2024 Pawpaw Festivals and Events
Updated: September 27, 2024
Why have a Pawpaw Festival?
Pawpaw Festivals celebrate the Pawpaw tree and it’s fruit. Nearly the size of a Mango, the Pawpaw fruit is the largest fruit native to North America. Pawpaw grow wild in 26 U.S. States! You’ll find trees near rivers & streams, or in ravines (hollers). The name is also spelled, Paw Paw. The Latin name is, Asimina triloba.
The fruit’s texture is like custard, and has a tropical fruit flavor. Fruit flavors have ‘hints’ of mango, pineapple, banana, or orange-citrusy flavors. Each Pawpaw tree has a specific flavor profile (whether in the wild or as a cultivar).
Pawpaw fruit are VERY healthy. Fruit contains all essential amino acids, high in minerals and provides many vitamins. Pawpaw has anti-cancer properties also. See us on YouTube — please subscribe!
10 Reasons why YOU should know the Pawpaw
- Pawpaw is 100% American. Native Americans and American Pioneers relied on the fruit.
- A LOW care fruit tree. Very little pruning is needed and is largely pest & disease free. Once established, little or no water is needed.
- Completely deer resistant. Deer do NOT eat this fruit tree! Damn deer….
- Trees are visually attractive. They grow in a pyramid-like shape and are draped with large dark green leaves.
- Pawpaw fruit is healthy! It contains all essential amino acids, is high in minerals, and provides many vitamins.
- Pawpaw fruit is tasty! What grows wild in the States that has hints of mango, pineapple, banana, or orange-citrusy flavors!
- Pawpaw trees have anti-cancer properties.
- Strong commercial properties. Pawpaw trees, fruit and seeds sell! Commercial opportunity includes supplying quality trees at scale.
- Pawpaw trees can be planted & grown in any US State! It grows wild (natively) in 26 US States!
- Virtually NO one knows about the Pawpaw 🙁. So check-out a Pawpaw Festival, and be part of a very cool community!
Pawpaw is the most interesting fruit tree in North America — period! It’s considered an exotic fruit.
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All 2024 Pawpaw Festivals and Events
Find a Pawpaw Festival near you. They are in Eastern US States. And there’s some new ones, including Pawpaw Festivals in Paw Paw, IL and Paw Paw, WV! Pawpaw Festivals take place in late-August through September. In 2024, we’re up to 14 Festivals and 7 Events!
Pawpaw Festivals are excellent family fun, or for individuals who want to hang-out. View commercial opportunities, buy a variety of fruiting plants as well as Pawpaw trees. Enjoy vendors selling a variety of natural products, exchange information, and meet artisans and like-minded people.
2024 festivals are listed first, then followed by Pawpaw events. Below are Festivals that I hope will return!
*** click on any festival to DOUBLE check the dates, when they open/close, or to pre-order tickets!
The History of Pawpaw Festivals
America’s forgotten fruit and forgotten festivals?
Were there Pawpaw festivals in the 1800s and early 1900s? The Pawpaw is truly America’s forgotten fruit. So were festivals forgotten too?
The Pawpaw’s merit was mentioned “as early as 1830 in the New York Farmer and Horticultural Repository.” And more than 125 years ago, “the Pawpaw was identified by an American Horticultural society as the native fruit with the highest potential….” That’s only two blurbs from Andrew Moore’s book, Pawpaw: In Search of America’s Forgotten Fruit. He documents how the fruit was well-known to many! Surely, the Pawpaw was sold in local markets, and from local farms. However, no festivals celebrated the Pawpaw … that we know of.
Pawpaw festivals beginning in 1999
Chris Chmiel is cited as creating the first Pawpaw Festival. In 1999, Chris began promoting the Pawpaw from his farm, Integration Acres. It grew into the Ohio Pawpaw Festival — the largest festival. In 2001, the Ohio Pawpaw Festival moved to Lake Snowden, the present day location. By 2010 it became a 3-day festival! Initially, there were about 500 attendees. Now, approximately 10,000 visitors enjoy the Ohio Pawpaw Festival. Ohio Pawpaw Festival’s official webpage.
The York County Pawpaw Festival started in 2004. Richard and Judy Bono hosted their first pawpaw event at Blue Moon, a restaurant in downtown York, PA. It is a 2-day festival! About 80 people attended the first festival . Now, over 2,000 attend the York County Pawpaw Festival! York County Pawpaw Festival’s official webpage.
The first North Carolina Pawpaw Festival was held in 2008. Like all festivals they offer free food made with Pawpaw, Pawpaw seedlings for sale, demonstrations, and speeches by special guests such as Neal Peterson and author Andrew Moore. NC Pawpaw Festival’s official facebook page.
Two other well-attended festivals include Michael Judd’s Long Creek Homestead Pawpaw Festival. His festival will soon celebrate it’s 10th annual event! West Virginia’s Pawpaw Festival is held at the WVU Core Arboretum. It was a REAL treat to attend, and to meet the organizer, Dr. Zach Fowler. And I met Neal Peterson and spoke with him at length!
