Sweet and delicious, this papaya s bright orange flesh is wonderfully refreshing in fresh salads, alone or mixed with other fruit. Plants grow to 8 feet in containers kept in full sun with temperatures above 65 F. In warm, sunny areas, plants grow fast and ripen fruit within a year.

Overwinter indoors and move outdoors in the summer. Fruits are borne along the trunk and ripen from hard green to softer yellow-orange. Palm-shaped, long-stalked foliage adds to the tropical look.Papaya tree bears many spherical or pear-shaped fruits that can have about 6-20 inches in length and 4-12 inches in diameter. The average-sized papaya weighs about a pound. The fruit is said to ripen when it feels soft to thumb pressure, and its skin has attained an amber to orange hue.