Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Free papayas, anyone?


I am sure many of you will sigh in seeing this fruit, a tree ripened papaya fruit. I am sure it is very sweet because it is fully mature. And you are not alone in thinking it is delicious. The crows and orioles plying by our skies and scanning resources in our vicinity did not have second thoughts in getting their share. I have seen a pair of crows eating it. But i just watched. Once, i shooed them away because i saw another pair of orioles looking at them at a distance. Orioles and crows seem to have been fighting often in our property. 


You wondered why we are not picking the fruits! Yes we don't. Sometimes, we once-in-a while get one immature fruit to use as vegetable, put it as a common ingredient in our traditional chicken 'tinola' or chicken stew! Every Filipino craves to eat a native chicken 'tinola', and our family loves it so much, especially from my mother's free range chickens. You are still wondering why we don't get the fruits! Yes, our family are not papaya fruit eaters. I   will eat any fruit except ripe papaya, which i can do without in this life.

Papaya plants grow as volunteers in our property. They are of course from seeds scattered by birds and occasional civet cat. When coffee berries, the favorite of civet cats are not in season, they sometimes eat the papaya fruits. We just allow the female trees to fruit, but we cut the males while still young.


Look at all those fruits, they will just be food for the birds. At least the crow will probably spare the chicks if they are already full eating these fruits. What is beautiful with this papaya tree is its branching habit. When the original trunk was cut by a typhoon last year, it produced five more branches. Every branch produces fruits although this branch has the most numbers. If the birds cannot finish the fruits, the chickens get to the rescue when they fell to the ground. 


This is the whole papaya plant with five fruiting branches, all devoted for the birds.

15 comments:

  1. When we lived in Panama when I was a child, I never cared for papaya either. Great plan to leave them for the birds, though!

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    1. Hello Gaia, i visited the papaya plant again after 6 days and another fruit ripened, the birds are so happy. I am thinking of getting some for facial treatment, which some spa center do, but i am so lazy. Birds, you can have all of them!

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  2. Much like our native raspberries that are hard to get to in the woods or the native grapes that might not be as sweet...they are left for the animals...though here where we don't grow papaya they are a delicacy.

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    1. Maybe if i will migrate to a temperate country, i might also eat papayas if only to assuage my homesickness for the tropics.

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  3. I wouldn't touch a papaya either (the ripe one) when I lived in the Philippines. Only recently when in Costa Rica did I discover that I could like papaya. Now we buy them at the grocery store :)

    I did eat the manibalang na papaya, so crunchy we dip them in vinegar and chili.

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    1. haha, i didn't know many of us are like that. Maybe we didn't like papaya here because we have better alternatives. Look at you now, you eat papaya there, maybe i am like you too, as well as my friend. I also love the "manibalang" or breaker stage. The 'murado' variety or the red/purple flesh is better eaten that way than the orange or yellow flesh. We seldom see it here now though. When we were young we eat that just like you, with vinegar and chile, crunchy huh!

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  4. So sad that you don't like papaya. I eat it in winter when our native fruits, raspberries strawberries saskatoons. blue berries, rhubarb, peaches and apricots are not available.

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  5. How strange that we can experience the same feelings here. When there were papaya trees in my house when I was little, I do not want to eat papayas anymore - too much supply of papayas. I prefer to let the birds and chickens have them. Now I buy papayas from the market almost every week!

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    1. Both Wendy (below) and I don't like papaya, at least in your case you only don't like it during the time of plenty. In my case even if the papaya becomes extinct, i might not miss it. I only eat the green fruit when used as a vegetable.

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  6. oh my gosh - i didn't know this was your new blog and I thought someone had stolen all your photos! I'm not a fan of papaya. I don't really like the super sweet tropical fruits like guava, etc. I did use to make papaya babyfood b/c it purees so nicely!

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    1. hahaha, I am sorry about that. I thought i commented on your site weeks ago using my name in this site! Thanks for coming here. It looks like many of us from this continent are not eating papaya, but i eat guava though. Oh you should taste our Carabao mangoes one of these days.

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  7. Hey! That's a great idea. I am going to be the weird one here....but I absolutely DO NOT like papaya. I love the tree and I love growing it in a pot(because I'm weird like that) but I don't like the fruit at all. It's nasty. And the ripe fruit is even worse......but I think it's pretty and LOVE that the birds will eat it....although I can only imagine the mess these trees will make. The reason why I like the plant is because of its form and leaf structure. The seeds really will grow here well if they are watered.....pretty prolific plant in the right conditions....I can only imagine all the volunteers you have:)

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  8. Wow, I have been trying to get those papayas grow in my terrace. They are not even flowering.
    Is there any way I can get those seeds?

    Kindly visit my blog at hhtp://www.gardenerat60.wordpress.com

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  9. Interesting that you don't eat papaya, Andrea. I didn't either until about two years ago when we discovered the one with red meat. Sarap when ripe!

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  10. Papayas are quite expensive in the UK, but I'm prepared to pay the price because they do wonders for my digestive system (I wont go into the details!)

    I find ripe papaya too sweet, so I cube it, mix it with lime juice and chill it before eating. Alternatively I liquidise it with bio-yoghurt to make a smoothie.

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