Vermont
Growing a tropical-tasting fruit in your Vermont backyard
From a mild winter to a warm, wet and humid summer, one fruit tree in particular is thriving here. The paw paw tree is native to North America and has been a staple of Indigenous peoples for centuries. It also grows the largest edible tree fruit that are native to the U.S.
Found growing in patches or thickets in the eastern U.S., and the mid-Atlantic area, weather conditions like we’ve had this past year mean this temperate climate version of a tropical fruit can also grow well in our region.
In the landscape, it can be pretty impressive, too. The paw paw tree can grow up to 20 feet tall and get heavy with fruits that look like mangoes. Plus, the paw paw tree’s leaves resemble those of an avocado. If you do plan to plant them, plant two or more to get pollination, as the flowers are not very easily pollinated by bees. (You could also try hand-pollination to nudge them along).
The trees produce large flowers first before the leaves emerge, then the fruits themselves can grow between 2 and 6 inches. The paw paw fruits vary in color from green when they are unripe, and yellowish-green with brown or black spots when ripe, in late August through late September.
When ready to eat, paw paws are soft inside with yellow flesh and large magenta seeds. The texture resembles an avocado or cherimoya, thus one of paw paw’s many nicknames — “custard apple.” You can slice them open and scoop out the flesh with a spoon or use the fruits in baking, but avoid eating the seeds and peel, as they are toxic.
Some have compared the sweet fruit’s taste to that of banana, mango and pineapple, or even a mix of all of those. Our own taste-testers tried some paw paw and weighed in with flavor descriptions likening it to mango or lychee, and even cotton candy, with sweet and floral notes.
Paw paw trees are hardy to Zone Five and they have relatively few pests. Though, once the fruits ripen, you might have to fight off the raccoons!
A question about pests on leeks
Q: Hi! I created a no-dig, interplanted garden for the first time this year, with more flowers than I’ve given space to before. Some things thrived, others not so much, but on the whole it was beautiful! How do I keep those little squirmy wormy things from boring into my leeks? – Mila, via email
A: That sounds like it’s probably the leek moth. They lay an egg that hatches into a little caterpillar that will tunnel down into your leeks, garlic, onions and a lot of other alliums.
You could try a spray like bacillus thurengiensis or BT, like you would for a cabbage worm. But if you’d rather not use a spray, try covering your plants with micromesh right after planting. This closely-woven mesh keeps the moth from ever reaching your plants to lay eggs in the first place, thus eliminating the caterpillars.
A question about lilac blight
Q: Many lilacs have been hit with a blight this summer. One of my lilacs started dropping leaves in August and is now blooming for a second time this year, all be it very small bloom clusters. Will my lilac recover next year? – Sandy, via email
A: Your lilac will recover! This year, we’ve had several stressors, including a mild winter, then a wet summer, which allowed several fungal diseases to flourish, followed by warm and dry weather later in the season.
All of those conditions are causing a lot of spring bloomers, like lilacs, to flower again. You might even see forsythias and flowering quince and other shrubs flowering now, too.
Blooming now will not harm the plant but you won’t get as many flowers next year. As for your lilacs, as long as you can see live terminal green buds on the lilacs’ branches, that means that the plant is healthy and it’ll come back next year.
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