Behold the pawpaw, the tropical 'alien banana' that grows right here in Canada

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/pawpaw-tropical-fruit-canada-9.7356882

Comments

comrade1234Sep 28, 2026, 6:01 AM
I have property in zone 4a. It's in WI about thirty minutes south of Lake Superior. I had read that they have pawpaw at UW Madison so I bought five seedlings as an experiment. The first year two survived the winter. The next year one of them was hit by a mower and died. The survivor is still alive after five years.

Pawpaw reproduce sexually so this year I bought five more plants from a farm in Michigan. These were older than seedlings and not cheap. Anything to wed my lone pawpaw.

Ilk know in the spring if any survived the winter.

BugsJustFindMeSep 28, 2026, 3:00 AM
Searched the article for "annonacin", "neurotoxin", and "atypical parkinsonism" and came up short. Warning about skin and seeds being generically toxic kinda buried at the end.

Anyway, I had some recently that showed up at my local co-op. The texture was nice, but the flavor was...fine? Certainly nothing magical.

Nutrition Facts says not to eat them: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/do-not-eat-pawpaws/

cdurthSep 28, 2026, 3:16 AM
The magic is a tropical tasting fruit! I have a tree and it's tough to actually get one of the fruits when they are ripe. This year I got lucky with a few that feel into my fenced garden section and I got them before the critters.