Paw Paw Trees Bear Fruit

In September 2015, my husband, father-in-law, and grandson planted some PawPaw trees given to me by my step-father, Joe Festerling.

My in-law’s property and our property are next to each other, and down where we call “The Bottom” is an area where my kids used to play when they were little. It was a fantastic place with a hammock with many trees. A little creek ran along our properties with a small pond where many an hour was spent finding bullfrogs that lived there. My father-in-law even built a bridge to cross over the creek.

As the years went by and the pine trees grew taller, some fell, and the kids also grew and stopped going down there to play. More years passed, and while my father-in-law continued the mowing, we stopped going to the Bottom until my grandchildren came along.

A new generation runs down the hill to see what they can find. The little frog pond is gone, as is the hammock, but now you can find deer antlers and sometimes even a turkey feather or two. The Pine and Fir trees have created a wonderful wooded area where our grandchildren love to play.

Eight years ago, when trying to find a shady area to plant the PawPaw trees, it was decided to plant them down in the Bottom! Over the years, when taking a walk I would glance over to where these trees were planted, but stopped crossing that old, rickety bridge to get a closer look.

This week, my husband said, ‘Let’s go for a walk to the Bottom”. WOW! Those little PawPaw trees had grown! And they are loaded with fruit. The fruit is still very green and hard, so we will have to wait to harvest some so I can try some of the recipes that Miri Talabac wrote about years ago. We must have had fruit last year or even two years ago since we have several seedlings popping up all here and there.

So, while the best time to plant a tree might have been twenty-five years ago, it seems to me that planting this Maryland Native PawPaw tree eight years ago was just the ticket!