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How Long Can A Papaya Tree Live? To start off my Papaya story, let me go back to the last time when we left this topic. This picture below was taken on the 19th April 2018. At that time the Papaya tree had grown to such height that we couldn't harvest the ripen fruit using the ladder. More points emerged - the fruits mediocre and the weight of the tree near the retaining wall was threatening its integrity. We had no choice but to get a contract worker to had it removed. So that would be the end of one story and most probably one for growing our own Papayas. Not until one day, Chuan approached us and also shared half of his harvested Papaya. It is was longish, very sweet and Chuan assured us that this species, a Taiwanese hybrid with fruits from a low tree. That's it. A low tree. Let's watch and enjoy our fruits of sucess History - the old tree - 2018 . Part 1 - A new child I have assembled a collection of pictures to record our this time experiences. The pictures themselves quite descriptive, but to me, the dates too refreshes and allow me to equate our moods then. But don't take the date too seriously as it is the computer which marked the date of download and not the actual date of the pictures are made. Or my error stored them on hand phone, and batch transferred. 6th June, 2020 I do not have record as when the seeds were sown but the first flower buds appeared on this date. The earliest.
4th July, 2020 We were so happy to see the bud successfully open into our first flower. This first flower was a "No go" as it was not pregnant. [ not fertilized, pollinator not aware of its presence.]
17th August, 2020 Foreground, plant No.1 and further down towards the road, another younger,smaller plant No.5. By August, plant No.1 had 3 fruits, in longish form on the tree.
17th August, 2020 Then, picture of Papaya plants No.2, 3 and 4 on the opposite side of the garden. Then in total we had all together 5 plants
27th August, 2020 By this date, inexplicably plant No. 5 withered and died We did not know why.
27th August, 2020 Tree No,1, the first fruit from the second flower.
14th September, 2020 The dates comes in handy. Here an indication of how fast the fruit could grow in 3 weeks time.
29th October, 2020 Another 6 weeks the number of fruits had increased by leaps and bounds. BUT the phobias set in. Insects attack at various stages of the fruits forming. Then, we were warned about over bearing. The combined weight of the fruits may lead to the plant collapsing. So you can see, with all the "know-hows" passed on to us, we were put on the defense.
14th November, 2020 Wow Sure! Such a productive plant
14th November, 2020 Meanwhile on the other side of garden Plant No, 3, a shorter much skinnier tree also had fruits. But these papayas are roundish. Obviously seeds from other species were germinated at the same time.
14th November, 2020 Not to be missed out, Papayas from tree No. 2 is also large and longish.
21st November, 2020 Now in late November, why were the wrappings around the fruits removed?
21st November, 2020 A parallel picture of Papaya Tree 2, 3 and 4 at that time. Tree No.4 is hidden by tree No.3
4th December, 2020 Came December, the wrappings were on again. Now I know, the week before, the wrappings were off for a photo session.
Part 3 - Happy harvesting time - 6 months 5th December, 2020 The date here may be a little bit off, but it was around that time the fruit were ripe for picking. Notice the happiness of seeing fruit ripened on the tree itself and most of all at eye level.
5th December, 2020 Surely a memorable time for us. The waiting and the praying that fruits would come out alright.
6th December, 2020 Wow! One more shot of our first fruit!
8th December, 2020 We weighed it. Just few grams short of 3 kilograms
12th December, 2020 There after, more fruits were quickly ripened in succession.
15th December, 2020 Look at our faces we were so satisfied, not only we had fruits, we had good quality Papayas to give away to our children and good buddies.
16th December, 2020 Whatever Papayas we had on the tree which were due, were quickly allocated to recipients. Here is a picture of Pearly, she waited quite a while for her turn
16th December, 2020 Not to missed out on such occasion, Aaron too had his picture taken. While the bunch of fruits may look quite a fair bit, the name of those lining up were as long too.
17th January, 2021 Another 2 weeks passed - no more ripening took place since the first batch were released
Part 4 - Warning 17th January, 2021 Good news don't last. We met our first adversary. Something was fighting us for the fruits
18th January, 2021 It was almost a month now. Suddenly no more joy of giving away Papayas. What happened? Just look at that dirty looking blue coloured plastic foil wrapped round the tree trunks. Yes there were fruits for plucking. But the Tree Shrews got to them first. We had too good and too long a period of waiting for sweet ripened Papayas. Fruits from Tree No.1 and the first fruit from Tree No.3 were eaten at the tree. The plastic foil with adhesive were to prevent the Tree shrew. We tried all method like replacing the cloth wrapper with heavy duty polyethylene commercial bags, metallic wire mesh etc. Still we were loosing fruits. Then the hard ware shop owner advised me to go back to basic. Used physical trap. We did and were bust catching the shrew and taking them far away for release. It was MCO period we could risk crossing the border to reach Rimba. Further was across the Expressway to Damansara Kim.
