How to Grow The Largest Fruit Native to North America - The Paw Paw

what is going on everyone welcome to another very exciting episode right here on the mi gardener channel in today's episode i have another complete growing guide for you all and this one i am very excited about i have been waiting years to bring this complete growing guide out to you all in this complete growing guide we're going to be talking about how to grow the pawpaw so pawpaws are rather difficult to uh find seedlings for and i've been reached i've been reached out to by dozens of viewers asking if i would do a pawpaw growing guide and every single time i get asked about how to do a pawpaw growing herb if i could do a pawpaw growing guide or how to grow pawpaws my answer is simply put i can't do a pawpaw growing guide because i can't find a reliable source for a pawpaw seedling pawpaw seedlings are very tricky to start from seed the germination rate on seeds is very low and because they are a native wild tree not a domesticated tree like some of your more domesticated apples and pears and other fruit trees because they're a non-domesticated wild tree they don't breed true to type with their seed they're open pollinated meaning anything you know no matter which seed you plant you're going to get a different result and so because of that they're very difficult to gauge what you're going to get when you start one of their seeds yes you'll get a pawpaw tree but nobody knows if it's going to taste good or not or if it's even going to yield fruit because they can take so long up to 15 years to give fruit and when they do give fruit it might not even taste good so it's something that a lot of growers hesitate on growing from seed now what about cuttings well cuttings they don't take well to cuttings in fact most most rooted cuttings fail how they get a papa tree is they actually will commonly take a water sprout we've done lots of videos on what water sprouts are but essentially it is a sprout that comes up from the root system of the existing tree most commonly in springtime and what they'll do is they will take a saw and basically sever off that water sprout with a few remaining roots that is a genetic clone of whatever that tree originally was and what they will do then is they will grow that out as a tree now they can sell that commercially or they can graft a desirable pawpaw onto the rootstock of that pawpaw and that is most commonly about how eighty percent of all pawpaws become commercially available it's just a very short supply there's not a good place to find a large amount of them so if you can find one pick it up so paw paws are native to this region of michigan however we're at the far north of their survivability range here in michigan we're in zone 6a and zone 6a is kind of the top threshold of where they're going to be able to survive now they do much better in the central uh the central midwest somewhere along the lines of tennessee kentucky uh that area of the midwest because the fact that they do better in like zones seven and eight now pawpaws can survive up here in michigan you just want to make sure that you give them a place that's going to be protected because they don't like strong winds that's why we put them against this fence line here paw paws are traditionally an understory tree that means they grow underneath other trees they don't like to be in full sun though they can survive in full sun the reason why i'm putting them by this fence line here is because we do get nice good full sun but we also get protection from those harsh winds in the winter time that's what i'm really trying to protect them from they don't like that harsh cold cutting wind that can kill them so that's why i'm putting them up against this fence line here that's going to give them a little bit of shelter and a little bit of microclimate so that's going to hopefully kind of move us down south a little bit without actually moving us down south another good option is you can plant them next to a brick wall on the side of your house just make sure it's a south-facing wall that way the the sun is going to heat up that wall on your house and it's going to radiate it out throughout the night time providing it with anywhere from about 10 to 15 degrees of frost protection additionally from whatever the ambient temperature is outside so just a few tips for you in terms of location now the soil type that pawpaws like to live in because they are a native a native non-domesticated tree is they really like to grow in what they would find in their natural habitat and because they're an understory plant they like to be in really well draining fertile soil now think of a forest a forest floor is rich in humus so we've picked a spot here that actually has a lot of aged wood chips we've been throwing wood chips here for the past five years they've been breaking down in exactly what a forest floor would provide if you can't find that just get some really good get some really good compost here i'm also going to add this to the planting hole but this is a forest floor compost mix what you'll notice is basically they take a mulch and they compost this down and it's a it's a really good option if you don't have already good soil it's so important that we add a well-draining compost because of the fact that they do not have a very deep root system pawpaws have a very shallow kind of uh almost like a medium depth root system they don't have deep roots like an oak tree they grow much more along the top of the soil and creep their roots along the top than they do burying deep down so it is important that when we grow these that we add a nice amount of mulch this wood chip mulch is going to be a great option because of the fact that they don't have those deep roots we don't want them drying out in the in the uh in the woods where they're commonly found they'll have lots of canopy cover and they'll also have lots of leaves and other debris that'll help to kind of protect the soil and mulch the soil so we're going to be relying very heavily on this wood chip mulch to do that when it comes to soil ph you don't really have to worry too much because the fact that they are again a native kind of a native non-domesticated tree they like to have something that's along the lines of neutral now a neutral ph is seven anything higher than that is alkaline anything lower than that is acidic so just keep that in mind that you don't want to have anything that is too acidic or too alkaline now when it comes to nutrients with growing pawpaws you don't have to worry too much because again the fact that they are a a native non-domesticated tree they're used to growing in a whole variety of different adverse growing conditions they do like lots of nitrogen because the fact they have large leaves these leaves take lots of nitrogen to be produced anytime you're dealing with leaves you're dealing with nitrogen so just make sure that you add lots of nitrogen to your soil or if you're using a good compost that's going to have lots of nitrogen or a well-balanced fertilizer we're going to be using a good compost plus a good fertilizer just to make