Transplanting Paw Paws

foreign [Music] let's talk Paul's I'm Michael Judd I'm the author of For the Love of Paul Paul's both the book and the online course in this video we are going to cover growing pawpaws from seed growing paw paws and pots and transplanting paw paws and of course why would you want to grow paw paws oh lots of reasons so I'm in the Paul Paul patch here at Long Creek permaculture site we're in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Maryland we grow a lot of different unique easy to grow fruits and nuts Prime among them the Paul Paul for very good reasons it is an absolutely beautiful shrub or small tree it's very productive when you bring it out into the sun in protected conditions you can get upwards of 35 to 50 pounds of very tropical tasting fruit in the North it's enough reason for me um so what are the different ways to grow a paw paw so paw paws are filled with beautiful brown seeds that are very viable meaning that they germinate very readily when they're cared for properly the proper care is to clean the seeds when you eat your pawpaw clean them put them in a Ziploc bag a little bit of moisture and put them in your refrigerator and you want to wait at least three months you can wait longer and when you bring them out you have an option to either direct transplant that Seed where you want it to grow which can give you the strongest growing healthiest tree possible but it takes patience it takes observation of that site so it's a little bit more involved versus go ahead and germinate the seeds yourself I do it on a heating mat I cover this 14 day germination technique in my book and in the online course so I won't get into that here just know that you can direct transplant your seeds or you can germinate themselves so a direct transplanted seed has many benefits it's never been Disturbed its roots are completely at home in the environment they will then be much stronger more disease resistant more productive and you can grow paw paws in full sun right off the bat when you direct seed in an environment that also is conducive for paw paws they do not need shading for the first couple years of their life if they've had ideal conditions to start now the second option is to grow in pots here at Long Creek we have a nursery and we grow our paw paws in at least 14 inch deep tree pots right this is only one year old right and look you see the roots are coming out of the bottom already so the pawpaw has a very deep Tap Root that it does not like to have messed with it's a very fleshy root that can break very easily so the recommendation is to grow them in deep pots and I ideally like to plant mine out the first year so if I'm germinating my seeds in the spring I'm growing it out in the pot I then plant it in the fall if not that fall that early next spring that way the The Roots aren't being restricted they're not living in a pot longer than is good for the tree the shortest amount of time generally any tree lives in a pot the better so when you're shopping for paw paws or any kind of you know fruit or nut tree you're really shopping for root health which means typically that they're young so bigger is not better especially when you're talking about Paw Paw now a lot of people are having success in growing paw paws in what are called air pruned beds basically um a box with a wire mesh on the bottom ideally 18 inches deep with a really rich organic material and as the roots reach down and they hit that mesh at the bottom the air prunes The Roots which encourages the pawpaw to send out more what we call feeder Roots more lateral Roots so that's popular I'm a fan of following the pawpaw's natural tendency to grow a Taproot deep and not mess with that natural pattern I also find that when I'm planting paw paws with a nice full Taproot is that they establish and are much more drought resistant in the first couple years of their life because they're able to go and continue that deep Taproot to pull up moistures minerals nutrients from deep in the soil whereas a air pruned tree will will be more in a a lateral surface area of the soil which if it dries out is going to stress that plant in the first couple years of its life um so both have Merit depends I also like not to have to water my plants in pots during the summer so I grow them in the Deep pots in a shade house that way I don't have to water and maintain them an air prune bed you're going to have to maintain and keep making sure that it has enough moisture because it's going to dry out a lot more easily so to each their own okay so now transplanting transplanting paw paws is possible it's an art uh and there's timing that's very important so again the pawpaw does not like to have that its roots messed with so that goes for transplanting as well but typically when people are thinking about transplanting a pawpaw it's because they want to dig up one that is in the Wilds or one that's growing in a patch maybe in their vicinity now typically what that is is a shoot from the mother plant the mother pawpaw so Paul Paul's will send out horizontal roots and then they'll send up shoots all around it sometimes 10 feet away now to dig that up you really want to ideally be cutting and severing that horizontal root the season before so typically in August you want to come along in about six inches from your your shoot that you want to dig up you're cutting it all around it what that does is it severs that horizontal root from the mother tree and then begins to encourage that shoot to begin sending out feeder and lateral Roots basically rooting itself right you're not digging it up then you're just creating that that cut so it can handle that Shock by staying in place and no other movement then the following early spring because paw balls wake up late so early spring is a perfect time you want to do it right before they begin to wake up right so that they have that energy rising to grow so carefully and dig up as much of that root ball as you can in the early spring and then you want to either put that in a large pot and put it in the shade and let it sort of establish and take care of it for that next year in a shady location sort of allowing it to deal with that transplant shock or you can go ahead and Transplant it right to where you want it ideally that spot has been conditioned it has lots of organic matter mulch moisture is protected by the winds it just has all of the ideal conditions for paw paws which again I cover in my book and on the course so these extra bits and pieces are out there if you want to dive deeper this is just an outline so if you do that then I would also probably cut the pawpaw back if it's at any size to it I would trim back you know so it doesn't have so much Leaf growth to have to try and maintain for that first season but ideally you're only digging up the very smallest paw paws in this regard ones that maybe only sent up their their their shoot like a year ago the bigger the harder it's going to be the more time it's going to take for it to kind of re-establish those roots so that's the nut shell that's the pawpaw uh in in the options from seed you know to transplant my preference is somewhere between direct seating where that's realistic if not I grow them in the pots I very rarely try to transplant the paw paws and also if you're transplanting a sucker and you don't know the genetics if typically a lot of the wild paw paws are just that they're not selected so your shoot may not even be that good of genetics you may not be digging up and taking the effort to get that great a paw paw but you could graft those shoots so a lot of times what I'll do is if I get a shoot that's a good 10 feet away from one of my trees is I will graft it and if there's room I'll let it stay there and grow or I'll dig it up and I'll transplant it but there is the option to always graft those shoots as well if you have a wild patch go ahead and get thin it out so that there's you know only one shoot every 10 feet and then you can graft those and you could actually transition what's a Wild Patch into a productive Orchard Paw Paw Orchard of cultivars okay so why do you want to grow paw paws well we're here at the end of the season and we have one of our delicious cultivars of paw paws and paw paws are this amazing custard fruit in the custard apple family the sugar apple family and they will not let you down these are absolutely Exquisite they're very aromatic they have hmm flavors of pineapple mango banana and being a cultivar this has no no bitter notes very few seeds absolutely delicious and nutritious lots and lots of good reasons to plant your paw paws so good luck plant grow and enjoy life see you again [Music]

Channel: Edible Landscaping with Michael Judd

Views: 14,549

Keywords: Permaculture, Organic, Gardening, Garden, Pawpaw, Fruit, Orchard

Id: X7UT61nczNc

Length: 10min 38sec (638 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 08 2022