Papaya Growing

If you are into nutrition, you know how important it is to eat your daily fruits and veggies and this article is about how you can grow your own, from the pot.

Ever since we moved to Florida, I have been dreaming about growing my own tropical trees. The fact is that some properties in Florida have tropical trees, but as it often happens, some owners could care less about those fruits falling down uneaten. BTW, here it is a great business opportunity for you! Contact several owners and make a deal with them to collect all the fruits and offer us freshly squeezed lemonade! I will be the first customer :)

Another fact is that tropical trees/plants grow pretty well on the Floridian soil, at least in the South West. I am talking about orange, papaya, grapefruit, mango, tangerine, pineapple, avocado, rosemary, etc. I have a friend who successfully planted each of the above from a seed and now she has a beautiful garden in her yard. I had an attempt to grow a mango from a pit but for some reason it did't go well, I never saw the sprouts. Do you have any experience with the tropical tree growing? Please share.

A few days ago, I found Best of the Best description with pictures on how to grow papaya. It seems easy, check it out: http://www.all-creatures.org/pics/papaya.html. I really liked the details and the pictures and how they thoughtfully guide you through the process. The site even suggested to collect the seeds for a salad dressing. I did put the seeds in my juicer and added that juice to my salad. It tasted like a tangy black pepper, definitely brought a kick to my salad dressing, pretty cool! If you add some diluted tahini souse, olive oil, and lemon to it, it will become a gourmet raw dressing!

I planted four papaya seeds on Friday, March 19, 2010, as suggested in the website above. We will see in a week or two if I am lucky to see the papaya sprouts :) 


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Update. April, 2010
Look at these sprouts. Three of four survived and are looking pretty good! It's been a month now and I am excited to see them grow..

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Update. August 25, 2010
I am so happy to report that at least 2 of my papaya trees are growing and striving.  The third one I gave to my parents for their new house and apparently it's not doing so well. These 2 survived through our absence (our vacation away) and hopefully will keep growing. New leaves show up almost every day. I am not a gardener but this is a fun project!