When I was a kid growing up in Pennsylvania, native fruits meant highbush blueberries and black raspberries that stained my fingers and filled up old coffee cans. As I grew older and moved to Virginia, I learned about the magical pawpaw fruit that graced moist forests.

Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is a small understory tree that’s native to much of the eastern United States. I remember the first time I bit into the fruit’s custardy flesh and tasted flavors that caused me to draw up comparisons to bananas, pineapple, and vanilla. I concluded that the pawpaw was unlike anything else I’d ever tasted.

Harvesting pawpaws at the right time is crucial if you want to enjoy their full flavor and creamy texture. Pick them too soon, and they’ll taste bitter and pucker your lips with astringency. Wait too long, and they’ll drop from the tree or become rotten.

Follow this guide to find out when and how to harvest pawpaw fruits.

When Are Pawpaws Ready to Harvest?

Fruits start ripening in late summer.

Pawpaws ripen in late summer through early fall, depending on where you live. Their native range stretches from the Midwest down to the Southeast, with earlier harvests occurring in the southern areas. You can expect to see the first ripe pawpaws as early as August, and the last as late as October.

Not all pawpaws ripen at once. A single tree often holds fruits at varying stages of maturity, so don’t expect to pick all the fruits in one go. Instead, you should look for signs of ripeness rather than relying solely on the calendar to determine when to harvest pawpaw fruits.

Key Signs that Pawpaws Are Ripe

You can use multiple factors to help you determine if pawpaws are ripe. In my experience, it’s easy to tell when the fruits are ripe and ready to harvest.

Color

Fruits start out green and change to yellow as they ripen.

Pawpaws start green and stay this color until they reach their final size. After they hit this milestone, they begin to change color as they ripen. The fruits develop a yellow-green color and eventually turn pale yellow.

Ripe fruits may develop light brown spots, similar to the specks you often see on bananas. Yellow-green skin plus brown dots means the pawpaws are definitely ripe. You can also harvest pawpaw as soon as they’ve lost their cool hue and started to take on warmer tones.

Softness

The fruits should be soft but not mushy.

Unripe pawpaws are firm and won’t give when you gently squeeze them. Ripe pawpaws are soft to the touch and will easily give with light pressure. Your goal is to harvest pawpaw fruits when they’re soft but not mushy.

Aroma

Ripe fruits emit a sweet fragrance.

Ripe pawpaws release a sweet fragrance with hints of mango and pineapple. If you can smell this tropical scent, it means that ripe fruits are near.

Ease of Harvest

Pawpaw fruits should easily detach from the tree.

When you harvest ripe pawpaws, they easily detach from the tree. If the fruits cling to the branches when you gently tug them, they’re not yet ripe.

Pawpaw Harvest Window

Fruits ripen over about two weeks.

The native edible plants produce ripe fruit over the course of two to four weeks. Multiple trees in the same area may ripen at different times, so you may be able to harvest ripe pawpaws for over a month.

Check the trees every few days during the harvest window. If you check for fruits only once a week, you’ll likely lose some pawpaws to insects, raccoons, squirrels, and other hungry critters.

Pawpaws don’t ship or store well for extended periods, so catching them at peak ripeness is key to enjoying them when their texture and flavor are at their peak. You can harvest pawpaw fruits when they’re slightly underripe, and they’ll continue to soften on the counter. However, unripe pawpaws won’t develop full flavor off the tree.

How to Harvest Pawpaw Fruit

Once you know what ripe pawpaws look like, harvesting is easy. The trickiest parts are reaching fruits that are high in the tree and handling the tender pawpaws without bruising them. Since ripe pawpaws readily fall from the trees, you can harvest pawpaw fruits from the branches and also collect some from the ground.

Pick By Hand

Pick easily accessible fruits by hand.

Pawpaw trees can grow over 20 feet tall, especially in the wild. That means that it can be difficult to see the fruits and tell if they’re ripe. I like to look for a color change. Ripe fruits stand out against the fully green, unripe pawpaws on the tree.

Gently grasp the pawpaw in your hand and give it a gentle tug while twisting slightly. Ripe fruits will easily separate from the branch. Sometimes, all you have to do is lightly touch them and they’ll fall from the tree. If the fruits are difficult to remove, they’re not ripe.

You can use a ladder to reach ripe pawpaws high in the canopy, or use a stick to touch the fruits or shake the branches gently. Ripe fruits will easily fall from the tree with this movement.

Gather Fallen Fruit

Fallen fruit is still edible.

Ripe pawpaws often fall to the ground before you get a chance to harvest them. These fruits are fine to eat as long as they’re not severely bruised or rotten. Look over the fruits and discard any that are cracked or filled with insects.

Storing Pawpaws After Harvest

Enjoy fruits soon after harvesting.

Once you’ve harvested pawpaws, they won’t last long. It’s best to enjoy the fruits within a few days after harvest, but you can store them for a few days on the counter. 

Placing the pawpaws in the refrigerator will allow them to last between five and seven days. However, their flavor may mellow and change in cold storage. You can also scoop out the soft, custardy flesh and freeze it for later use.