There were only 3 seeds in the bag, not the 5 that I expected. Still free. Still more than one.
I have put one in a pot about thumb deep.
The other 2 are back in the bag and in the refrigerator.
Since they have to get and stay cold to germinate and I don’t trust NC winter to actually do either long enough to be useful, I’m hedging my bets.
Last winter would probably have been effective. I suspect that the 2 previous years were not.
I went to the NC State Extension Service Pawpaw Field Day yesterday. Since I have had pawpaws growing in my back yard almost as long as I have had Chuck in my life and have never had fruit, I felt the need to touch base with people who know something about them.
I got to taste fresh fruit, ice cream and bread. It does have its own flavor, which is very mild. I really couldn’t tell it was in the ice cream. The bread was delicious and, until I get some actual pawpaws, will be good made with bananas or persimmons.
They have a collection of 30 varieties of pawpaw trees at the Forsyth County Agriculutural Building and collect ripe fruit to freeze the pulp in anticipation of the day. The fruit is only good for about 3 days at room temp, 5 days in the fridge. They do not ripen in a way to allow growers to pick them green for shipping. But, pulp freezes just fine.
The woman who led my group through that collection said she can’t tell the varieties apart by taste. A woman in the group said she definitely could.
Along with getting to taste, I picked up a baggie of seeds. Everybody has told me something different about why I don’t have fruit. My arborist says it’s because of how they open and close their sex-changing flowers and has nothing to do with requiring cross-pollination. One collection of Master Gardeners said I need a different variety of plant that what I already have, like you do with blueberries. Someone else said that as long as you have separate trees near each other, they will pollinate each other just fine; it doesn’t need to be different varieties.
The guy that gave me the baggie of seeds said they just bag up what they have from collecting fruit for the festival. So, I mostly likely have more than one kind in the bag.
Since our winters have gotten so erratic, I don’t really trust the weather to germinate what is simply outside. Maybe yes, maybe no. So, I plan to put a couple of seeds in a pot by the shed and the rest in the fridge until Spring and then stick those straight in the ground. Maybe put one of them in another pot to see how that does. I think there are 5 in the bag.
I’ve been waiting this long. What’s another 5-8 years for fruit?
The bulbs I left in the ground have not come back up. I bought the bulbs from Blue Buddha Farms.
This one started coming up inside after a surprisingly short period of dormancy. Since it is so lush, we’ve left it inside.
The mostly white one slowly started back around the end of February. And it has done well outside. I’ll bring it in when nighttime temps start to stay around 50°F.
The mostly red one just came up recently. Like…. This week. I thought it was not going to.
They do not make pretty blossoms.
When I met Sweet Leaf Nursery on BlueSky they were all mail order. But, by the time I was going to be in their area, they had gotten a booth at the PeeDee State Farmers Market. So, Saturday I went to see them. They are both delightful and happy to talk about their plants.
I bought 3.
I planned to get the nepenthes. But, the drosera were too much fun to leave behind.
The one that looks like an alien is Drosera binata. The Drosera aliciae is the more common type of sundew. (I saw them called bog buttons on Reddit yesterday.)
That dish was a wedding present to my parents and I had never figured out a good use for it since it has no drainage. But, drosera need to keep their feet wet. So, there they are.
The Nepenthes briggsiana needs moist soil but not a soggy bottom. This is its temporary spot. I haven’t decided about a pot yet.
Miranda said that if it quits making pitchers, it isn’t getting enough sun. Because nepenthes are tropical vines, they come in for winter and don’t grow new traps until they go back outside in spring. But, that happens pretty quickly once they have enough light. I’m curious to see how this one does with the full spectrum bulbs we have in the kitchen.
It’s a variegated lace cap hydrangea. See how variegated those leaves are?
I have no idea how long it will take to mature. I took cuttings from a bush in South Carolina 4 years ago. I know it should be variegated. The leaves on the cuttings were not solid green. Which is why I took cuttings.
I have never grown any plant this way before. So, I am pleased it’s not dead. But, I’m ready for it to look like its mother.
The original bush was in the shade. I planted this with lighting that matched its parent plant.
I am the Audience 