VOA健康报道2023--The Pawpaw: An Easy to Grow Tree with Tasty Fruit

The Pawpaw: An Easy to Grow Tree with Tasty Fruit

It can be difficult to know which plants and trees will perform best and produce healthy fruits and vegetables where you live.

For Americans, one possible choice is the pawpaw, a tree that looks tropical but is native to much of North America.

Associated Press writer Jessica Damiano is an expert in plants and gardening. She writes, "Also known as Hoosier banana, poor man's banana and false banana, the sadly underused (pawpaw) will transport you to the tropics¹."

Pawpaw trees can be found growing wild from southern Ontario in Canada, to neighboring Michigan in the northern United States. The trees are also commonly found in western New York and in the southern states of Texas and Florida.

Pawpaws are known to grow well across large areas of the U.S. The small, triangular² trees can reach heights up to nearly eight meters. They love humid weather and are highly resistant³ to freezing.

The branches are covered by maroon-colored blossoms⁵ in the spring. Then groups of heavy, eight-to-12-centimeter-long fruits that look like mangoes start to develop. In autumn, the trees' yellow or gold leaves will brighten your property. And deer usually avoid the trees.

Damiano writes that pawpaw care is quite easy compared to many kinds of fruit trees. The trees should be placed in areas that receive full or partial sunlight. It is also good to provide some wind protection. And pawpaws should be planted in well-draining, slightly acidic soil with a pH level between 5.5 and 5.7. A pH level below seven is considered acidic.

Young trees should be watered often for a year or two until they are fully⁶ established. Gardeners can also add a 20-20-20 fertilizer mix once a month in April, May and June only. As far as other care, you should try to remove any growth that forms around the base of the tree. Pawpaws are not invasive but will expand outward if not controlled.

Damiano writes that in most cases, growers will need to start with grafted⁸ pawpaws, called cultivars, to ensure cross-pollination and fruit production. Look for grafted cultivars named Davis, Mary Foos Johnson, Overleese, Sweet Alice and Taylor. These pawpaws should produce fruit in a few years, as opposed to seed-grown trees, which can take six to 10 years.

If you can, avoid buying trees that have been grown in fields and then dug up to sell. This process risks damaging pawpaws' long taproots. The taproot helps the tree effectively take up water.

Harvest the fruits in late summer when they are soft to the touch and easily come apart. To outsmart birds and other wildlife that may try to take perfectly⁹ ripe fruit, you can pick them a little sooner. But be aware that hard pawpaws picked too early will not fully ripen¹⁰ once picked.

Some people are sure that pawpaw fruit tastes like bananas while others say they taste more like papayas. Whatever the taste, this highly nutritious¹¹ fruit is rich in vitamins, minerals and amino acids.

It can be eaten straight off the tree or cooked to make foods like puddings, smoothies, muffins, cakes and breads. When preparing those foods, however, the fruit's thick skin and seeds should be thrown away because they can contain poisonous substances.

Some people in the U.S. might want to taste pawpaws before making the decision to grow them. But that could be difficult. This is because pawpaw fruits only stay fresh for a few days, making them difficult to transport. So, most markets do not carry them.

That means one of the only ways to experience pawpaws is to grow them yourself.

Words in This Story

tropical – adj. of, relating to or happening in the tropics

humid – adj. hot and slightly wet

blossom⁴ – n. a small flower, or the small flowers on a tree or plant

drain – v. when liquid flows out of something

fertilizer – n. a natural or chemical substance you put on land in order to make plants grow well

invasive – adj. moving into all areas of something and very difficult to stop

graft⁷ – v. to join a piece cut from one plant onto another plant

pollinate – v. to carry pollen¹² from a male part of a flower to the female part of another flower of the same type

ripe – adj. completely developed and ready to be collected or eaten

1 tropics   

(名)热带

参考例句：

• The disease is thought to have originated in the tropics. 这种疾病据说起源于热带地区。
• I went to the tropics for the first time last year. 我去年第一次去了热带地区。

2 triangular   

adj.三角（形）的，三者间的

参考例句：

• It's more or less triangular plot of land.这块地略成三角形。
• One particular triangular relationship became the model of Simone's first novel.一段特殊的三角关系成了西蒙娜第一本小说的原型。

3 resistant   

adj.(to)抵抗的，有抵抗力的

参考例句：

• Many pests are resistant to the insecticide.许多害虫对这种杀虫剂有抵抗力。
• They imposed their government by force on the resistant population.他们以武力把自己的统治强加在持反抗态度的人民头上。

4 blossom   

n.花，开花；vi.开花，发展

参考例句：

• The blossom on the trees looks lovely in springtime.春天树上的花很漂亮。
• Let a hundred flowers blossom,let a hundred schools of thought contend.百花齐放，百家争鸣。

5 blossoms   

n.（尤指果树的）花( blossom的名词复数 )；花丛，花簇v.（植物）开花( blossom的第三人称单数 )；发展；长成；变得更加健康（或自信、成功）

参考例句：

• It was springtime and the slopes were ablaze with almond blossoms. 时当春季，怒放的扁桃花使那片山坡鲜红似火。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The spring comes and peach blossoms [flowers] are all open. 春天了，桃花都开了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

6 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

7 graft   

n.移植，嫁接，艰苦工作，贪污；v.移植，嫁接

参考例句：

• I am having a skin graft on my arm soon.我马上就要接受手臂的皮肤移植手术。
• The minister became rich through graft.这位部长透过贪污受贿致富。

8 grafted   

移植( graft的过去式和过去分词 )； 嫁接； 使（思想、制度等）成为（…的一部份）； 植根

参考例句：

• No art can be grafted with success on another art. 没有哪种艺术能成功地嫁接到另一种艺术上。
• Apples are easily grafted. 苹果树很容易嫁接。

9 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

10 ripen   

vt.使成熟；vi.成熟

参考例句：

• I'm waiting for the apples to ripen.我正在等待苹果成熟。
• You can ripen the tomatoes on a sunny windowsill.把西红柿放在有阳光的窗台上可以让它们成熟。

11 nutritious   

adj.有营养的，营养价值高的

参考例句：

• Fresh vegetables are very nutritious.新鲜蔬菜富于营养。
• Hummingbirds have discovered that nectar and pollen are very nutritious.蜂鸟发现花蜜和花粉是很有营养的。

12 pollen   

n.[植]花粉

参考例句：

• Hummingbirds have discovered that nectar and pollen are very nutritious.蜂鸟发现花蜜和花粉是很有营养的。
• He developed an allergy to pollen.他对花粉过敏。