Winter to Spring, Cactus to Pawpaw

Over the winter we went to Robert Smithson's earth- and water-work Spiral Jetty a couple times. It's up on the north part of the Great Salt Lake. After we got back from one of the trips, I made a linocut based on the brine shrimp and red algae and salt crystals near the Spiral Jetty.  If you've never heard of this piece of artwork that is far from the pawpaw's range, you should read up on it.

That was winter. Then spring came along and it was time to get this big cactus out of our house, so we needed to find a big landscaping dolly. Tougher than it sounds, for us anyway.

Last year we kept the cactus under the arches in front of our house, but that was because it was getting used to not being a strictly indoor cactus anymore. This year, we want it to take the full brunt of the sun. No more shade and shadows, no matter how aesthetic that may be.

So I used the dolly to move it out into the yard to be a good neighbor to the Wells cultivar.

Strange Beast, and Tanager in a Pawpaw Tree

The other day at a second hand store we found this strange beast. Who makes a bear (complete with killed fish at its feet) out of a cowrie shell and a clam shell? I sure would like to know who, since it's some creative thinking.

Also the other day NJ and I were standing out by the car port and talking before I was going in to work, and then a western tanager flew up and landed in the Shenandoah. I couldn't get any picks before it flew away, so I was lucky that a few days later it landed in the same tree and stuck around for long enough.

If you want to see one of the few western tanagers to have ever landed in a pawpaw tree, you should click on this pic.

But if you just want to see what a male western tanager looks like, here's a pic I lifted from wikipedia.

11 pawpaws from 1 flower!

Out in the pawpaw orchard on the Shenandoah we had one flower
that must've been very very well pollinated.

I say that because...

...this one flower has given rise to 11 pawpaws!

That's the most I've ever seen from one flower.

I hope to give you updates on the further life and progress of these 11 pawpaws. Hoping that the tree can handle nourishing them all, I hope to give you updates on how each one of these pawpaws tastes in September.

Pawpaws in Ogden, Utah

When I was an undergraduate English major and a poet, I became friends with another undergraduate English major and poet. As way led to way, I stopped being a poet, but my friend kept being a poet. A few years ago she was in Provo doing a reading, and we met her husband, who, it turns out, is very interested in gardening and trees and fruit. So we invited them to drive down from Odgen for the Third Annual Utah Pawpaw Fest. After attending, he decided to plant two pawpaw trees--a Shenandoah and a KSU-Atwood, both of which were cultivars available for tasting at the festival.

The first Saturday of this month I went up to Odgen for a conference at a local university and was excited to have the chance to see how their pawpaws are getting along. I was also excited to have a chance to walk through their greenhouse in the back.

Because I had an extra copy of Andrew Moore's book Pawpaw: In Search of America's Forgotten Fruit, I gave them a copy. 

Yesterday, he called as they were driving up into the canyon to ask about another cultivar he might plant in another space he has in his yard, and to tell me he was enjoying the book. And today, I'm posting the pics of my visit to what I assume is the biggest pawpaw orchard in Ogden, Utah.

Standing in front of the house by a pawpaw tree, book in hand.

Looking down into the cage he set up. Not sure if this is the Shenandoah or the Atwood.

Now looking down into the other cage.

Inside their greenhouse, which he and his dad built onto the back of their house.

A kumquat tree. The first time I ever saw kumquats I was 13 years old and passing through Singapore. There were two trees on either side of our hotel's front entrance. I was so intrigued--such small oranges all over these small trees! The next time I remember having kumquats was in Taiwan in 2015. My hosts have me a kumquat to eat and I just popped it in my mouth and chewed, skin and all like they instructed. It was so sour! But later that day we went to a restaurant that served delicious kumquats that had been preserved in sugar syrup. More recently, we bought a container of kumquats and ate them--so sour again, but still intriguing. The kumquats in this pic are of a different variety, and when I ate one it had a good citrusy and mellow flavor. Thus concludes the microhistory of my life's intersection with kumquats--or is it just beginning?

Another view in their greenhouse. I wish I could remember the names of all the plants.

They had a lot of cool paintings in their house. This one done by her mother.

