How to Grow Papaya: How Are Papayas Grown? How to Plant Papaya Seeds
Papayas are very easy to grow from seed. Spit the seeds onto the ground, and after a rain shower, you may well find lots of papaya seedlings sprouting up. But sometimes, when you actually want papaya seedlings, they simply refuse to germinate, often because the papaya seeds have been gnawed by ants or other insects, or because the temperature and humidity are not right. Let's take a look below at how to grow papayas.
1: Soaking the seeds
Whether or not you remove the thin membrane on the outer shell of the papaya seed is up to you; it only affects how long germination takes. As for how to remove it, you can rub it off. I first soak the seeds overnight (Figure 1), which makes them easier to remove.
2: Removing the membrane and preparing the soil
After soaking overnight, the membrane can be removed with a mesh screen or cloth. Once the membrane is removed (Figure 2), only the hard inner shell remains, and you cannot crush it with your hands. Now you can get ready to sow and raise the seedlings. First prepare a seedling tray and some soil. I use soil from vegetable garden A (natural farming for 2 years), digging up the softer soil from under the surface layer of leaves.
3: Sowing, covering with soil, and covering
Scatter the seeds on the surface of the soil, and you can then cover the seeds with a thin layer of soil; of course, you can also skip the thin soil covering. However, do not cover them too thickly, as this may slow germination or cause the seeds to rot. Next, sprinkle some water to moisten the soil, and finally cover it with a layer of cloth (Figure 3), and place this pot of seedlings under a tree or in a shady spot. The purpose of covering with cloth (preferably black shade netting) is to block light and retain moisture. In summer, when temperatures are high, this may not be a problem, but in winter, keeping warm and retaining moisture becomes very important. The optimum temperature for papaya germination is around 25°C.
4: Water moderately and wait for germination
After that, check on them every day. If the soil is too dry, water them. Once they germinate, remove the black shade netting. After about 3 to 4 days, they sprout (Figure 4), rather like a durian cracking open its shell, except that there are only two shell halves.
5: Transplanting the seedlings
Once the true leaves of the seedling have grown out (2 leaves), get ready to transplant the seedlings into individual pots.
6: Planting
When the papaya seedlings have grown to a certain size, plant them where you want to grow them. If you bought papaya seedlings from a nursery, plant one per spot. If you raised your own seedlings, plant 3 per spot, and once they grow and flower, decide which one to keep (remove the male-flowered ones). The reason: the seeds from nurseries have been selected. At the same time, you can let the papaya seedlings grow a little leggy, and when planting, lay them flat and plant them, which is a way of dwarfing them and makes harvesting easier later on. Of course, you can also use other methods to achieve this goal; as far as I know, there are 3 methods. This completes the process.