The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Growing Tropical Fruit in Ontario

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

Growing papayas in Ontario seems impossible, but avid gardener Drew Raine loves a challenge and has a 12-foot papaya tree to show for it. Drew has also been growing mango, kumquats, limes, and grapefruit for more than 10 years - all without a greenhouse. Relying on containers that he can move indoors in cold weather, Drew has maintained his connection to his South American roots by bringing the tropics north.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From epic camping trips to scenic local hikes, spending time outdoors is a great way to create lasting memories to share with friends and family. This summer, TVO is celebrating the natural wonders that inspire unforgettable adventures with great documentaries, articles, and learning resources about beloved parks in Ontario and beyond. Visit tvo.me slash Ontario summer stories for all this and more. And be sure to tell us your stories for a chance to win great prizes. Help TVO create a better world through the power of learning. Visit TVO.org and make a tax-deductible donation today. Oh, hey, how's it going? So you want to know about trees, exotics growing in

Ontario. You've come to the right place. I'm gonna show you guys my secret garden that I've been growing for the last 10 plus years. I got a bunch of exotics and some rare plants in Ontario, some rare trees and stuff. Come on and come check it out. Tropical fruits in Ontario from anything from citruses, oranges, kumquats, lemons, sigil lemons, limes, papayas, bananas. It's just an endless assortment of stuff that you can actually grow in Ontario without a greenhouse. A bee.

Why would anybody want to grow tropical fruit trees in Ontario? It just sounds crazy, right? Like, it's minus 20, 50% of the time of the year. It's windy. There's zero sun. It's just, the conditions are just brutal, right? Screw that. Ever since I came to Canada, so I'm originally from South America. I was born on a sugarcane plantation.

My father was a sugarcane cutter. We used to have papayas, sugarcanes, mangoes. And when I came to Canada, I still wanted to grow these fruit trees. I still had that passion for it. And the fruits that would come in wouldn't taste as good or fresh like the stuff you get at the supermarket. So I was like like let me start growing my own stuff I love growing tropicals because I mean it reminds me back to a happy place when I

was a kid climbing a papaya tree and eating a fresh papaya a lot of people that I know don't really connect to it so they may be confused like why is this guy growing a subtropic or a tropical plant in his in his house like what's? What is he doing? Does he have a job? Like what's going on here? Right. But I love that stuff. And the reward from it is great in the winter. And it's cold out there. I'll just sit underneath my tree or beside my tree and I'll like grab an orange and I'll eat it. Right. Like that's like that's my little retreat. It throws me right back to like a vacation mode it's like a really cool you know emotional thrill ride from it

it's like a really weird thing i guess to try to grow you know tropics indoors a lot of challenges associated with it but i like a challenge when you're using you know a different part of your brain that you're not you know used to using daily. We all have a stressful life. Just plant an orange tree and just love it, right? It's gonna give you so much reward from it. It's gonna take that stress out. You're gonna sit there, you're gonna smell the flowers. It's a great meditative tool, to be honest.

It's really cool. This is like the pre-Honeycrisp apple. It's smaller than Honeycrisp, but it's just as sweet and tarty um love this tree i've been growing this tree since it was a stick literally a stick that's about two feet tall i got it from a nursery in york region he told me i could take this stick and plant it in ground i thought he was lying all my friends would come over they would laugh at me this guy this guy's growing a stick what's what's gonna happen now I have this what 10-foot tree that grows one of the most delicious apples you

could ever taste it's it's phenomenal it's about to flower soon and it's gonna attract a lot of bees and it's gonna grow some fat fat apples this guy pink reddish flowers apple is red on the outside and inside it's also red I've never seen a fruit like this in a supermarket again grew from a stick here I'll show you the crown jewel that I've been growing for 10 plus years. It's called the pawpaw, native to Ontario. I love to do the impossible. If it's difficult to grow, I will want to grow it. I want to grow a jackfruit next. I want to, right? Those are some crazy trees. The more difficult it is to grow, I want to try it. That's why when I first found out about these pawpaws was like I gotta find out about it I want to grow it and let's grow it and now I'm got my first bloom in the

ever since I got it, I'm like excited about that and My friends were making fun of me. I'm not gonna be trying any of those fruits Going to supermarket and not being to access fruits that are grown in going to the supermarket and not being able to access fruits that are grown in Ontario is wild to me. The reason you can't buy a pawpaw in a grocery store is because it has a short lifespan. It gets bruised, it decays relatively fast, it doesn't transport easily. But that shouldn't stop you from buying a treat, planting it and taking care of it, and eating a fresh pawpaw, you know, in the next couple of years from now. It doesn't look like much right now.

This is my pawpaw. I've been growing this majestic sub-tropical native to Ontario tree that looks like a tropical tree that gives off a very tropical fruit, looks like a mango, tastes like a custard apple, and is one of the most difficult trees that I've been growing for the last 10 plus years. This year, this tree is finally flowering. This is the pawpaw bloom.

