This post has nothing to do with our vegetable garden.

But I am utterly obsessed with my papayas.

I figure these are about 10 months old now, and after a good transplanting today they are happy in their new home. I started with about 15 papaya plants at the end of last summer and ended up with four. Two are Solo Papayas and two are Maridol Papayas – though I don’t know which two are which!

I hope to start some new seeds this summer, but mostly I hope that these make it through another year. Also, I am hoping that they fruit. How neat to sell papayas at the food co-op with a “Minnesota Grown” sticker on them!

I sprouted a Mango!

Quite surprising, because Chris cut into the pit, and I salvaged what I could of the seed inside. Now, if only the avocados would sprout…

The papayas are very upset. As you can see, they aren’t looking as great as they did last summer, and I’m slowly losing them. I’m hoping that a couple will survive and come back this summer, but I saved a bunch of the seeds and I just put them in dirt on a heating pad – so maybe I can start again.

The biggest mistake was waiting until the end of summer to put the papayas in gallon pots. They’re herbaceous, so they would have filled up the pots quickly had I put them there in the first place. So maybe this year’s seedlings will grow faster, and have a better chance of surviving next winter on account of them being so large. Who knows? I’m not a tropical gardener, just pretend to be one.

The medjool dates, however, are quite happy living inside this winter. I only started with two, and still have two – and they have even grown some.

Looking back at posts from last year, it seems we’re behind with our garden preparations this year. But I think we started the seeds way too early last year (as the giant April tomatoes will testify to), and we’ll have the seedlings upstairs this year where it’s warmer, so they should grow faster and fare better.

We talked about tilling up another area in the yard for an additional garden, but haven’t yet decided if we are going to or not. We also have talked about planning to sell this house (or rent it) by next spring and move out into the country. So maybe ripping up more of the yard right before trying to sell it wouldn’t be a great idea…

I picked one of the white eggplants that has been around for a month or so now for dinner last night. I was a bit weary because it was still green, and supposed to be a “white” eggplant, but I’ve heard that over-ripe eggplants are no good. The seeds were QUITE dark, which makes me think that we left it on the plant too long! Plus, it wasn’t very good cooked – very bitter. We ended up getting rid of it.

In a frenzy, I ran outside and picked all of our larger eggplants, just to make sure they weren’t over-ripe. We had one more pink bi-colored eggplant (that’s the purple one…?), and a few black and white eggplants. Chris got home and told me that he thought maybe the eggplants were underripe! Arrgh! According to “the experts” (I really like to refer to “the experts” as often as possible), eggplants are ripe when their skins are “shiny.” I don’t know… they sure look “shiny” to me, but then they’ve always looked “shiny.”

In other news, I brought all of my papaya herbs (trees), grapefruit trees, and medjool date trees into the house tonight instead of putting them back in the garage. They take up the entirety of the new shelving system, and I realize now that if they grow at all over the winter I’m going to have to find some more options. Oh yeah, and I need to buy many, many more lights.

I repotted 13 papaya plants today, along with two medjool date palms and four grapefruit trees. We’ll see what happens! I know that papayas don’t like to be transplanted, and I really should have done this a month ago, so that they would grow into their pots slightly before being moved inside for the winter.

Now my task is finding a safe place for the tropical plants where they will get enough light indoors.

(Sorry, no picture this time. I know, I’ve been avoiding this website a bit – a lot of different things have been keeping me very busy, such as my website business, the food co-op, and my dad visiting every weekend to install new windows in my house).

We got 2 1/4” of rain over the weekend. It’s nice not to worry about watering the garden. It’s been pretty cool, but I’ve noticed quite a few more things popping up – even some more summer squash! The weather should warm back up for a few days, which will give the garden a final kick before the fall.

My papyas definitely do not like this cold weather, and I’ve been moving them into the garage for the night. Unfortunately, they didn’t get to experience the humid air when it rained all weekend, because the temperature was pretty much below or around 65ºF the whole time. According to “the experts,” if my papaya plants are exposed to temperatures below 68º, they will never fruit. I’m mostly growing them for the foliage, but the benefit of fruit would be neat, so I’m not taking any chances.

Though the papayas aren’t technically part of our vegetable garden, I spent a lot of time getting them to germinate, live, and grow. Actually, I probably spent more time fussing with the papayas than I spent weeding and mulching the vegetables.

The papaya plant, usually referred to as a tree, is actually a large, fast-growing woody herb. The plants usually start flowering when they are five months old, and have ripe fruit when they are 8 months to a year. The lifespan is usually only 3-4 years, but some papaya plants have lived for a decade or more. I guess it just depends on how well it is cared for!

My papaya fascination started in mid-march, when I read that people all over the United States successfully grow papayas in their homes and even get fruit from them! Also, I saw a few at the Como Park Conservatory last summer and they’re just so pretty – they would make a nice green addition to a home. I started planting seeds at the end of march, but had very bad results. These guys started germinating in early June, but it wasn’t until mid-July that I finally had a tray of seedlings that weren’t dying off. Supposedly, they will grow 8 inches in two months, and really take off after that.

The plan is to bring them inside for the winter – so I guess this can be a “winter gardening” project. I’m going to have to invest in some more lighting because we don’t have any good windows for plants. Depending on how many of them I have, maybe I’ll bring one up to the food co-op. I think I’ll line the walkway up to the house with them next summer (if they survive…).