Can Papaya grow in the Fraser Canyon of B.C.? Summer is hot and dry but winters are cold and wet. I do have a green house to protect from the winter cold. If I can grow them what is the best way to start the plant? barb s
refer to the "help growing papayas" thread in this category. I would recommend purchasing Mountain Papayas ( Carica pubescens ) or another Colombian variety, as they are very cold hardy and more tolerant to less humid environments. I hope this helps:-) Here a link to some good seeds http://www.seedman.com/papaya.htm
Nicky makes a good point, Barb, but if you have a greenhouse and are committed to babying the plant over the winter, you can simply start seeds from a grocery store papaya. There are a number of ways to do this, but the easiest is just to plant the seeds of the fruit. You can also soak the seeds out of a fresh fruit for two days, discarding the floaters and gunk each day; this ups your germination rate considerably. Fast-draining, rich soils are key. If you want a very cold hardy papaya, the Chamburo (Carica stipulata) is tasty and fairly easy to grow; this is an Ecuadorean species (as is C. pubescens; the two are the parents of the super-hardy highland fruit Babaco.) You can also look at Babaco; this doesn't come from seeds, though, you'll need to find a grower with young plants (TCs or cuttings).
Its very easy to grow Papaya's from seed as Lorax says, you will find you don't need to give them too much water in winter when its cold as this just encourages the roots to rot, just give them a bit every couple of weeks, but water them well in Summer. Actually what I have found growing them here in England is they love the greenhouse or the conservatory in winter, they tend to flower and drop tiny little seeds all over the place from the flowers which in turn give you lots of little seedlings ready for spring, once the seeds fall from the flowers they grow like weeds and get everywhere so you have to control them a little bit. I would experiement with store bought seeds taken from the fruit first. But you won't have too many problems in winter if you are careful. I have also found that the trees grown from the seeds out of the fruit don't like their roots being disturbed but the trees grown from the tiny seeds out of the flower have no problem with being moved and really flourish don't ask me why maybe Lorax knows as I would be interested too. Nath
Here's my two cents on the fruit vs. flower issue: it's the difference between being planted in fresh soils that are not full of the happy little colonies of support organisms for papaya (seeds from the fruit), and falling into ground that does have the support biotics (seeds from the flowers). The fruit seedlings are still struggling to build up their biotic base, so when you move them they tend to get grumpy about doing it over. I'm willing to bet you'd get the same super-hardy seedlings from fruit if you sowed them near established mature plants.
BarbS here is my 3 year old Caribbean Papaya from Belize.... not the happiest since I fertilized it twice in the past two weeks.... it stands 29cm above the rim of the pot... The plant remains inactive for about 6 months.... no more green house.... :(
The small size must be for two reasons: I never fertilized it until last week, and the winter daylight is so weak, it just stops growing from November to April?
It may also be feeling a tad rootbound. Whenever I have to knock over a mature papaya plant, I'm surprised by how extensive and wide the root system is.