It's gonna flower very, very soon. Can't wait, super excited. 10 years in the making, now I need to find another local tree that I can actually cross pollinate with this flower because my other papa is too lazy to flower guys hopefully this year i'm going to get my own papas to eat one cool thing that's happened is side note since we got um legalized there's been like a influx of cannabis stores so you walk in there you're you know they think

you're cool you know you're you're into that cannabis stores. So you walk in there, you're, you know, they think you're cool You know, you're you're into that cannabis culture, but I'm just going there asking them stuff about how do I fertilize my papaya? How do I get more oranges? I need something to increase my bloom. Can you give me a bloom organic? Oh, yeah What is it? I got the fig Like okay, it's a papaya. He's like, okay They probably think I'm joking with them to be honest But um the garden centers don't have this stuff It's a papaya. He's like, okay. Um, they probably think I'm joking with them to be honest, but, um, the garden centers don't have this stuff.

The garden centers have the basic fertilizer or the basic, um, herbicides. So this is mangosteen. This is like my favorite fruit. Um, it tastes delicious. It looks like a brain inside here, a white fleshy brain, but it tastes sweet and tangy at the same time, super refreshing. So let me cut this guy open. I mean, it's scary sometimes buying fruit that you're not familiar with. Like the first time I bought a mangosteen at the supermarket,

I didn't know what it was. And 70% of it was spoiled and it was disgusting. I didn't know if that's what the fruit was, but I was lucky I got 30% really good fruit in that batch and it was one of the best tasting fruits I've ever had. I think that's a lot of, there's some consumer education missing, that people don't have access to these fruits and stuff.

I like trying new stuff, but if I see something I've never tried, I'll go buy it. You just gotta really just try it and see what's different and if you like it, you like it, right? Yeah, if you get an ever chance to try something new just do it It just opens up your palate. I started with little simple things peppers, and then I started to push the boundaries I started to grow pomegranates I'll get a pomegranate from the store plant the seed and I'll grow for like six years

It was starts a flower and then the dogs would destroy it because those fruit sticks are really sweet. So once a dog has it, they'll just destroy it. So I've replaced so many of those trees, but citruses, dogs do not like going near citruses because they're thorny. So here is the collection of some of my exotics that I have. This is my banana that has been beaten up by the local Ontario weather. It's still alive, still doing pretty good, guys,

but you can see some stress marks on it or whatever. It's a great tree to have, very low maintenance, but in the summer, this will be like a vibrant green. This has another two years before it actually fruits. Once it fruits, you gotta chop down that banana because a banana will only fruit once on that tree. And that's why these other suckers I've kept because I'm going to replant them in another plant soon. And these guys will give off bananas. This is a kumquat tree.

This will grow a ton of kumquats in the winter. Who doesn't like the smell of an orange grove in your kitchen this is a citrus tree it's an orange tree and when it flowers it just takes over the house it smells just like a citrus grove in Florida I bring these guys inside because obviously the beautiful Canadian winter just decimates and destroys these these tropical of. But yeah, this is such a great taste in orange and you grow about like 15 to 20 oranges that are the probably one of the sweetest and crispest oranges you will ever eat. Unless you go to Florida and handpick one from a tree. Grapefruit.

And this is a lime and it grows me limes that I use in my Coronas in the summer. It's very thornyny my dog hates this tree this is a seed roll lemon one of the biggest lemons that they actually have out there it's grown in italy beautiful tree thorns are massive the fruit are massive it's probably that size of a lemon that you grow you use it you can candy the, or you can use the rinds for some, for cooking. Great tree, very low maintenance. And it grows really big and really fast. Summer does phenomenal. And I just water it with that drip system and I'm good to go and I leave it and I just watch the lemons grow.

So now this is the dark side of growing tropicals in Canada. This papaya was doing phenomenal up to maybe two weeks ago i decided to bring it out a little bit early to get a bunch of sun because this winter we've had very little sun all together the days were still dipping down below 12 degrees not frost but colder the papaya started to show some signs of of stress what you see here is an example of cold shock um when a tree gets really stressed out i'm just missing the fruit season which sucks there's some green uh leaves that are still growing out of here very disappointed i'm hurt this is a great tree one of my favorite trees um it's 12 feet at once with all the the canopy we'll have some days that's 20

but the evenings will go down to like eight degrees and it will shock your tree it's weird because you do build a connection for these guys like my like my papaya like i'm sad because it's it got shock and now i'm like you know in father you know mode that i got protected and nurse it back to health or whatever because in the winter time when i'm stressed and depressed I'm sitting underneath that and I'm just like chilling. It's just throwing me back to a happy time. If you're a young adult and you plan on having kids, go buy a tree.

Your kids are gonna love that stuff. Now my kids are at the age that that's all they wanna do is play outside with me and pick trees and I have such a great connection with my children. My daughter, she's climbing the ladder to climb a 10-foot papaya tree indoors in a winter storm in Ontario. I like the papaya. Papaya, papaya.

Best papaya ever. Thank you.