I took about 25 of them to work today and they didn't last long. One woman drilled me five minutes on where and how to find them. Another is making some into ice cream. Several make them into bread, like banana bread.
Like sweet banana custard with some big seeds, served in a peel.
Man, great stuff.
Oh, heck yes deer eat them, what they can get after the coons have attacked them.
Always hard to beat acorns, though.
I'll see if I can get friends to save a few seeds. Paw-paws may be eaten and gone by now, though.
Paw paws appear to be very picky on site selection. I had good luck initially with the bare roots from the state. Only lost 1 initially but they have dropped like flies this summer. The best site appears to be the one I had deemed least likely to succeed. On that site I have 2 that are at the top of my the 4 ft tree tube. The site I thought would be best they grew great till July. I am going to wait to see if they pull out of it before I write them off.
Stealthy we have them native at least as far west as El Dorado, along the Walnut River. That's where I got mine. Some of our state wildlife areas are loaded with them.
They're easy to recognize because of the huge leaves The actual trees normally aren't very big maybe 10' tall, or a big bigger size of a baseball at the base is a big one. They grow in pretty tight clusters.
I've picked them in LV, MI, BU, EK counties. A friend got a nice grove started in Harvey County, just east of Newton.
Most of the good ones I find are under a tall canopy, and fairly near a river or creek., or at least a wet area.
Don't feel bad, a buddy too a bowl full to the "good ol' boy coffee gathering" in Elk Cpunty and nobody knew what they were...and those guys were raised along those creeks (cricks). I've met a lot of eastern Kansas avid hunters who can't ID one until we show them how.
Neat addition to the Kansas outdoors.
Mike, perhaps I've got a more established and older patch, but I've got some pawpaws that are way over 10 foot tall... probably 20-30 foot. Had to get on the side of my pick up bed, with a 6 foot apple picker to pick some that wouldn't shake out because the trees were quite a bit bigger in diameter than most. I'm guessing at least 8 inches in diameter.
We are going to start the seed this year at our school as a project for the kids... have to go through cold stratification first. We have plenty of seed so I can probably ship you some in an envelope or you can just come to our annual plant/tree sale at the school and pick some up; )
A buddy in EK has some paw-paw trees that are flat-out trees, like 12" or so in diameter. The also produce paw-paws bigger than a beer can. Seriously.
Site I though would be the best is an ash overstory with damp soil along a major creek. Also well protected from the wind.
One that is so/so would be kentucky coffeetree, walnut, hedge, locust, and ash overstory.
All my trees are tubed. Seedling pawpaws are sensitive to sunlight so shade is a most till about age 3. If all these fail I probably wont replant.
I know where a very large bunch of trees are on some public. May go check them out tomorrow.
Be interesting to see how they do for you.
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