18th January, 2021 With the main threat eliminated we thought we were back to normal. As usual, we wrapped the fruit to avoid the fragrance of the ripened fruits from drifting out and conceal the sight of yellowness from the birds. We thought we could prevent and fool the animals and birds
18th January, 2021 The fruits were no longer that large but we could still salvage some fruits. Quite a relief
18th January, 2021 Then we started getting fruit from Tree No.3. These were much smaller roundish fruits without seeds inside.
30th January, 2021 So there we were for the next couple of weeks some fruits. Notice that the fruits on the tree were much higher above our head. This scene does not signify that we had a few good round of harvesting. In the mean while the tree changed its structure. No longer the low Papaya Tree. It shot upwards bringing the fruits higher.
41- 30th January, 2021 Me, too!
21st Feb, 2021 One day we came home and found that the first fruit from Tree No.3 was completely eaten leaving the skin at the base of the tree. This tree produced small roundish Papayas devoid of seeds. So what was left behind we would quickly remove from the plant Here is a picture of the ripened fruit with the boys.
44 -28th Feb, 2021 Now we are getting our "first" fruit from Tree NO.3 after loosing about 3 earlier fruits to the birds and shrews.
45 3rd March, 2021
19th, April 2021 Seems like the story of we loosing fruits were overtaking those pictures of harvesting. Here again the fist fruits from Tree No.2. We haven't even seen the ripened fruits as it wrapped up. The raider got to it first. Say goodbye to another should be good harvest. So we were trained in a painful way, how to take care of our fruits or rather When should we grab our fruit before Nature beats us to it? 19th April, 2021 The wrapping and trapping of Shrew continued, we could still maintain a chance of getting not the totally ripened fruits but the nearly full ripened.
47 19th April 2021
19th April, 2021 At last fruits coming from Tree No. 4. Unbelievable when all the trees grew up and fruiting at the same time. The first fruit from this Tree No. 4 - came 4 months later Part 5 Attack and sharing 19th April, 2021 Now have the chance to see how tall that Tree No.1 has grown by April. Not reaching out to harvest but also to carry out sustaining maintenance work. Well, the old and earlier nightmare as seen in picture No.1 getting closer
19th April, 2021 As if the action of perching precariously to look after the fruits was not bad enough. There was more installed for us. See this half ripened fruit was eaten in the middle of the nght!
19th April, 2021 One of the bigger fruit at that time measuring over a foot long.
19th April, 2021 Guess what? New contender for our fruit. This time I do not have trap that large to lure this Palm Civet Cat - Musang Here a picture of the raider taken in poor lightings. After having a very satisfying super it left its call card - shit to verify its presence.
19th April, 2021 Now I can show you pictures of the marauders First - a Tree Shrew!
19th April, 2021 Second a Garden Rat - food for the Goshawk.
23rd April, 2021 All our research and planning gone to waste. The predators need not wait for the smell or half ripen fruits. Just like fruits tree on the road side! Who ever is hungry enough and can tolerate "ready to Eat" fruit can have a go for it. Green Papayas!!! Now what's next? and What else can we do? Compete! Pluck the Papayas showing signs of reaching readiness.
Part 6 Contigencies 55 10th May, 2021 Plant almost 1 year old. We still put in the feeble attempts to wrap the fruits. Gone are the privilege of tasting home-grown tree ripen sweet fragrant papayas
9th June, 2021 Now just look up! Though the frits are getting smaller but there 32 fruits luring for attention! Should we risk our selves to climb up to give it some minimal protection? Nope. Now pondering how we harvested the fruits from such great heights.
60- 1st August 2021 Now just look up! Though the frits are getting smaller but there 32 fruits luring for attention! Should we risk our selves to
60 15th August 2021
61 16th September 2021
Part 7 A new chapter 62 14th November 2021
63 14th November 2021
64 8th February 2022 18 Months Old
65 8th February 2022
The story Not ended - Story of the Papaya Tree - low and having long fruits! To be continued |
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