Eros and Thanatos among the Pawpaws in July

This July, out on the front porch and in the yard, we've got eros (the drive to life) going up against thanatos (the drive to death). It's all condensed into this image: the first flower stalk ever to show up among our hens-and-chicks, trying to out-scream a coyote skull (which W picked up in the San Rafael Swell) that bears its teeth among the adjacent pot full of hens-and-chicks.

Like I say, it's all condensed in the image of the flower and the coyote skull, so if you've found that condensations are sufficient for you, you can stop reading now.

Last July we had some leaf problems on our pawpaw trees, and this July the leaf problem have returned, though not in such force (yet) as last year. Last year the leaf problems didn't seem to do much damage: the Wells (which had the worst case of this mode of thanatos) is following eros in producing a lot more fruit this year, so no real ill effects that I can see from one year to the next. And no ill effects in terms of fruit production, which is the thing (sorry to be so mercenary) that I care most about with the pawpaws.

Look at this big cluster of Shenandoah pawpaws in the foreground (eros): but wait, the one that is at the top of the cluster isn't attached--it's a windfall (thanatos) higher up on the tree. It didn't quite make it to the ground but instead found a temporary home among the still-living. It's a "pawpaw ghost," cousin of the more famous "cherry ghost."  

In the winter I bought some citrus plants (Meyer lemon, Persian lime, Flame grapefruit, and Moro blood orange) and kept them on the window sill in my office. But I wanted them to get some sun over the summer so I brought them home and have kept them on the porch. Rather than them getting sun, the sun got to them: it caused almost all of them to lose up to half or most of their leaves (thanatos). But the Persian lime, in spite of losing half of its leaves, has gone ahead and blossomed (eros). The blossoms don't smell as good on the front porch as they did in my office. There's no mysticism here: it's just a question of dispersion and concentration of the scent, which is divine (wait, I guess there is some mysticism here).

Among the seedlings (seeds harvested in 2015 and germinated in 2016), several are thriving (eros) while the one in the foreground spontaneously dropped all its leaves (thanatos). Who knows why? And who knows how close its peers (or any of us) are to spontaneously following it?

The most advanced of the germinating seeds of this year has risen from the ground with its head stuck in the seed casing. This morning I was concerned that it might need help so I tried taking the casing off the plant to reveal it's waiting leaves. But instead, once I removed the casing, all that was left was some white flaky gunk. I might win some (eros) but I really lost one (thanatos). 

The Shenandoah had a phenomenal setting of fruit this spring (plug in the life-oriented word here), but it's been losing a lot of those fruits (plug in the death-oriented word here): there are 21 windfalls on the porch and 6 others that I threw away before I became dedicated to saving the windfalls. This year I've only been giving extra water (beyond the sprinklers) to the 2nd-years (the Mango and the Susquehanna), and now I wonder what would have happened if the Shenandoah (in its fifth year) had had some extra water...could it have held on to these lost ones? 

Updates from a Utah Pawpaw Orchard

There are several people who grow pawpaws in Utah and who have pawpaw orchards that are about the size of ours. (Scroll down to the comments section of this 2015 blog post to hear from some of the pawpaw growers of Utah.)

This is a report on our particular orchard (consisting of three fruit-bearing trees, two pre-fruiting trees, thirteen seedlings, and forty planted seeds, some of which have already germinated).

On the fruiting trees: A little while ago I told you that the Shenandoah (five years old) is carrying about 65 pawpaw fruits this year. I thought I was reporting this figure after it had already dropped the fruit it wasn't going to carry. But I was wrong. We've had some high winds and a week or so ago it dropped six pawpaws, taking the total down to 59 fruits.

Here are the pawpaws, thrown before their time, cradled in W's hand. I'm not posting the pic with his face because he's smiling while holding them, which doesn't show the proper decorum.

And then yesterday we also had some high winds and we lost twelve more fruits from the same tree, taking us down to about 47 fruits on the Shenandoah.

These windfall pawpaws are next to the forty seeds we planted in March 2017, seven of which have germinated and many more of which will germinate in the coming month. 

As for the pre-fruiting trees: you'll recall that last month I reported that a deer had munched the top off of the Mango cultivar. The pawpaw tree knew what happened and knew what to do once its terminal leaf bud was removed. It chose another leaf bud to be terminal and has kept on growing up. And then you'll see right about in the middle of the pic there's a leaf that was half eaten and so the pawpaw activated a previously dormant leaf bud and turned it into two small leaves. They say "broccoli has an IQ of 10"--I think the pawpaw is even smarter, with an IQ of maybe 15. (Oops--sorry about that misplace link on the "IQ of 10" bit; here's the actual link on broccoli.) 

On Saturday we didn't just sit around the yard pining for the pawpaws to ripen in September. We drove over to the High Uintas and hiked to some high mountain lakes and fished. Here's a boulder field, immediately above one of the lakes, still with snow covering a lot of it.

Once we got off the road and started hiking, we didn't see anyone all day long (we went to lakes that don't have trails to them). But as I walked through the boulder field, I found a little egg abandoned amid the granite and lichen.

A Census of Pawpaw Fruits

This morning I went outside and found that the second pawpaw seed of the year has sprouted, but this post isn't about any old seeds--what pawpaw people care most about is the fruit. 

And last night, to the best of my ability, I picked through the leafy foliage of the Shenandoah, the KSU-Atwood, and the Wells to find each and every piece of fruit. 

