Hello I’m wanting to plant a variety of fruit trees I already have blueberries, goji berries and mulberry’s
But I’m looking for kumquats and peaches apples limes
Plums just really everything is there any online stores where I could get them that they could possibly fruit this growing season or the next? Thank you
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Fast growing trees is a website where you can order “fruit bearing” trees, but they’re all about $120-200 each. I’ve paid for several like that because I wanted fruit the same year. I have sense changed that approach.
I’ve ordered 5 fruit bearing trees and they all did flower the first year. They also set fruit. But the fruit was weak and all fell off. The tree didn’t have the root structure to maintain the fruit on the branches. So I ended up having to wait another year anyway. And then on those second years it was a light fruit set.
But I noticed my small fruit trees actually caught up to the big ones over three years. Looking back I would have only ordered the small bare root.
It does not take many years to get fruit. I get 5-6’ of new growth on every tree I plant. I mix up biochar and mycos mycelium mixes into the hole, and bury it. Native soil only. Then I mulch it a foot tall with aged and sifted woodchips.
If you want to go with cheap trees that are reliable, look at plantingjustice, willisorchard, tytynursery or burntridgenursery. I’ve had luck with all of those websites. Also gurneys, onegreenworld and Arbor Day
Many places are halfway sold out though…
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@Growingreener
Welcome to GrowingFruit!
As Djherndon points out, perennial fruit trees require patience. They’re not like tomatoes which you can plant and harvest the same year.
I saw you mentioned Kumquat. Here’s where you can order seedless Kumquat and many other Citrus online:
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Arbor Day and Willis have mixed reputation. Tyty is consensus the worst online nursery by far.
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Most tree will require patience and not an overnight thing. It is a later payoff. I have found with some tree they come with flowering plants already but it is not much at first and those are kind of the luck of the draw trees.
I don’t know anything about the company but in my search for trees that wouldn’t take potentially 5 years to fruit I found Naturehills .com had slightly older trees of the small varieties I was looking for. I’m not sure about larger trees since a #3 container was 3-4years growth for the dwarf trees but might not be enough size for whatever you are looking for. Cost and shipping are high for older trees. We are going to call locally to see if any landscaping services or large nurseries nearby can source trees a couple years older and have them shipped cheaper.
It’s extremely unlikely to get fruit off something the first year you plant it with a few exceptions. The plants have to establish a root system in their new soil, recover from transplant, and store up lost nutrients. I’d still rather shorten it to 1-2 years instead of 3-5 years. There’s a chance we won’t even be in this house 5 years from now or we might stay here for 20 years. I have no idea but spending $50-$80 and potentially only harvesting fruit 1 or 2 times instead of getting it next year from a $100-$150 tree is currently worth it provided I can find what we want. We’ve avoided planting fruit trees in 3 different places we’ve lived despite wanting to for more than 10 years now.
Since the pandemic started fruit trees selling out quickly. Your at the tail end of the buying season for fruit trees so your options are going to be more limited. Here are three good vendors that are selling some of the trees you would be interested in.
https://www.grandpasorchard.com/
Some advice-
Do some research before buying trees. You want trees that are going to do well in your climate (Houston, Texas). You could look at old threads dealing with planting fruit trees in Texas. Also you could start a thread asking for recommendations for apples, peaches, plums, etc. that do well in Texas. Picking trees that have resistance to the diseases that you will face in Texas will reduce or eliminate the spraying you have to do.
Edit It’s not realistic to expect fruit the first year from new trees. For apples you may get fruit the second in certain special cases but in most cases for dwarf trees expect fruit starting in years 3-5 depending on the cultivar, rootstock and other variables. Larger trees usually take longer to bear.
In certain cases locally you can buy very large trees that will bear the first year but they usually cost hundreds of dollars per tree and are not readily available since shipping costs are high. One of our forum members has a business producing very large trees for wealthy estates.
Legg Creek Farm,in Douglass,TX may be something to check out.It looks like they have some older fruit trees available.
I have bought from them before and the plants were fine.From their email,right now and it ends tomorrow,3/12,everything on their site is 25% off,at $100 or more order.Some things might be slim pickings,but they may have a few that might work.
Use promo code EVERYTHING25 to get 25% off order of $100 or more.