sure that it has enough nutrients to get it growing get it started get it established and you know get it off to the races so we are using trifecta plus which is a 5104 that's five percent nitrogen 10 phosphorous and four percent potassium you don't have to worry as much about phosphorous and potassium because it's not doing a whole lot of fruiting yet and it's not doing a whole lot of flowering and the root development pretty much will happen naturally you don't really have to encourage root development so phosphorus and potassium are kind of a secondary concern just make sure you're using something well balanced but primarily high in nitrogen that being said the only other thing that i'd really be concerned about that i've ever come across being concerned about with growing pawpaws is the drainage now drainage will naturally come with using a good quality compost you want to make sure that it has good drainage pawpaws do not like wet feet they will suffer from root rot very easily so just make sure that you have a good well draining mix i cannot stress this enough now when it comes to watering you want to make sure that you do water these on a regular basis but because they don't like too much water the soil type that you choose will kind of prevent any over watering issues if you have to hand water obviously we give them just a standard one inch of water per week that's a very standard garden measurement of water that equates to roughly about a half gallon per week now the last thing before we get this planted that i thought i'd mention is when it comes to plant care now a lot of people want to keep their their fruit trees properly pruned so you can harvest fruit that is a big no-no when it comes to growing pawpaws pawpaws because they are non-domesticated need to be grown non-domesticated let them grow wild do not prune them if you prune them there have been many studies that have shown it adversely affects their fruit yields so if you want to get lots of fruit don't prune your pawpaws pawpaws like to grow out not up they'll only get about 10 to 15 feet tall but they will grow out nice and wide between 12 and 15 feet wide so as tall as they get they will also get that wide just keep that in mind don't prune your pawpaws they'll naturally grow fairly semi dwarf because they're an understory tree they don't need to grow 25-30 feet tall like big oak trees this would be a good spot you'll notice as we're digging down here there's lots of really beautiful dark soil check that out this is from all this all of this uh this wood chip mulch that's been here for four or five years breaking down we're just going to dig this hole here i'm going to add this really good aged compost i'm going to add my quarter cup of trifecta and then i'm going to simply just work this around just like that i'm going to take out the plant you'll notice there's not too many roots on this so be very careful with yours not to damage any roots and you want to make sure that if it is a grafted pawpaw if you found a grafted pawpaw you do not want to bury over top of the graft that means that if you bury over top of the graft the grafted growth will actually set down roots and it will it will really stunt the the tree so you don't want to go past the graft if it's ungrafted like mine is ungrafted you can bury it a little bit but try not to bury it much more than about an inch past its original soil level we're going to come in here cover this up and then the final thing that i want to do so it doesn't get stepped on is i want to get a little bit of protection so i'm going to take this here and i'm going to i've got this it's a bunch of creeping charlie and stuff all inside here but i'm just going to put this around the tree so that if anybody's walking back here or you have someone mowing or weed whacking it's not going to get hit and there you go there's how to grow pawpaws now i know i made it sound really simple and maybe oversimplified but from everything that i've read it's actually a really simple tree to grow it's just finding a seedling which is the hardest part once you get a seedling that's most of the battle then it's just finding a spot in your yard or your garden that it can grow for 10 to 15 years unbothered don't put in a place where 12 years down the road you're going to say might not have been the best place so don't do that because they do take a long time to grow and mature and it would be so unfortunate to you know to wait all that time only to realize that it's not the right place for it so just keep that in mind when you're picking out a spot and like i said very easy to grow all in all definitely recommend trying them it's certainly not for everybody but i can say it definitely has a home in our garden and i am really excited to follow up as this pawpaw tree grows pawpaws are something that in our area they're kind of like a rock star status you know they they don't have a long shelf life so you won't find them in grocery stores fresh you might be able to find some frozen and there are certainly some specialty stores that do sell them dried but it's something that finding them fresh you can really only do when either foraging or talking to someone that has a tree growing near them or around them that they know about if you are interested in learning more about the pawpaws i'd recommend i'd recommend checking out these two places because uh for any pawpaw enthusiast you pretty much have to check it out one is pawpaw michigan it's a city in michigan named after the pawpaw fruit and the second is the pawpaw festival now the pawpaw festival is i believe it's in ohio and this is a festival dedicated to the pawpaw fruit it's everything papa so i'd recommend going and checking it out if you're interested if you're in the area it's definitely something that people say is a must do if you are into this fruit as much as i am so i'll be checking it out and who knows you might see me there so i hope you guys enjoyed i hope you learned something new i recommend growing a pawpaw if you have already grown a pawpaw let me know in the comments box below how you grew it and if i missed anything and also if you are if you're someone that wants to get a pawpaw tree and you can find a reliable source throw them down in the comments box below i don't see any problem with giving people a good source to buy one so and if i can find one as well i'll continue to do some research and if i do find one even a year down the road because this video is going to be up until the end of time uh if i find one i'll throw in the comments box as well so you guys can go follow it and get one yourself so i hope you guys enjoyed i hope you learned something new and as always this is luke from the mi gardener channel reminding you to grow big or go home and i'll catch you all later see ya bye

Channel: MIgardener

Views: 94,203

Keywords: Premiere_Elements_2018, complete, from seed, fruit tree, garden tip, grow, growing, growing guide, guide, how to grow, migardener, paw, paw paw, simple, tree, tutorial, walkthrough

Id: 3VsDueQe7zE

Length: 14min 27sec (867 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 09 2021