Allegheny pawpaws in the author’s garden. Note: one flower can produce up to 6 fruit. Here we see 4 maturing fruit from one blossom.
Valuing Native Crops Once Again
Once appreciated only by foragers, the pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is gaining notariety far as a delicious and uniquely American fruit. Once the pawpaw was a strictly wild food – harvested for centuries by indigenous communities. It is now swiftly becoming a cultivated crop available to consumers and home gardeners alike. If we want to learn to value and enjoy our native foods, the pawpaw is a great place to start.
Pawpaws grow in zones 5-9. In the wild, they grow in riparian woodland. Because the young trees are evolved to grow in shade, young pawpaw trees need sun protection. Without it, they can suffer severe sunburn and quickly die. Mature trees can handle full sun. The trees also have a deep tap root, do not transplant well, and prefer well-draining soil.
Here in Oregon, I am far outside its native range. However, the trees are healthy and vigorous, and I am able to good crops in early Autumn. Know what your tree needs to be happy, and give it the right growing conditions, and you, too, can grow pawpaws in your garden.
Pollination
How to Hand-pollinate Pawpaws by Parkrose Permaculture
Pawpaws are an ancient tree. They evolved before bees. Thus, the trees rely on a different pollinator: flies (and to an extent, beetles). Some gardeners hang bags of rotting meat in the trees to attract flies to the flowers and increase pollination. I prefer to use a paint brush, and hand pollinate daily during the bloom period in order to get good fruit-set.
Pawpaw (also written Paw Paw) is unlike any other fruit in my garden. The only cultivated temperate member of the tropical custard apple family, pawpaws have a sweet yellow flesh. It has been described as “vanilla custard”, “mango and pudding, “tropical banana”. I personally think it tastes very much like bananas (hence, the nickname, Indiana Banana), but with a funky quality that is difficult to describe and reminds me a bit of durian, or jackfruit.
Be aware that pawpaws have a very short season. If you want to enjoy the fruit, you need to eat it in the few days after it falls from the tree. The fruit does not ship, lasts only a few days, and bruises easily. This means, if you want to enjoy it, your best bet is to grow it yourself. (It does freeze well and makes delicious ice cream, so extra fruit can be preserved in the freezer).
If you’re interested in learning more, I highly recommend Michael Judd’s book, For the Love of Paw Paws , which is available through my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3y1Hmi7
Seaberries growing in the author’s permaculture garden, Portland, OR, USA
Sea Buckthorn, A Useful Permaculture Shrub + High-Value Crop
Sea Buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) is a nitrogen fixing, thorny deciduous shrub that tolerates extremely harsh conditions where other plants may struggle. It is native to Russia and China, naturally occuring at elevations above 4,000 feet, but also grows readily at lower elevations, including the seaside. It is not a true buckthorn (Rhamnus spp), and also goes by the names sandthorn and sallowthorn. (If you haven’t guessed from the common names, the thorns are no joke, some growing as long as my index finger.)
The fruit of the sea buckthorn – called the “seaberry” – has been prized for generations as a high-value crop, rich in oils and vitamins. In recent decades, the oily fruit has increased in commercial value due to its use in cosmetics, hair oil, and moisturizers. Farms focusing on seaberry cultivation now range from Canada to Russia to Germany and across temperate parts of Asia.
In my own garden, the sea buckthorn has been a useful hedgerow plant within the food forest design. The leaves are edible for poultry, and can be dried and crushed into their feed. The shrubs themselves fix nitrogen, and their thorny branches provide shelter from songbirds from the endless pressure of urban outdoor cats.
Late in the summer (and into autumn), the shrub produces large quantities of nutritious berries. These berries freeze well, and while they’re too sour to eat straight off the bush, the juice is incredibly good in a range of culinary uses (more on that below).
Sea buckthorn in the wild, where it suckers and forms hedges. Photo courtesy the Creative Commons.
How to Grow – and When Not To
Sea buckthorn is not right for every garden. I’ll be the first to say, do due diligence before adding plants to your garden or permaculture system. But for those systems where it is well-suited, sea buckthorn is a tremendously beneficial plant. I have zero regrets about adding it here at Parkrose Permaculture.
Sea buckthorn is a pioneer species. This means it is hardy, resilient, and can handle a range of difficult conditions that other plants cannot. While that resilience means it can be aggressive in certain conditions, but also means it thrives in sandy soil, clay soil, areas of high wind, salt, and low soil fertility. And not only does it thrive in harsh conditions that are not suitable for cultivating other crops, it produces large yields of fruit while doing so – and fixes nitrogen while doing so!
