Spooky Halloween Pawpaws

During the day on Halloween, NJ had W do the difficult chore of bringing the pawpaw seedlings inside. It was a smart thing to do on two counts: first, it protected the pawpaws from 8-year-olds who might have stepped on them in their Halloween enthusiasm; and second, it built W's character--if he can't milk a cow every morning, he can move the pawpaws once a year.

Tonight, a few days after the ghoulish holiday, I put the seedlings back outside in the cold. I'm planning on keeping them out there until the snows come. I don't want their soil to freeze solid, though, so later I'll be putting the in our shed, which gets a little heat from our house.

Fall Colors and the Pawpaws

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Yesterday I took pics of the pawpaws and their fall colors.

The Shenandoah

A closer look at the Shenandoah, since its yellow is the most intense

The KSU-Atwood--it was yellower earlier and then the leaves started turning brown on the tree

The Wells, still working on going all yellow

The Susquehanna in its cage of screen and rebar. The screen and rebar help protect it against deer. Even though deer have seldom eaten any leaves from the pawpaws, once or twice they've made the mistake of taking a bite before realizing pawpaw leaves are poisonous. Still, when a tree is this small, even a deer's brief mistake can be devastating to it. But the thing a tree this size needs most protection from: human children running through the yard and not seeing it. The screen and rebar make it visible.

The Mango cultivar in its cage

The fifteen seedlings

Another view, showing the leafless stems. 

Speaking of yellow, here's a male Lesser Goldfinch getting ready to land on our nyjer seed feeder

Here it is after it landed

Utah Pawpaw Growers: Part 1

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A couple weeks ago I opened my inbox and found an email titled "Paw paws!"

As you can imagine, the subject line piqued my interest, and when I opened it, I learned that Dan Carpenter of Murray, Utah, has been working on growing pawpaws here in Utah. (By the way, I'm using his name with permission--I wouldn't just publish the name of someone who contacted me without their permission.) He had a few questions he wanted to bounce off me on the two cultivars he's planted (the NC-1 and the Mango).

In emailing with him, it also struck me that he might be up for being a guinea pig, as the first in a running series of blogposts titled "Utah Pawpaw Growers," which would feature email interviews with...(this may surprise you)...people in Utah who are growing pawpaws. As I explained by email: "Planting pawpaws in Utah--that's not normal like planting apple trees or peach trees; there's always a story about why someone decides to plant pawpaws in Utah. And I'm wondering if you'd be interested in being first in the series? I'm thinking in terms of a type of email interview, where I might send you a series of questions and you could write short answers to them. And then people featured in the series could send a few pics of their trees to be posted in the blog entry along with their answers." I also added: "If you were up for something like that, you could choose either to use your name or you could be anonymous or use initials or just a first name." He said it was fine to use his name, since he's had an online presence for years and hasn't worried about anonymity.

So here's Dan, responding to a few questions from me (all links added by me):

BR: How did you first hear of pawpaws?

DC: I first hear about Pawpaws a couple years back, on The Survival Podcast. Jack Spirko is a big fan of looking "off the menu" for uncommon fruits and vegetables that can be grown, instead of only replicating the things that you see in your local supermarket. From his description, Pawpaws sounded fantastic, so I looked them up.

BR: Why pawpaws and not peaches?

DC: Why not both?!! I don't actually grow peaches (yet), but I do have a nectarine tree, an apricot tree, a dwarf pear tree, a grafted apple tree, a Jujube tree, 2 Black Mulberry trees, 2 kinds of grapes, Gojis, raspberries, blackberries, honeyberries, and a bunch of other herbs. I'm into FOOD. :-) Having said all that however, the Pawpaws do sound the most exotic and wonderful, so they do occupy a special place of hope in my heart.

BR: Which pawpaw cultivars did you choose and why?

DC: I have an NC-1, and a Mango. I chose them because they sounded so good!! :-) I was also fairly active in the Utah Backyard Homesteading Facebook group, and there were a couple people in that group that had Pawpaws, and still hadn't killed them.

BR: Any challenges you've experienced growing pawpaws in Utah? How have you dealt with those challenges?

