As I’ve been setting up scion exchanges this winter with people I’ve made exchanges with in the past, it’s been kind of fun to see how both my growing interests/goals and their growing interests/goals have changed over the years. I started off buckshot-style – just growing everything because it all sounded good. Then I started learning what works for my area, and also what I really like growing/eating/sharing with others. From that “grow everything” approach I’ve switched to mostly hybrid persimmons (which includes a lot of my own seedlings), figs (because I enjoy being able to work with them inside during the long winters here), russeted and red-fleshed apples, currants and berries for making jam, and a few stone fruit (because grocery store stone fruit is terrible). I also like trying out new tomatoes and sweet peppers every year.
The whole adventure has been a lot of fun. Success is great but so are the lessons I’ve learned from failures. And I appreciate having had the guidance of this community throughout. How about you? How have you seen your fruit growing evolve?
My experience is about the same. Very much like yours even down to the same fruits, except persimmons, which my wife hates, so it is not an option. I’m indifferent on them. Not my favorite, but don’t hate them either. Besides that I grow all the other fruit you mentioned and started growing what works, and what I like. Sometimes what I like is hard to grow, but I did figure out how to grow some difficult plants, not all. So the last few years I have been ripping stuff out a lot. This year I have a new lot to play with, and I’m having a blast planning it out.
Agree on failures too! The more plants I kill the better gardener I become.
Guidance from the community helped overall, but not always. Not in that bad a way or anything. I learned my tastes differ from many and what I passed on at first because of bad reviews, has turned into some of my favorites. Vice versa too, many praised to death I found boring. So I learned I must myself make a decision on taste. Growing habits and what works where from others have been useful. Also troubleshooting problems, the feedback has been very useful. Also access to cultivars I could not get elsewhere has been great. Probably the best part of the community.
I am trying to move away from the berries that get attacked by SWD and replace them with earlier bearers. This includes black raspberries and June bearing strawberries vs. ever bearing strawberries.
I’m aiming at growing things that are hard to get in the stores such as aronia, nanking cherries, elderberries, and rhubarb. I have found it easier to maintain a perennial plant vs a veggie that needs to be started, cared for, rotated yearly, and disposed of, therefore am turning several of my old beds into beds for rhubarb and aronia.
One giant lesson I have learned is that it is way easier and I suspect cheaper in the long run to make permanent cages and netting supports compared to what I did before, which was throw a bird net over the bushes once it started to get attacked. I now know berries will be attacked and metal conduit will hold up a net allowing me to get to the bushes and brambles to pick.
I have lowered my expectations about how many of one fruit I actually need. Getting 200 peaches this year was great, but took a lot of time and effort to deal with. If I get 100 apples per tree for 5 trees, I will have no where to store them all, especially if I get pears, and persimmons, and everything else. This is why I have grafted trees with the goal of getting a steady supply compared to a large haul.
I’m doing this with pluots. Currently I have about 5 seedlings going. Once other mature more, I will have a huge selection. For now I’m letting them cross naturally as I think offspring will be more receptive to pollen here if I do it this way, instead of forcing crossings. did do some intentional peach crosses though. I noticed one of the pluot seedlings has purple leaves, but none I have do. Inca does, but it was just added last year. Only the nectaplum has purple leaves, so it might have crossed with that? That would be very cool!
Anybody know where to get Flavor Blast or Flavor Fall, looking for those!
