We have quite a few fruit trees that we put in the homestead a few years back. We are expecting to see the fruits (pun intended) of our labor this coming season. We also put in grapes that gave us an enormous harvest last fall, so much that the wife got me a juicer steamer as a Christmas present. The down side of a gift like this is that I don’t know if I will have a chance to get much use out of it until late next summer or fall when the fruits start to roll in. I am half tempted to pickup a few pounds of California Grapes and test it. We will have to wait and see.
The past summer was a tough one in a lot of the country for tomatoes. There was a fungal blight that caused a lot of gardens to loose most of their tomato crop. With out a few different types of fruit trees here on the homestead, I started thinking about diversifying the crop variety, should we be afflicted like that on the fruit. Shortly after I started thinking about that, Jack Spirko at the Survival Podcast did a show on unusual fruits to grow in almost any climate. The show was called 9 Underrated Survival Permaculture Options and as is typical of Jack it was well done and well worth the listen. BTW if you have never listened to The Survival Podcast, I highly recommend it. Anyway that sealed the deal for me I needed to get a few different fruit varieties going.
While I wish I could have started these last summer, I didn’t have time to adequately research the plants after I had decided to move forward. So knee deep in snow I have some time to look into the different fruits, and the first fruit I wanted to look into is the paw-paw. According to everything I have read, a well drained soil with a pH in the 5-7 range is suitable for them. As a young plant the paw-paw requires some shade and the plants are typically hardy to USDA Zone 4. The little data available on them suggests that there is a pollination problem if you want a lot of fruit. Suggestions include planting multiple varieties or hand pollinating. But most important is the use of pollinating insects such as honeybees. Ssshhh…Don’t tell the wife or kids.
I’ve asked a couple of different people around the forms and the paw-paw should start producing in 2-4 years if started from good seedlings. Whit good pollination from one of the above methods, there should be about 20-40 pounds of fruit from a tree. No matter how much I like bananas, what a pawpaw tastes like, I don’t think the four of us could eat that many before they go bad. Ideas for use include, cookies, frosty drinks, and custard. Ideas that I have for it are wine, brandy, dehydrating, and paw-paw bread. I love banana bread, and the paw-paw is known as the banana of the north. I see no reason that a paw-paw wouldn’t be usable as an additive to quick bread for a tasty breakfast bread.
So use the down time of winter to start to plan for the spring. Don’t be afraid to move beyond the old standbys of tomatoes and peppers. And start planting the permaculture stuff early, It can take a long time for some of those trees to start producing, let time work on your side by tackling those project first!
