Papaya trees and fruit

Here’s some pictures of the papaya trees we planted several years ago. The trees with tons of little flowers are the “male trees” and the trees with fruit are the “female trees.”

To harvest the papaya you typically have to use a very long stick and prod and poke at the fruit until it falls. This causes a little damage to it but if you “pick it” while it’s still slightly unripe it doesn’t bruise much.

Once the fruit is overripe it smashes when it hits the ground, so it’s important to get it at just the right time.

We harvested some papaya the other day. You have to wash it carefully because the juice from the stems causes itching kind of like poison ivy.

Molly really enjoys papaya and asks for it frequently. This is the only fruit we can get for free so it’s nice that she likes it so much.

I usually take the seeds out and put them in water. According to the Congolese, the seeds that float are the female fruit-bearing tree seeds. Since we already have a lot of non-fruit bearing papaya trees I usually just plant the seeds that float. That’s only about 10% or less of the seeds within one fruit.

I would love to have a pineapple, avocado and banana garden someday but we don’t have the space or the good soil so it’s a dream for the future. It’s also kind of a long term investment because avocados and pineapple take three years minimum.