COVID and Pawpaw Festivals
In 2020, all Pawpaw festivals were cancelled due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Washington DC had held its FIRST Pawpaw Festival in 2019! However, it never returned. Also, Delaware, Pittsburgh and Rock Creek Park Maryland Pawpaw Festivals never returned (as of 2023).
In 2021, a few Pawpaw festivals opened. It was GREAT to see the Ohio Pawpaw Festival and York County Pawpaw Festival open! Thank you! By 2022, the large Pawpaw Festivals were back :).
In 2022-2023, several new ones started! Blue Oak’s SC Pawpaw Festival in South Carolina, and KY Pawpaw Festival in Louisville.
Pawpaw Conferences
KSU International Pawpaw Conference
The Kentucky State University (KSU) International Pawpaw Conference is truly special. It’s not annual by design. The KSU Pawpaw Festival occur every 5 years, or so. They had one in 2001, 2011, and 2016. I caught “the pawpaw bug” in 2016 and didn’t attend. I assumed the event was annual. Opps.
Attendees arrive from as far away as Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Canada, Netherlands, and Romania. The Fourth International Pawpaw Conference celebrated the 100th anniversary of the American Genetics Association’s 1916 Best Pawpaw Contest. Scientists, nurserymen, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts attend. You have to be a serious Pawpaw nerd to appreciate that!
Here are agendas and all materials presented at the KSU International Pawpaw Conferences:
- Second International Pawpaw Conference Proceedings
- Fourth International Pawpaw Conference Proceedings
Their presentation materials are amazing to read.
New York State Pawpaw Conference
A new conference emerged in 2022! The Cornell Cooperative Extension of Oswego County and Cornell Cooperative Extension Harvest NY hosted an amazing conference about the Pawpaw. It took place in Pulaski, NY.
What caught my attention were the guests to this first-ever conference. Chris Chmiel (Ohio Pawpaw Festival), Sheri Crabtree (KSU Pawpaw Research Program), Michael Judd (author, permaculturalist, Long Creek Homestead Pawpaw Festival), and others.
I have the pleasure speaking with the organizer, Joshua Vrooman. One topic stood-out: the need for trees. The Pawpaw growing community must increase the volume of trees for sale in order to reach scale!
National Pawpaw Day
National Pawpaw Day History
Kentucky State University founded National Pawpaw Day in 2019.
KSU has the only full-time Pawpaw research program in the world as part of the KSU Land Grant Program. Pawpaw research efforts are directed at improving propagation methods, developing orchard management recommendations, conducting regional variety trials, understanding fruit ripening and storage techniques, and germplasm collection and characterization of genetic diversity.
Since 1994, KSU has served as the USDA National Clonal Germplasm Repository or gene bank, for Asimina species (Pawpaw), as a satellite site of the NCGR repository at Corvallis, OR. There are over 2,000 accessions (trees) from 17 states that are planted on 12 acres at the KSU farm.
How To Grow Pawpaw
Visit HEPPY’s How To Grow Pawpaw webpage. Grow Pawpaw trees, use the tree in landscape architecture and garden ideas, and enjoy free and healthy fruit. Support this largely unknown but valuable native tree! And please subscribe to our YouTube Channel!!
Pawpaw Plant Guide
1. Ten (10) Reasons why YOU should know the Pawpaw.
2. Fact Sheet.
3. Two type of Pawpaw Trees.
4. Pawpaw in landscaping and garden ideas.
5. Pick and Eat Pawpaw fruit.
6. Pawpaw health benefits.
7. Selling Pawpaw products.
8. Care and Maintenance.
9. Propagating.
10. Varieties of Pawpaw we grow organically right now!
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see our list of 400 edible plants
YouTube channel (please subscribe)
YouTube playlist for all our vid’s on Pawpaw (subscribe!)
Pawpaw Fact Sheet
Pawpaw, Asimina triloba
common names: false banana, pawpaw apple, custard apple, custard banana, Poor Man’s Banana, banana tree, Indiana banana, Nebraska banana, Hoosier banana, Michigan banana, white plum, paw paw
Fact Sheet
Zone: 5 to 9 (individual cultivars vary)
Height: 15 to 30 feet (cultivars vary, usually below 20’)
Native: North America
Bloom Time: April – May
Bloom Color: dark maroon
Fruit Maturity: Aug – Oct (depending on zone and cultivar)
Self-fertile: no (two varieties are required)
Sun: part shade (will tolerate full shade and full sun)
Water: medium (will tolerate drought and occasional wet soil)
Soil: forgiving (wide range but prefers high-organic)
Maintenance: low
Growth Rate: modest
Deciduous or evergreen: deciduous
Edible: fruit
Medicinal: yes
Commercial viability: strong but more recognition required
Family / Genus: Annonaceae / Asimina