DC: Yes!!! I was very worried about my brand new little Pawpaw seedlings in the merciless summer of the Utah desert, so I planted my Pawpaw seedlings in large pots, and kept them inside my wood shop. I made a Youtube video about this, and called them my "Pot Paws." Both my little seedlings are tiny little 12" tall twigs. I think my plants may be getting nutrient deficient. Halfway through the summer, the Mango Pawpaw's leaves began to get a little yellowy. At the time, I though it may be too little water, so I tried to water more. The leaves continued to get splotchier and curled up. It has looked like it's been dead for the last couple months, but I've continued to water it, hoping that the roots may still be alive, and come back next spring. over the last few weeks, the NC-1's leaves are beginning to look like that as well. I'm not sure what to do. [BR's note: I'm including Dan's pics below, with some discussion of what may be ailing them and some suggestions on an approach to planting pawpaws in Utah that I've had success with.]

BR: If you've already eaten a pawpaw, what would you compare the taste to?

DC: Sadly, I've never tasted Pawpaws. I tried mightily this last month however, when my family was in Florida and North Carolina. No amount of calling the colleges and growers, asking at wildlife preserves, or stopping at farmer's markets and fruit stands resulted in a single solitary Pawpaw. Sniff :-(.....................[BR's note: I just wanted to mention that although Dan and I are both Utah pawpaw growers, we only met because he went to North Carolina and talked on the phone with Derek Morris of the North Carolina Pawpaw Festival, whose NC Pawpaw Festival Facebook page has linked to my blog several times. When Dan and Derek were talking on the phone and Derek realized Dan was from Utah, he told him about a guy--me--out in Utah growing pawpaws. It's a little wild--and a lot fortuitous--that two Utah pawpaw growers would be introduced to each other by the North Carolina Pawpaw Festival's organizer.]

BR: Is there a question about pawpaws that you wish I had asked but didn't? What's the question and how would you answer it?

DC: There are a lot of questions that I still have, but I'm not sure my little trees will even make it, so I don't think I have any answers yet!

Dan took this pic earlier this year when he was planting his pawpaws

This is the NC-1 that Dan refers to above. Pic taken this month, Oct 2016. Note the leaves looking wilty and unhealthy. The look similar to my Wells pawpaw earlier this year. To read about how I approached this problem, take a look here and here.............But I'm not sure it's the same problem. When Dan and I talked, he explained that he had been giving them a lot of water, which is similar to what I do for my pawpaws. But I speculated that it could be that with my pawpaws (which are in the ground), the excess water drains away. And with his pawpaws (which are in containers), the excess water may be drowning the roots? I told him that every time I've planted a pawpaw tree in Utah, I've planted it in the spring, having it delivered from One Green World in April or May and planting it in the ground immediately. I've only lost one pawpaw with this approach, and that was because the graft failed. So that's my recommended approach to planting pawpaws in Utah: spring planting in the ground, and plenty of water, counting on that excess water will sink into the ground and not waterlog the soil. Here's a post detailing how I planted two pawpaw trees in spring of this year.

Another view of Dan's NC-1

Dan's Mango cultivar, which as he mentioned lost its leaves earlier this season after planting. I'm not sure why, but if I were to take a stab, I'd suggest either over-watering or graft failure. He's right that the roots are probably still alive, and ....

This is also of Dan's Mango cultivar--looks like there's an upper branch that lost all its leaves and a lower branch (pictured here) that still has some shriveled leaves hanging on.

Also, here's the Youtube video Dan referenced in his answers: "Pot Paws." You'll see that in the video, he's concerned about his pawpaws getting too much sun. It's a legitimate concern, and he's got a good solution, I think. But my understanding (as I told him when we talked) is that this would be a good approach to seedlings (pawpaw plants that have just germinated during the present season), while grafted cultivars are already old enough that we don't need to worry about them getting a sunburn. That's been my experience anyway.

Making (and Eating) a Pawpaw Cake

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You'll recall that toward the end of September, NJ called dibs on as many pawpaws as it took to extract a cup's worth of pawpaw pulp, with an eye toward making a pawpaw cake. And so, we used two of our final pawpaws of the season to process and freeze some pulp.

Mid October found us ready to make the pawpaw cake, which is something we made a handful of times in Virginia but is also something that (for lack of pawpaws) we haven't eaten in maybe nine years. Here's our cake-making adventure.

NJ got out the old family recipes and among them, we found the pawpaw cake recipes. There are two cake recipes on this piece of paper. We used the second one to make this cake. (As always, click the image to enlarge it, and you'll be able to read the recipe.) Wish I could say it was passed down through the generations as a kind of esoteric pawpaw knowledge, but we're first-generation pawpaw people, so it's just a recipe we found on the internet around 2005. I think it was from the KSU pawpaw site.

We started off getting out the dry stuff.

As I poured the sugar into the measuring cup, the spoon we keep in the bag surprised me by sliding out and sticking straight up.

After mixing the dry stuff together, we started another bowl for the wet stuff.

