If you have even a little space in your balcony, terrace, or backyard, you should grow papayas. They are easy to grow and care for. And they yield abundant fruits that can be used to make curries, or eaten ripe.
I planted 2 papaya trees in my garden. One of them never yielded fruits even after it grew about 15 feet tall. That’s the tall one on the right in the picture below. So I chopped it down, since space is premium in my little garden.
The one on the left grew so well and started yielding fruits soon enough.
Did you know that there are male and female papaya trees; the male ones will not yield fruits. The flowers are distinctly different according to Google images. Male flowers are long, tubular, and branched. But in my papaya tree, the flowers weren’t that different. Yet, one yielded fruits whereas the other didn’t. Guess you just have to wait long enough to decide whether your tree is male or female!
But the one tree that gave fruits, gave so many. It was such a joy walking into the garden and seeing so many papayas growing well. Guess we got about 25-30 fruits in all, all of them looking much better than store-bought ones.
I only have one foot of soil depth in my terrace garden. So the tree became lanky and unhealthy after it grew really tall. Had to chop it down after it stopped producing fruits completely.
But now, I am a big believer in having papaya plants in my garden. Replaced the old one with a new plant as soon as I could. And now, the new one has started yielding papayas.
Go ahead, plant a papaya tree!
Love for Gardening 