I may have missed some among the big leaves, and I may have accidentally recounted a few pawpaws here and there, but here's my best count for how many pieces of fruit each tree is on course to produce this year:

The Shenandoah: 65 (last year's final tally: 33)--a predicted increase of 32

The KSU-Atwood: 23 (last year's final tally: 34)--a predicted decrease of 11

The Wells: 37 (last year's final tally: 13)--a predicted increase of 24

The Total: 125 (last year's final tally: 80)--a predicted increase of 45    

(For more details on last year's harvest, see this 2016 post.)

After I finished counting the Shenandoah and the Atwood, I was tired of counting pawpaws. Nevertheless, I persisted.

A particularly heavy-laden branch of the Wells

After I finished counting all the pawpaws, I went over to our dead Prairie Sun American persimmon tree, which, even though the graft has failed, has unimproved roots that are sending up shoots. Last night it was time to select the shoot that was going to survive and hopefully turn into a tree.

There wasn't a lot of pomp and circumstance, like some people do when they're announcing who's "fired" on fifth-rate reality TV; I just selected the tallest shoot as the winner and cut down the rest.

The mountain is a monument to the persimmon shoot's elegy

First Pawpaw Sprout of 2017: June 22

Last year on 7 June I found the first pawpaw sprouts of the year (they were also the first pawpaw seeds I had ever germinated and as far as I remember the first seeds of any kind I had ever generated since my kindergarten bean seed was a terrible failure).

This year I planted forty seeds and have been waiting--patiently until 7 June and impatiently since 7 June. But finally after a fortnight's delay, the suspense is over. This morning after our run, I watered the seeds and found this:

It's just one sprout among the forty seeds...

...but I'm sure more will be showing up over the next week or so. And last year I had sprouts coming up into late July.

I guess the difference between last year and this year is that last year I planted at the beginning of March and kept the seeds inside until around the beginning of May or maybe mid-May. This year I planted in mid-March and kept the seeds outside in the cold right after I planted them. I don't know if the couple weeks' difference in sprout time stems for the couple weeks' difference in planting time or from the temperature difference between the two years. Or both. But I guess in the future I'll plant at the beginning of March and keep inside until about mid-May.

Excavations of a Future Unknown Pawpaw Patch

In terms of archaeology, excavations happen to learn about the past, as was the case when some Colorado ranchers in 1888 excavated portions of what would later become Mesa Verde National Park. (By the way, I'm not endorsing the methods of these 19th-century excavators. C'mon, a sledge hammer? I'm not even endorsing the project of archaeological excavation. As the ranger mentioned when we visited Mesa Verde a couple years ago, the best way to preserve a structure is to not excavate it and let the desert soil do the work of preserving.)

That's archaeological excavation into past and sometimes unknown patches of human culture.
But what I'm talking today about is botanical excavation into future and unknown patches of horticulture.   

As the faithfulest of this blog's readers will know, there's been some suspense out on the front porch in recent weeks. Compared to last year, our forty planted pawpaw seeds are two weeks delayed in showing any kind of above-ground sprouts. So yesterday evening I did some investigations, some excavations into the future.

I used my finger--a more delicate instrument than the Colorado ranchers' sledge hammer--to remove thin layers of soil from the surface of one container, until I arrived at the black shiny seed.  

Once I got to the seed, I gave it a light tug but it wouldn't move. So I gave it a harder tug and it still didn't budge much. So, there was a root holding it in place even if there was no sprout that had yet sought the sun. With that discovery of the botanical future, I swept up the small pile of dirt and put it back on top of the seed, content that I had excavated and seen a small portion of the initial stirrings of a future unknown pawpaw patch. 

Pawpaw Seedlings Out into the World

Last week I got an email from Jake, who had seen my blog, wondering if I had any pawpaw seeds that had been stratified over the winter. I told him I did and that it seemed late to plant them, given that last year I had the seeds sprouting by this time. But he wanted to give them a try and see if he could get them to grow. So we arranged for him to pick up some seeds yesterday evening. While he was over, I also sent him away with two pawpaw seedlings from last year. 

Pawpaw Trees and Deer Damage

This morning after we went for a run we came back and looked around the yard a little. 

Some of what we saw: 

The first of the raspberries are ripening, 

The Elberta peach tree has been tossing some of its fruit onto the lawn,

As usual there's a complement of large turds in our yard from an unkind neighbor's dog,

The rootstock of the dead grafted American persimmon tree is sending up three or four shoots,

The lawn needs cutting this Saturday,

The Wells pawpaw tree is growing a surprising number (and size) of fruit,

The bonsai citrus trees (outside for the summer) are dropping some leaves, allergic to the sun,

The claret cup cacti (planted from cuttings) are still green and sitting quietly inert,

and

The Mango pawpaw has been bitten, repeatedly, by the mule deer that have been lounging and loitering in our neighborhood's yards this spring.

You can shoot bullets off the pawpaw's resume: not bothered by pests, not bothered by deer, delicious fruit full of divine custard, large leaves that turn bright yellow in the fall, just the right quotient of quirkiness, etc.

It looks great on paper (or a computer screen, since that's where you're more likely to read its resume), but sometimes it doesn't live up to what you read on its resume.

I'm hoping the mule deer (I'll bet it's one of those two young bucks we've been seeing in spots and places) has a stomach ache that's bad enough to disrupt a week of lounging and loitering.