Meanwhile, the pawpaw pulp sat unsuspecting on the counter, having thawed in the fridge for a day or two.

Adding the eggs.

And now adding the pawpaw pulp. Important to note that although we planned on processing only a cup of pulp, we went overboard so this is about a cup and a half of pulp. We decided it wouldn't hurt the cake to have 50% more pawpaw pulp than the recipe called for.

You'll see I've included five pics of me dumping the pulp into the bowl. At first I worried that this might border on over-representing this step in the process. But since most readers here will be specifically interested in the pawpaw aspect of this cake, I decided I could get away with five pics. Six or seven pics would be pushing it. (And if I showed even two pics of measuring the baking soda, that would already be over-representation. No offense to anyone who curates a blog about baking soda, but it's true: baking soda never merits more than one photograph in any context.)

The pulp ready for mixing.

Then we went back to the bowl full of dry stuff...

...and poured it into the wet stuff...

...and mixed.

The cake batter was ready to go into the pan.

So I sprayed the pan...

...thoroughly.

NJ was good enough to get some of the beaters' excess batter off before...

...she did something I don't do, since I'm afraid of raw eggs. (I know that makes it sound like I'm not very adventurous, and by the metric of eating raw eggs, I'm not. Maybe someday I'll be able to turn over a new leaf.)

Look at this--she looks just as healthy after licking the beater as she did before she licked it. It's beginning to seem like that salmonella is just a gummit conspiracy!

Still rejoicing in NJ's continued health, I coaxed the batter out of the bowl and into the pan.

Into the oven it went!

The recipe said to cook it for 50 minutes, but NJ thought we should set the timer for 35 minutes and check it then.

Meantime, it was a 35 minutes of living dangerously, for NJ at least.

Actually, it was a 32 minutes of living dangerously, because after 32 minutes, NJ thought we should check it, and we realized  it was done. Eighteen minutes ahead of schedule. So glad NJ was suspicious of the recipe. Following it chapter-and-verse could have ruined the cake!

After realizing we would have burned the cake if it had cooked for 50 minutes, I emended the recipe, making it Utah-specific, knowing that baking at different elevations can make things turn out differently. The recipe is from the Frankfort State Journal, according to the attribution. Frankfort, Kentucky, is about 500 feet above sea level, while our town in Utah is about 4500 feet above sea level.

But then I kept thinking about things, and I realized that (as far as I know) the higher the elevation, the slower the cooking, since water boils at a lower temperature up higher. So, if I was understanding things right, my elevation explanation was probably faulty. According to elevation, maybe it should have taken longer to cook in Utah than in Frankfort Kentucky? I was so confused at this point that I emended my emendation, adding four more words.

(By the way--sorry these previous two pics aren't oriented right. I've spent too long trying to orient them and need to move on.)

Then it was time to make the cream cheese frosting. The frosting recipe also appears on the piece of paper at the beginning of this blog post).

You'll notice that a pizza starts showing up in the background. The pizza (and two others like it) were for the same event as we were making the pawpaw cake for.

Powdered sugar went flying.

Onward, toward the next step.

This was the icing on the cake.

No, this was the icing on the cake.

The phrase "real birthday" is from Tennessee Williams's play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, when Big Mamma walks into Brick's bedroom holding a birthday cake and says, "We're bringing you in some real birthday." At least, that's what Big Mamma says in the film. Now that I think about it, I don't remember if that's how it is in the play itself.

After we made the cake and cooked the pizzas and the guests arrived, I opened some presents.

Among the presents: a ristra, or a hanging bouquet of red chiles! I made a ristra by my own hand several years ago and it hung under our carport for a long time, but finally a wind storm knocked it down and and destroyed it. Earlier this year we went to New Mexico and saw a lot of ristras and got back into a ristra state of mind, so NJ was the true best and thought to get me one!

After presents, the lights went out and we beheld the flaming glory of what may be the first pawpaw cake ever made in Utah. (Of course, it might not be--as I've learned from keeping this blog, several other people are growing pawpaws in Utah, so there may have been a handful of Utah pawpaw cakes that predate this cake of October 2016. Congratulations to those of you who may have beat us to it!)

Smiling for the camera.

Doing what needed to be done to claim the wish that was mine.

I made it in one breath. Proof I'm still in my prime.

Pawpaw cake and chocolate ice cream with cashews.

This was the scene on the counter the morning after. And by the evening of the morning after, there was no more pawpaw cake to be had, and we knew it would stay that way, in our house anyway, until the 2017 harvest.