Questions to ask before planting sea buckthorn in your garden: 1. Do I like eating the berries? Find someone who grows seaberries and try them before planting (you can also order juice and other seaberry foods online). I tried some at the One Green World fall fruit tasting years and years ago, before deciding to buy. 2. Am I okay with a thorny, 15 ft tall set of shrubs in my garden? How will those shrubs shade/interact with other plants in my system? 3. Do I have a full-sun location for at least two shrubs? Am I aware that even shade from the uppermost branches can cause lower-branch die-back, and that shade is the kiss of death for this plant? 4. Am I okay dealing with suckers (or do I have room to let the shrub sucker naturally)? Will I be okay removing suckers a few times a year for as long as I grow these plants? 5. Does my site need erosion-control, nitrogen fixation, or songbird habitat that could be provided by this plant? 6. How would this shrub benefit my permaculture system and my diet? Do the challenges it may pose outweigh the benefits? Is it right for my garden?
Check out the author’s new video on her seaberry plants.
Growing Sea Buckthorn
Size at Maturity : varies widely depending on conditions and variety: 4-20 feet tall, 3-10 feet wide Fruit Production: Dioecious. One male can pollinate up to 6 females. Berries are produced along the inner stems, and can be challenging to harvest. Zones: 3a-9a Temps: -45F – 100F Soil Conditions: prefers sandy, poor-quality soils, but can tolerate a wide range including straight-clay Tolerance: tolerant to wind, salt, poor fertility Sun/Shade: Needs full sun. Significant branch die-back occurs in shade. Will not fruit without full sun. Benefits: Nitrogen fixer, edible nutritious berries, medicinal leaves that can be used as livestock feed, stabilizes erosion-prone soils Challenges: Suckers, sometimes prolifically (especially males) and can form large hedges. Large thorns. Fruit tends to burst when picking by hand. Need a male and female to get fruit. Fruit is too sour to consume fresh.
Seaberries with cherry tomatoes for scale (from the author’s garden). Note the oily sheen on the berries, which are rich in omega fatty acids.
Nutritional Benefits
The leaves of the sea buckthorn can be used as a medicinal tea. As always, consult your healthcare provider and understand fully any medicinal teas you are consuming and how they may interact with pharmeceuticals you are taking. While I’m not going to make medical claims about their use, I have enjoyed the tea myself. The leaves can be enjoyed fresh or dry easily and mixed with other garden herbs for a caffeine-free tea with a bright flavor. I prefer it with honey and milk.
The berries themselves are very, very sour, with a tinge of bitterness from the skin. I liken it to eating the skin of the sourest citrus you can find. As you might imagine, this means they are incredibly high in vitamin C. In fact, one serving has 6-10x the US RDA of vit C. The fruits also contain calcium, iron, phosphorus, magnesium, and vitamins B1, B2, B6, and E.
Seaberries are so highly prized because they are also one of the oiliest temperate fruits you can grow. When harvesting the berries, you can see the oil as it’s deposited on your hands and in the bowl. The berries are incredibly rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids such as omega-3, 6, 7, and 9. The berries themselves are rich in oil that gives a buttery quality to the juice, but the seeds can also be pressed to yield an additional harvest of unsaturated oils useful for human consumption and as a skin/hair conditioner.
How to Enjoy Seaberries
Juice. The whole reason I started growing seaberries is because I wanted a temperate-climate alternative to orange juice (we drink a lot of orange juice, and obviously, that increases our carbon footprint). I like to cut the juice with water (about 50/50), and add in honey until I get the sweetness I want.
Any recipe that calls for cranberries, currants, or sour citrus (like calamondin, yuzu, lemon): think curd, jam, cheesecake, and even mixers for whiskey sour.
Seaberries Are A Part of Sustainable, Local, Seasonal Eating
For me, seasonal, local, sustainable food production is a huge part of why I have a permaculture garden. I want to reduce my impact on the planet in any small ways I am able. That includes trying to grow as much of my own fruit as possible, and reducing the amount of imported fruit I need to buy for my family.
My adventure in growing sea buckthorn began as a search for a local, sustainable alternative to orange juice. I have since learned that this nitrogen-fixing shrub is a huge asset to my permaculture garden, as well as to my diet. It is not without maintenance that I keep 3 of these suckering plants happily fitting into my 1/4 acre design – and also not without the occaisional poke from the long thorns. But the sucker-removal is worth it for me as I continue to reap harvests of nutritious fruits, create wildlife habitat, and gain free nitrogen fixation in my garden.
Very large seaberries in the author’s garden. 2022.
