The First Papaya Blossom

Good morning Steemians!! Today I would like to talk about papayas. I probably have 15-20 Papaya "trees" on my homestead, and yesterday marked a significant event: my very first papaya blossom opened up.

Fruit tree blossoms are known for having incredible fragrances, like the citrus blossom and the passionfruit blossom, and the papaya is no exception. It honestly smells like when you open a brand new box of Trix cereal and take a big whiff, only better! It's incredibly sweet smelling, you will have to take my word!

I've come to find that the reason my papayas weren't flowering before now is because I would see little starts to flowers forming underneath the leaves, but I found a certain caterpillar that would chomp away at not only the leaves, but also the budding flowers!

This is the Ello sphinx caterpillar, which is a nuisance to papaya growers. It will later transform into the Ello sphinx moth. Notice it has a fake eye to scare off predators.

The Ello sphinx moth

This caterpillar is quite a pest, so I've had to use jet streams of water to knock them off the papaya and then put them far away from the plant.

I can't wait until the papayas fruit! I will be sure to show you all!

Thanks for stopping by,

@vegansilverstack