Here's a pic of a linocut I recently finished, inspired by our recent trips to Robert Smithson's 1970 earthwork Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake. Oh expatriate pawpaws, you're so far from home!

A Few Sept and Oct Pawpaw Events

I've been so busy with work and running and fishing in Sept and Oct 2018 that I didn't have time to post as much as I wanted to, during the window between the first pawpaw harvested and the last. But below are a few events, kind of offering some texture to the times.

This year we were very conscientious about writing the name of the cultivar on each pawpaw fruit. It was kind of fun since sometimes the ballpoint pen seemed to bruise the skin more than write on it, such that the bruises were formed in the shape of the names of the cultivars.

Three fallen pawpaws.

One morning I went out and found a pawpaw half eaten on the ground, maybe by a deer or a raccoon? We haven't had any problems with mammals eating any of the other pawpaws. (Usually the mammals leave it to the rolly pollies and slugs.) After the deer or raccoon got to this one, some big black ants basically took up residence on the flesh for a week. They just sat there and didn't move much and gorged themselves. 

At a certain point before the harvest was over we drove up to Jackson, Wyoming, and fished. We brought five pawpaws with us, and some of us wondered if these were the first pawpaws to ever enter the town of Jackson. Or maybe even the first pawpaws to ever enter the state of Wyoming. Then again, maybe there have been many many pawpaws in Wyoming and I just haven't known about it (and I'm not planning on googling it right now to find out).

Fourth Annual Utah Pawpaw Festival

On Saturday, 22 September 2018, we held the 4th Annual Utah Pawpaw Festival. Last year we only had 12 pawpaws to divide among the crowds that thronged our house for the festival. But this year we had many more. (Whoever can count the number of the pawpaws on the counter, so be it.) We had enough that at the end of the evening, since I was cutting them in half and in fourths to make sure we had enough to go around, we had pawpaws to send guests home with.

This year we roped three friends into making some desserts with some frozen pawpaw pulp we had put in the freezer in 2017. So in addition to our traditional pawpaw cake, some friends brought pawpaw pudding, pawpaw cheesecake (with pawpaw topping), and then a layered and glazed pawpaw cake. I had some of each of the pawpaw desserts, and by the time I finished them I swore I would never eat anymore food in my life--and I kept to that swearing until lunch the next day. And there was a lot of other food at the 4th Annual Utah Pawpaw Festival--including some jackfruit.

About 50 people came to the 4th Annual Utah Pawpaw Festival; you can't see them all in this pic.

Some people talked inside.

Some people talked outside.

In this picture, to the far left, you can see the table where we set out our pawpaw linocuts, hand pulled over the course of a year, in preparation to give away at the 4th Annual Utah Pawpaw Festival. Here are some links to the prints we gave away: here and here and here. And here and here.

Pawpaw Harvest 2018: The Final Tally

Some of you, gentle readers, are real numbers people. You don't care about anything except the final tally each year, the number of fruits we got from each tree. This post is for you, contextualizing the numbers of the 2018 harvest with the numbers of the 2016 and 2017 harvest.

The Shenandoah

• 2016 final tally: 33
• 2017 final tally: 72 
• 2018 final tally: 54

The Atwood

• 2016 final tally: 34
• 2017 final tally: 32 
• 2018 final tally: 49

The Wells

• 2016 final tally: 13
• 2017 final tally: 66 
• 2018 final tally: 58

The Total

• 2016 final tally: 80
• 2017 final tally: 170 
• 2018 final tally: 165

So it was a record year for the Atwood, though the Wells and the Shenandoah underperformed compared to last year. And that threw the narrative of constant progress to pieces, since the total harvest this year was five pawpaws fewer than the total harvest last year. Still, we picked (up from the ground) plenty of pawpaws between August 17th and October 24th. Plenty of pawpaws. And next year I wouldn't be completely surprised if our Susquehanna cultivar bore a few fruits, and then the year after that, onward to the Mango cultivar. (Here I go, in the face of the deflation of harvesting fewer pawpaws this year than last year, still talking the language of "onward" this and "upward" that.)