I still prefer temporary. I used rebarb which stays, and I put 1/2 inch PVC on them to form a cage. When done I dissemble and store in the shed. It only takes five minutes to put together or take apart. All parts are marked as to where they go. Conduit would be fine, I don’t want them there all the time. I may go that way one day. I use conduit for posts buried and cemented 4 feet in the ground. I use them for brambles and grapes.
i currently have 63 fruit varieties. grown on 1 1/2 acres. I’ve got a handle on how to grow most but not all yet. I’m realizing pushing my zone isn’t a good idea so now if it suffers any winter kill , i get rid of it. also know what i like and don’t like so like Drew, I’m ripping stuff out to plant more of what i like or more productive cultivars. I’ve applied for a tax number and am going to give this little chunk of land, farm status. will help some tax wise. I’m hoping by next year to sell my extras to the farmers market. there is a high demand for fresh locally grown fruit. there are plenty growing veggies but no one I’ve seen selling any kind of fruit. maybe now that i figured out what grows best in my yard, if i buy some land, i can expand my acreage in the future. if SWD finds its way this far north ill just kill off my ever bearers and plant summer bearing varieties. i love growing fruit so much i might as well make a business out of it. concentrating on cane fruit , blueberries and strawberries as these are the easiest to grow and maintain here and don’t require anything special to harvest.
Ten years ago I thought, “Why not grow a few apple trees?” and bought and planted some. English heirlooms and Liberty attracted me.
The trees chosen taught me some things, and prompted reading, which led to more reading and replacing first choices.
This led to trying to graft, which opened up huge possibilities. Success in grafting led to trying air-layering, rooting bushes and root stocks, and top-working trees to make use of established roots.
Swallow nest boxes I’ve built go up each spring for allies against codling moths and such. All fruit trees are mulched to, or beyond, the drip line to promote healthy growth and productiveness. Must do the same for bushes. Two of my neighbors have been enlisted in the quest to provide lovely and edible landscaping.
Now I’ve grown, tasted and enjoyed fruits unknown to me ten years ago. I now hope to supply most of the fruit I eat from the back yard. Some of these are so compelling, I may begin creating apple whips for sale to local people.
And thinking further on the question in this thread, I may have stumbled upon what I want to do when I grow up: create a nursery for orchards and back yard gardeners, supplying apples that can be grown here without resort to petrochemicals.
Too many people I’ve encountered have bought one or two apples from Big Box outfits from names they know, and are disappointed in the results of growing them. (Encountered a new employee at Lowe’s, who did just that last month. He went elsewhere and bought two apple whips, one labeled “yellow” & the other “red.” He even studied some horticulture!)
The inclination to do this is strengthened each season into a conviction: people need what I’m doing.
I now sticking with what trees that grew well in my climate and still be productive. Honey Jar jujube in full sun is awesome here. American and Hybrid persimmons grew well in my Z5. Pawpaws, Euro and Asian pears also done great here. Stone fruits are great but a little extra work of spraying and pest protection. As I get older now, I am growing more of the low maintenance trees except for 60 potted figs.
I went from trying to do a few grafts on one frankenapple to adding an apricot and a plum, and also a frankenpear. The goal is to eat as much home grown fruit as possible, so I try to stagger the harvests and also want good keepers. There’ve been one or two experiments (grafting plum to nanking cherry and apricot to plum) with mixed success. I also have done a few grafts for others, again, with mixed success.
Even though I am not really very good at pruning I actually kind of enjoy it, and sometimes I get a chance to work on friends’ trees. It’s really nice to work an overgrown, tangled and neglected apple or pear into an open, beautiful, healthy and productive tree, especially on a standard.
I’ve stayed away from soft fruit (because they make you deal with them on their time schedule and I hate discipline!) but I am thinking of getting a table grape or two.
I began with planting a dozen fruit trees in my 1.5 acre food plot for deer. Intentions were to eat what we wanted and let the deer have the extras and damaged stuff. But after discovering how easy it is too sell pumpkins from my yard, the orchard has turned into a future money earner during retirement.
This spring’s grafting will put me up too 100 fruit trees, which includes 62 varieties of apple, along with 25 american hazelnut, and 25 chestnuts.
I’ve also stopped spraying or fertilizing, and concentrated heavily on soil health. This has improved the health of my trees to the point where I had zero incidence of scab last year, without fungicides.
Still working to add to the diversity of my understory, and improve pollination with the addition of native bee habitat.