Ha ha congrats tydiggy lucky you, mine are huge and has flowered several times but still no fruit yet.

Bless

dont congratulate me yet as i dont know whether or not my tree will fruit. looks like the tree has female flowers. in which case, they need to be pollinated but there is no papaya trees around my neighborhood. can anyone confirm that these are female flowers and that the pic on the right is a start of a papaya fruit? thanks

They look like female flowers to me.
they could be Herm flowers

but, even with female flowers, its possible they can prioduce fruit.
it depends very much on the variety, and where yo got the seed from.
i cant really tell from the pic, but if there is any solid mass at the base of the flower, it is a fruit.
you may even need a few more days to be sure.

Papaya sex can be a funny thing.
if you get a male tree, and chop the top off
(or put a nail in the trunk) ,
most of the time it turns into a herm, or a female.

Most of mine are from a store bought fruit
caribbean red.
and most of what i get are herm flowers
i have grown at least a dozen (or 2) to full size
and have never even seen a male flower.
they all seem to produce fruit.
i am pretty sure there are no males in the area either.

i just got my first small buds of the year too.
this last winter killed most of my adult trees.
most of the time, they would just loose leaves and come back strong in the spring. this last winter was brutal on them.

these are my trees last summer, before the freeze...

good luck
its a really kewl plant. and very healthy.

Thanks greemman! You pic looks good. Too bad the freeze killed most of your trees. how many do you have left now?

Anyways, by the look of my flowers, they look like females. I got these seeds from the fruit(s) i bought from the store or from a neighbor you gave my family some fruits so i don't know which is which. I just saved the seeds and start germinating them. This one actually survived through last winter. Lets hope that it will start producing fruits. I hope it doesn't get too tall though!

I'm pretty sure even male trees have fruit. As I recall, you can tell gender by the shape of the fruit--round, torpedo, or teardrop shaped. Sorry, don't remember which is which.

If you're worried about the tree getting too tall, pinch the top growth to promote branching. Really, papayas will branch!

my best-producing papayas are growing out of my old compost heap. Of course!