Celebrate Thanksgiving with Pawpaws – a North American native fruit ideal for the home gardener

·29 min·2 clips

Discover the pawpaw, a tropical-tasting native fruit that grows in freezing temperatures and is ideal for home gardens.

This episode of Growing Greener features a conversation between host Tom Christopher and Sherry Crabtree, a horticultural research and extension associate at Kentucky State University. The focus is on pawpaws, a native fruit with a tropical taste that can grow in cold climates. Sherry explains that pawpaws are the only temperate member of the custard apple family, related to fruits like soursop and cherimoya. She details the fruit's native range across the eastern U.S. and its cold tolerance down to -25°F. The discussion covers the unique pollination by flies and beetles, a result of pawpaws evolving before bees. Sherry describes how Kentucky State University became a center for pawpaw research, maintaining a gene bank with over 2,000 accessions. A key point is why pawpaws are not commercially grown: they bruise easily and have a shelf life of only a couple of days when ripe, making them ideal for local markets and home gardens. Practical advice includes planting in full sun for best fruit production, using grafted trees for earlier fruiting, and freezing the pulp for long-term use. Sherry highlights the university's breeding program, which has released cultivars like KSU Atwood, aiming for traits like disease resistance and better storage. She also mentions the pawpaw's role as the exclusive host plant for the zebra swallowtail butterfly. The episode concludes with tips on finding resources online and an invitation to a pawpaw field day in September.

As heard by us

A practical look at pawpaws, from grafted trees and careful storage to frozen pulp for the kitchen.

The pawpaw comes through as a native fruit with a practical argument behind it: unusual enough to feel like a discovery, but grounded in home-garden and small-farm use.

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Why you'd press play

You can meet pawpaw as the rare native fruit that moves from a home garden or small farm into a bowl of homemade ice cream.

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