There is only one papaya tree in my garden. It was tiny when we moved into the house, but when I cut away all the knee-high weeds surrounding it, it shot up and grew into a 3 meter high tree within one and a half years. And it grows the sweetest papayas I have ever tasted. No comparison to the supermarket variety.
I now need to step onto a garden chair to pick the fruits, which makes them all the more sweeter.
Papaya trees can have one of three sexes: male, female, or hermaphrodite. It’s the last one you want if you have a tiny garden like me, because hermaprodite trees grow flowers that can pollinate themselves. Female trees need a male nearby and lots of insects to pollinate their flowers to bear fruit, male trees can’t bear fruits at all.
By sheer luck this tree is self-pollinating. There was also a male one in a shady area that I chopped down and put into the compost… sorry mate.
I pick the fruit when it turns slightly yellow with still green spots mixed in and then let it ripen in my kitchen fruit bowl. The seeds are also edible and have a sharp mustardy/ wasabi flavor. I just pop them into my mouth as I peel and slice the papaya, but I have also seen recipes that use them for salad dressing.
Papaya has protein digestive enzymes, especially prevalent in unripe fruit. So that Thai special, the papaya salad, which uses green papaya is especially good as an appetizer to a big steak. I have also seen a chef on TV, who wrapped beef in papaya leaves for a few days to make it especially tender. I have yet to try that. I can’t bear to tear down the big leaves of our tree. They look so beautiful and sculptural at the end of their upturned stalks.
The birds love the tree as well. They land on the long leaf stalks and chirp loudly, probably to warn their friends of the white lion lounging below.
