Growing papaya trees

Im totally new on gardening !!! Live in Tampa , Florida ..just transplant two days ago a couple of papaya trees from lowes ,one seems to be ok and the other leaves are lookinkg weak ....Do i need to water them very often ? They are at full sun and weather has being in the 88 ....
Also plant a few seed from a papaya from the grocery store .... How long do they take to germinate ??
All your comments are good !!! Like I said Im totally new... Thanks Paul

When you plant something from a can the roots are only in that small volume for quite a while, so you do need to direct the water to that space. Building a berm of soil just outside the area where the roots are will help hold some water in the area until it can soak in.

To tell when it needs water use a freshly sharpened pencil and stick this into the soil that came from the can (Where the roots are). If it comes back out dark, the soil is wet, so hold off another day or so to water.

With temps in the upper 80s you might want to rig up some shade from the hottest part of the afternoon sun.

I have no issue with growing papaya in Florida. I would be more concerned about overgrowth more than anything.

Their roots dig deep and expand the soil a bit, can become underground fortresses. You have to be careful where you put them, especially not around electric or cable lines, unless you grow compact dwarf type which is what I recommend for backyard garden. Unless you have lots of space don't want them to get over 20ft tall, which is easy in a year in good soil and sun.

Because their roots are so massive and does such a good job picking up water I never water them once they are grown, only until it get very hot during the summer and not rain that week.

When I chop down the papaya I replant the top half of the plant, but it will need some nutrient added and good mulching in order to get back to full health.

The naturally shed the leaves as they grow taller, and the leaves are very good organic matter to put back in the soil, it's great as mulch or composting because it break down extremely fast compared to regular tree leaves. You have to be careful to not use the leaves that has mildew or fungus on it though.

They reseed well too, you should never have to buy papaya plants again.

This message was edited May 14, 2015 8:46 AM

Are this papaya flowers?

Yes, you have to see what gender your plant is. There are male, female and hermaphrodite (bisexual) papaya. The male plants have smaller slender flowers, they will not get fruits but acts as the pollinator. The female plants has bigger rounder flowers and therefore bigger rounder fruits. You will not likely see these rounder fruits for sale in stores.

Then there is the bisexual papaya which have self pollinating flowers. Usually, farmers determine the plants that are hermaphrodite and keep them and get rid of the female plants. Their fruits are more pear shape and longer, so these plants can hold more fruits than the female plants, these longer pear shape fruits are the type you generally get in stores.

If you have a small fruit, but it drops then it means it was not successfully pollinated.

Also this is a controversial topic, but you may want be careful of replanting papaya seeds from store papaya because more than likely they are genetically modified, which can also contaminate the non-gmo plants, if that is something you're concerned about, if not then nevermind me.

This message was edited Jun 24, 2015 2:30 PM

My papaya flowers showing in the picture on previous post are droping ,but i can see more coming in , this flowers did not last to long ....is this normal ???

Can anybody can tell me what can kind of gender is this flower ?