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Post by ozarklady on Sept 4, 2010 22:11:36 GMT -5
I like to forage wild foods. I have elderberries in the freezer, and blackberries. I have made elderberry jam, wild grape jelly, and wild grape syrup. Today, I brought home a new project: Pawpaws for making preserves, jelly, or butter... These all came off of just one tree: Imagine if we hadn't had drought this year! Okay, hard to tell how many are there so I spread them on the tailgate of my truck... Some are ripe and some are not... they will continue to ripen on the counter top. I will have lots and lots of seeds if anyone is interested in some pawpaw seeds please pm me with your address. I am told they are hardy to zone 4.
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peppereater
Breeder in Training
TREE HUGGER
just tell me when to shut up
Posts: 230
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Post by peppereater on Sept 4, 2010 23:09:48 GMT -5
How lucky you are! I lived right on the Arkansas border in Oklahoma until I was ten, and we were just to the west of the native range for paw-paws. I tasted one once as a child. Most people have never tasted one, or even heard of them, they're the only large tree fruit native to North America and are practically a myth as far as most people are concerned. Very exotic, tropical type flavor. I'd love some seed, but I believe there was mention in another thread some time ago that they must be kept moist until germinated...I don't know. I suppose you have plenty of passion vine where you are, I have lots of wild fruit ripening right now if you need seed. Let me know if you've grown paw-paw from seed and whatever you might know about germinating them, if you would! ;D
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Post by ozarklady on Sept 5, 2010 0:32:17 GMT -5
I don't guess that I have seen a passion vine. I know May Pops flowers look like passion flowers.. are they the same thing? I would love some seeds.
I looked up germinating them, and seems that the preferred way is take it out of the fruit as you are eating it and plant it. I am serious. As they drop to the leaf mold they work their way under it, and in spring pop up as a new tree. They do like to grow in clumps.
So, I am keeping the seeds in peels, and overripe fruits, to keep them moist, and plan to mail them to folks in either leaf mold dampened (natural) or perhaps some damp moss. And they do not transplant well, they have a huge taproot, and delicate side roots that if killed the plant will die. Paw paw very quickly go from ripe to fermenting, so it is normal for the seeds to go through a bit of fermenting.
Baby pawpaw trees are extremely touchy about sunshine, they do like light, and air flow, they like water, but not to stand in it. The young pawpaws grow well on the edge of a forest, where they get a couple hours of sunshine per day, but sheltered from noon sun especially. Most of mine are on a south hill, but the ones in the photo came off of flattish land, not a hillside at all. But they are at the edge of a clearing, and in direct line with the elderberries, which like dampness too. The most productive trees get evening sun.
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tomc
Breeder in Training
Posts: 155
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Post by tomc on Sept 5, 2010 4:49:56 GMT -5
Just please don't freeze the seed you plan to pass on. Drying is also not a good thing for this seed. Add a few drops of water to some sand, add seeds and refridgerate.
If not dried or frozen this seed will slumber nicely till spring warmth makes it germinate in pand or seedling beds.
I have had about the same germination rate with and without scarifying seed coat,
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tomc
Breeder in Training
Posts: 155
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Post by tomc on Sept 5, 2010 4:55:21 GMT -5
I don't guess that I have seen a passion vine. I know May Pops flowers look like passion flowers.. are they the same thing? I would love some seeds. Maypop is a common name for a passiflora family plant. It-they could easily be the same one. IE maypop = passion flower.
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Sept 5, 2010 8:22:42 GMT -5
Yes, and Passiflora seed needs to be Fresh to germinate. In February 2006, while viewing a property in Eminence, MO, the realtor and I harvested some dried pods from a fence. The seeds never germinated for me nor for the friend I shared with who lived just a few miles up the road. I'm guessing that being left out in the elements like that reduces what is already a poor germination rate?
Instead, I paid $5.00 for a package of seeds from Richters. I've had it as a houseplant for about two years now but no blooms. I put a few outdoors and see if they would overwinter here, but they didn't like where I placed them and never made it through the summer.
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Post by ozarklady on Sept 5, 2010 9:32:52 GMT -5
A friend in Florida, who wants some Pawpaw seeds, also wants some of the forest soil it grows in, to establish the right microbiological life. This just might be a good idea. Also it would be good to soil test and amend your soil to match the soil it grew in. At least as far as the pH and the other NPK things. Now that will get tricky! I can get soil, but would you like to know how many ticks we got on us in harvesting these? Lots and some were seedticks, so tiny they are hard to see. So, how exactly do I get soil for folks, and make sure that I am not mailing them a baggie of ticks? I can make sure no ticks in the seeds very easily... but the soil? If I freeze it, that would kill any ticks in it, but what about the microbes? Help! I need input here.
