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.
