The area our house is (and a lot of other houses are) built on, used to be known as “Papaya Tuyn” (papaya garden) and is still officially called ‘Papaya bij Westpunt”. I can’t find a lot of information about it, but I don’t think they really grew papaya trees here. Still, I thought it was only fitting to try to grow them myself.
I just sowed some of the seeds of a papaya I ate, and that worked like a charm. The first batch was eaten by birds, but I have seven seedlings now. One of them is actually already past the seedling state and growing really fast. I’m not sure these will ever produce fruit (sometimes the seeds of fruit you buy in the supermarket don’t work for that), but I like seeing them grow.
I’m not particularly fond of the taste of papaya anyway, though it does taste so much better if you sprinkle lime juice on it. I do know it has a lot of health benefits though, so it’s worth trying to eat it regularly. The leaves can be used medicinal too, so these trees will be a great start for my dream of growing a Caribbean medicinal and edible garden.
I can’t wait till these are big enough to plant out! Not that I already have a garden lot ready for that, to be honest, but I’ll get to that soon.
(Really? Well, probably not, but a girl is allowed to dream big, isn’t she?)
