups of clusters here sometimes when you have good pollination. So when do you want to pick them you might be thinking it's easy you don't have to pick them off all you gotta do is just pick them up there they are and they're soft like this you could eat them like this if you wanted but I like them to get super ripe super super soft that's when they're my favorite so this one's got the little yellowing really beautiful here are the other two pawpaw trees the one on the left is a little small but this one's a beast right here so healthy loaded with fruit too bunch of clusters really beautiful look at those I think it's a beautiful looking fruit and really low insect damage so that's always a plus here we've got two pawpaws this one on the left here is the one that just fell off the tree so it's a little harder you could eat it but this isn't how I like it the one on the right here is one that sat for a couple days this is how I like it really soft super mushy when it's like that it's got really high sugar content I like to and overall I think it just is a better tasting fruit I know that I personally can only eat a couple pawpaws a day and they don't really store that well so if you have a big harvest what people like to do is to use the pawpaw as a replacement for banana in some kind of recipe like a banana bread or something I've never tried it but I hear it's pretty good so first I'll cut into the one that just fell off the tree the one that's not ripe enough for my personal preference here we go cut that right open and you've got seeds that are going through the middle as well so I just cut around it like this and then kind of just pull it apart and this is nice yellow on the inside see how it's a little harder on the outsides here that's not how I typically like it and next let me cut into the one that's just how I like it here we go this was the other variety that's a little greener but I didn't have a ripe one of the uh the yellow variety so here this one you can see a lot softer and that's the way I like to eat it almost like pudding so let's bite into this one the fruit flies and stuff are already like starting to get at it because it's so sugary so sweet the first time I had it it reminded me of like a cantaloupe but the texture is just a little different than something you usually have and so is the flavor could be a little stringy sometimes the first year I had it though I admit I wasn't crazy about the flavor then every subsequent year I liked it more this year I love them but again I can only eat so many fresh such a good fruit to have though again like nothing you've ever eaten before it can almost be a dessert it's like a fruit dessert if you're a vegan this would be a beautiful dessert and people often I think mix it with ice cream and make ice cream with it so that's also something fun to do if you have a really lot of them thanks for watching guys leave a comment down below if you've never heard of the pawpaw tree or even if you have tell me something about it maybe that I missed if you enjoyed this video share it with your friends hit the like button hit the subscribe button see you in the next one