Hi Everyone, It has now been two years since we bought our house. In between caring for our 18-month-old I am trying to establish a yard full of edibles. I would be very interested in a rooted cutting or established sapling from a fig tree (maybe a turkey fig ... something that doesn't get too big and that can survive in zone 7). I'm also interested in peach, plum and paw paw (I guess I would need two paw paw saplings). I've only just started to write up my "Haves" list, and I've also just ordered a ton of veggie and herb seeds, including a number of heirlooms. So please ask if there is something that you are looking for. The plants that I currently have to trade include June-bearing strawberries, a thinner clumping green bamboo that grows 14-15 feet tall and makes an excellent privacy fence (the shoots are also edible), English thyme, senna, and probably also cherry blossom tree saplings. Thanks so much, Angela

Hi everyone! I've followed this thread with growing interest, and finally took the next step by posting hete :) . I am a professional gardener, and my interests lie heavily on pomology and dendrology (yup, a tree hugger!). I have a vision to introduce cultivars of mulberries, american persimmons, paw paws, nuts, and cornelian cherries to my country of Finland. Now to many it would seem that being as far north as alaska might impose some challenges, but thanks to gulf stream, our southern end is beginning to be the equivalent of USDA 5b/6 ..but of course that's regarding only the low temperatures. At Köppen-Geiger climate we at the south are at Dfb , for those who use that. I'd like to talk about all potential plants, but let's focuse on paw paws...now we have of course insane amounts of light at the peak of the summer, will that help or hinder paw paws, I'm not sure. Last two summers have been wet and cold, and I suspect that no paw paws would have ripened. But then again, I remember summers with +30 Celsius (86 F) , and some winters that went as low as -30C (-22F) . Most of the time however we stay near the -20 C (-4F) at winter, so the low temperatures really are not an issue. However the growing degree days might be...and so I am especially interested in trying the absolutely most earliest cultivars! I really don't care about the size right now, I just want to PROVE to me and to others here that you can actually grow paw paw in the open and outside :D The excel sheet that someone posted is most excellent tool and I thank for that. Now to questions: -Do you have any special recommedations to try? -Should I also focus on growing seedlings ( I have four one year old seeldings, and 50 seeds in the fridge, all from Oikos) to find special case that grows well here? -Do you think that root stock will make a real difference? -When do you think is the best time to graft paw paw, and how thick the trunk should be before I try that? I thank everyone for any help bringing paw paws (and others) to my country :) -Janne

Hi Bradybb, This is a GREAT video...lots of very helpful information. Thanks so much. Just knowing the maroon color indicates maturity will save a lot of wasted effort. and identifying male vs female is essential too. PJ

OK, I can help with this one -- As long as you have 2 or more trees that are genetically different, seed-grown or grafted ones of different varieties, as opposed to suckers taken from the same mother plant, you have the right genetic combination to make fruit. However, the issue might be proper cross-pollination. I picked up this tip from a gardening magazine some years back, and it really works. Paw Paw flowers are brown/purple for a reason -- they are carrion mimics that produce the scent of rotting flesh, although it is subtle, and are pollinated by various species of carrion-loving flies. In the magazine, there was a profile of a paw paw breeder from Jackson, Michigan. He went out every spring and gathered roadkill -- racoons, possoms, etc. -- and also enlisted the help of a couple of friends to catch big carp in the local river. He hung a carcass in each tree. He had like 200 trees, so I don't envy his downwind neighbors. Now, I know it sounds nasty, and it is, but it sure does make a dramatic difference in pollination. Now, being sort of weak in the stomach, I couldn't see myself hanging dead animals in my paw paw trees, and I'm sure the neighbors wouldn't approve, and someone would probably call the cops on me. So, my solution -- I use the bait powder from Ortho disposable flytraps -- I mix it with an equal volume of water and pour it into a foam or plastic cup that I tape with duct tape to a vertical trunk of the tree about 4 feet off the ground. Pour the mix in there about 4 or 5 days before the first blossoms open, because it gets progressively more smelly as it ages. By the time the blooms open, it will be rank smelling and attract a lot of flies. Some will actually fall in and drown, but that's ok, because it just makes it smell all the worse and attracts even more flies. When I did this, the blossom set increased dramatically, about quadrupled. A lot more fruit set and ripened. Too late for this year, but try it next and see if that doesn't make the difference. Finally, one other thing -- I have one tree that is a couple of hundred feet away from the other two -- that distance does cut down a lot on the transfer of pollen, and it sets far fewer. So, if your trees are far away, you can use my other method, which is to cut several longer branches of buds and flowers from a pollinator tree and put them under the tree which needs cross pollination in a bucket of water with some cut flower preservative in it -- they'll last about 4 to 6 days this way and will do the job.