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peppereater
Breeder in Training
TREE HUGGER
just tell me when to shut up
Posts: 230
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Post by peppereater on Sept 5, 2010 10:05:36 GMT -5
Maypop is passiflora, the wild version here is passiflora incarnata, and as far as I know, that is what all maypops are. The seed does benefit from scarifying, I suspect that in nature, it passes through the gut of animals and the acids etch the seedcoat somewhat. I have assumed for some time that the seeds benefit from natural fermentation like tomatoes. I harvested some last year at a late stage of ripeness/overripeness and let them dry thoroughly. I offered the seed at Homegrown Goodness in a thread on passiflora, and mjc requested some seed. I sent him some, and just recently asked him how they did for him...evidently they germinated fine, but he lost the seedlings to a rampaging rat, lol, familiar story. But they did germinate. I don't know if he scarified them, probably. A friend had reasonable luck nicking seeds, some years ago, but I don't know at what stage he harvested seed or how he handled or stored them. Ozarklady, I'll pm you, but don't worry too much about adding soil. If you do, fine, fut a few pinches might be all the microbial starter needed. Otherwise, maybe moist paper towels in a baggy? would be all they'd need. BTW, I've read repeatedly that you must have 2 for proper pollenation....as is often the case, catalogues are poor sources of information...sometimes they'll say one male and one female are needed, i've even read that you need 3, whatever, I don't know that there are males and females, but evidently, they simply won't produce when planted singly. Ozarklady, just now I'm harvesting seed for wildflowers and herbs I have, echinacea, bronze fennel, sulfur cosmos, blackeyed susan's, and a few other things. I could pick rose hips from what is either a wild or very oldfashioned wild type rose (pink flowered.) There are probably tons of seed heads left on the sumac (rhus aromatica,) the berries are excellent for pink lemonade or dried for seasoning, they're used that way extensively for meditteranian cuisine. I'll probably think of some other wild forage type plants, I'll let you know, might as well throw in anything you want when I send the maypops.
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Post by ozarklady on Sept 5, 2010 13:51:36 GMT -5
I have sumac heads setting in a bucket on the counter, it is due to become... Sumac jelly! Hey first time for everything.
Once we get a decent frost and ticks abate, I plan to scour the woods for some Black Haw. I found one once, oh they are to die for... Then the lake rose and killed it, before I got a start of it! And persimmons!
Wild foods may not produce the quantity of pulp of tame ones, but on a flavor scale... can anyone say... wild strawberries! I have found absolutely no way to transplant these!
I do have several wild raspberries, with the tips down, hoping to get them rooted for friends in forums. And I still have wild blackberries and elderberries in the freezer, if anyone would like some to see if they can get them to germinate... they still have the berries attached... I haven't made jelly out of all the fruit that I picked, just yet.
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tomc
Breeder in Training
Posts: 155
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Post by tomc on Sept 5, 2010 14:30:12 GMT -5
Paw paw grows fine in a wide variety of soils. It does best if protected from too much direct sun as a sapling. A couple hours in morning or afternoon is plenty.
If you are growing seedlings in pots shake out and replace a good portion of last years soil-mix to keep gas exchange high.
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Post by grapenut on Sept 25, 2010 2:44:49 GMT -5
Seed ticks, yikes! I just hate them, had to take a sponge bath in Listerine more than once.
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Post by darthslater on Sept 25, 2010 5:49:35 GMT -5
Boy, I would like to try Paw Paw just once before I die. Which almost happened a short time ago...hehe.
Dean
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tomc
Breeder in Training
Posts: 155
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Post by tomc on Sept 25, 2010 6:03:01 GMT -5
Darth starting woody plants should not be beyond your skill set. Keep an eye out at farmers market for paw paw (or persimmon).
Eat fruit, plant seed where you can find it following spring. Replant second spring to a permanent site for landscape plantings.
If there is a great trick to this it is to keep the space between fruit and planted seed breif, like in minutes.
"Dried has died" aught to be the memnonic for woody seeds.
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Post by darthslater on Sept 25, 2010 9:28:49 GMT -5
Darth starting woody plants should not be beyond your skill set. Keep an eye out at farmers market for paw paw (or persimmon). Eat fruit, plant seed where you can find it following spring. Replant second spring to a permanent site for landscape plantings. If there is a great trick to this it is to keep the space between fruit and planted seed breif, like in minutes. "Dried has died" aught to be the memnonic for woody seeds. Tom, in my 52 years I havent seen one here, or i would have it. I do however have the American Chestnut..THE REAL ONE. Been lucky so far with blight issues, but that doesnt mean safe, the tent worms killed all the blossoms.
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tomc
Breeder in Training
Posts: 155
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Post by tomc on Sept 25, 2010 18:47:24 GMT -5
Darth my neck of the Tundra is NH, where's yours?
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