When are pawpaws ripe?
Pawpaws ripen over a short window, roughly four weeks per location, moving from south to north between early August and late October. Typical windows below; an early or late spring shifts everything by a week or two, so treat these as planning ranges, not promises.
| Region | Typical ripening window |
|---|---|
| Deep South (GA, AL, MS, LA, AR, SC) | Early August to mid September |
| Ohio Valley & Mid-Atlantic (OH, KY, IN, WV, VA, MD, PA, NC, TN, MO) | Late August to early October |
| Great Lakes & Northeast (MI, NY, NJ, CT, MA, WI, IL, IA) | Mid September to mid October |
| Pacific Northwest (OR, WA) | Late September to late October |
Pawpaw season: when to pick by variety
Across the country, pawpaw season runs from late summer through mid fall, roughly mid August into October, and exactly when pawpaws are ripe in your area depends on the variety you grow and how far north you are. No single date answers "when are pawpaws ripe," because the spread between the earliest and latest varieties is several weeks on its own, then region shifts the whole window again.
The earliest varieties open the season. Among our verified cultivars, the early ripeners are Kentucky Champion, Summer Delight, Allegheny, Pennsylvania Golden, Tropical Treat and KSU-Benson. Several of these begin ripening in August, and a few finish even earlier, so they are the ones to plant if you are in a short-season or northern spot and want fruit before the first hard frost. If you want to know when to pick pawpaws at the front of the season, these are the varieties to watch.
The latest varieties close it out. Our late ripeners include Susquehanna, Sunflower, Taytwo, Overleese, Prolific, Davis and Taylor, several of which ripen into the first week of October where they are grown. Late varieties extend the harvest, but in the coldest, shortest-season pockets their fruit can run out of warm days before it finishes ripening, so they reward a longer season.
Region matters as much as variety. Cooler, more northern areas ripen later and over a shorter window than the southern end of the pawpaw belt, where the same varieties can come in weeks earlier. The region table above gives the typical ripening window for your part of the country; pair it with an early or late variety to pull your own harvest forward or push it back.
How to use this
- Pawpaw festivals cluster in the back half of September because that's peak for the pawpaw belt.
- Ripe fruit lasts only days at room temperature (see harvesting and storing pawpaws). Call the orchard before driving; state pages list phone numbers where published.
- A live per-state status tracker (pre-season → ripening → peak → done) launches here ahead of the 2026 season.
Keep going
- Harvesting pawpaws: how to tell they’re ripe and how to store them
- Pawpaw festivals: 2026 dates and locations across the country
- Pawpaw pollination and named varieties
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