If you could only plant 3 of your fruit plants which would they be (CA area preferred)

General Fruit Growing
#21

autumn beauty fruits are defintely not available at the grocery store, since grafted stock is also rarely available-- even as scion wood. But as soon as you get one for yourself, you and your kids/grandkids are ‘vested’ for life(considering you live in sunny so cal), as if it was a pension plan with unlimited liquidity…

you could start with a li juju, which is also very desirable and relatively available, and then just buy bud wood later.

best to try as many cultivars grafted on your tree, and just keep those you really like. Quite sure though you’d already like li when in its prime.

figs are a must-have for me too, same with jujus which i really can’t live without.

pomegranates and 'simmons are also excellent options.

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#22

I really do have to add a fig to this list of three. There are many obscure figs I could name but they’re hard to find and very expensive when you do (cuttings go for $100 plus on ebay), so I’m going to narrow it down to one of the more common but very full flavored purple figs like Negronne, Petite Negri, Emalyn’s Purple or Violette de Bordeaux.

#23

not growing figs is a crime against humanity and the environment/water conservation, especially if your growing conditions permit :grin:

sapote is something i wish i could grow successfully here, btw. I see lowe’s selling it every now and then, which is so tempting…

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#24

Which Sapote; e.g., White, Green, Black, Chico, etc. ?

#25

edulis itself, and almost certain suebelle.

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#26

I believe by “edulis” you mean Casimiroa edulis. If not, then here is a list of of several Sapote-named plants:

Sapote Named Plants (pdf)

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#27

yes, and yes

#28

I can also count 16 references in medicine journals on lemons. Of these (from the abstracts) about 10 show protective effects on a variety of ailments. Plus I note that the use of lemon as medicine was independently discovered in India, East Asia, and various parts of the Mediterranean. It is difficult for me to believe in standard medicine, among other things they will prescribe damaging statins to get you out of your optimal cholesterol levels, and to a level where overall mortality increases. But to each his own.

#29

Now check the book I recommended.

#30

My three would be a fig, a Euro pear, a persimmon, a peach, and an apricot tree. (Hey, I never said I could count!) I’m still working out which specific cultivars do best in my microclimate, though. @amh0001, are you coastal or inland?

The peach might be a good, old-fashioned Babcock, partly because they are sweet, low chill, low acid, and delicious, and partly because they are so perfectly round and beautiful hanging on the tree. An aesthetic experience all around. I grafted a babcock scion onto my big seedling peach tree in 2015, and by 2016 I had a branch with SIXTEEN gorgeous perfect peaches. It seemed unreal compared to the scruffy pickings I got from other grafts. (But note that I do spray with copper sulfate for peach leaf curl, or I couldn’t do the Babcocks.)

The pear I’m still working out which do best here, since we get a lot of black spot/scab and fireblight. My huge old Winter Nelis that was here when we moved in needs way more chill than we get here, so I’ve grafted much of it over to other types. Only about a third of them have fruited yet.

The fig is also a puzzle. My 3 year old Desert King does well here, but I find it bland. Maybe it will get better tasting when it’s older or if I step up the fertilizer. I’d love to grow a richer purple fig, but many other figs don’t ripen here! I’ve had to argue that point on this forum because many people think you can grow any fig in California, but I’m in Northern CA and it’s pretty foggy here. Nothing worse than figs falling off in winter, still unripe, as happened with my Brown Turkey.

Persimmon would probably be Hachiya type, although I’ve never tried an American persimmon, nor even a chocolate type (my Maru grafts haven’t fruited yet), so that could change.

And I’ve had a Katy apricot that is fully mature but will not produce fruit, despite full sun, thus I’ve grafted a million others onto it. I have high hopes for the Nicole grafts this year. I grew up with a Blenheim tree, and there’s nothing like a tree-ripened apricot, but I haven’t had a truly ripe one in decades.

This is coming from a person who has never tasted a jujube, and apparently they are life-changing, so take it all with a grain of salt!

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#31

PawPaws, Persimmons, Mulberries / Jujubes

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#32

Hey lizzy,

I am inland. I agree with you that a tree ripened apricot is amazing. I have had Jujube, and they are not super amazing, but they are good. I dont care for the flavor when its fresh, but dried, it has a cool spongy texture and subtle sweetness. I think they are hardy trees tho.

I have 2 figs, Panache and Violet, but I keep them in pots and they are not very happy. I get only a little bit of fruit.

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#33

Hmm, interesting. I want to try both of those figs. I wonder if they are unhappy because of the pot, or that it doesn’t get hot enough.

#34

My Desert King is very good (and was so from the get-go), I think your area might not have enough heat to develop the flavor. I mean, the main crop is really good, the breba is kind of bland indeed.

#35

I’m considering doing what @Richard does with fig trees down in Southern California, that is, pruning hard in winter (skipping the brebas altogether). I want to change the structure of the tree anyway–I haven’t been pruning it properly. And maybe I will get a better fall crop that way…?

#36

I do just the opposite, which means doing nothing — I don’t prune and don’t fertilize, just let the trees grow on their own. The only thing I do is turn on drip irrigation in April and turn it off in October. But I’m in a different climate — with much hotter summer days.

#37

@Lizzy, you give your location as coastal northern California, in zone 9b. This pruning method should work fine for you – after all it is the preferred method in Japan. A sanity check is … do you have sustained new growth into our Fall, and do the figs that develop on new growth produce a meaningful, edible crop?

#38

Is the sanity check for MY sanity, or the method? Cuz I’m not sure I’ll pass :wink:

I’m not getting great growth from my fig in general, Richard. I think I have been underfertilizing it, and possibly even underwatering as well, this last spring and summer. It could also be that it’s pretty near a runaway Meyer lemon tree, which might be stealing all the water and nutrients. I’m going to cut the lemon tree way back–do you think that will stop the roots from depriving the fig? (I’m also going to cull half the lemons, should have done this earlier!) We got some decent figs this summer, just not super-flavorful. But it was a very weird summer–almost no real heat at all, and that was unusual, and unlikely to be repeated.

#39

If that lemon is on a dwarfing citrus rootstock then in no way would it out compete the roots of a fig. I think your on the right track about water and a cooler summer. Also, Desert King isn’t suited to your location.

There is a wide range of flavors among fig cultivars. Have you tasted many of them and have a preference? From that we could then narrow it down to a specific cultivar that has that flavor and also works in your area.

What community do you live in?

#40

Lizzy,

We get a lot of June gloom from May through July around here, so I try to find figs that don’t need much heat. If your are looking to try a different fig, I have had great luck with Violette de Bordeaux. I have about 20+ varieties right now, and they don’t all get good flavor. But VdB is a variety I would highly recommend. Monterrey Bay Nursery lists it and Blue Celeste,’ ‘Bourjassote Grise,’ and ‘Flanders’ as good choices for climates similar to theirs.

http://www.montereybaynsy.com/plants.php?alpha=F
“Four of the varieties below performed extremely well in a 2012 evaluation - in containers even! - right here in our cold, miserable, wind tunnel location. This wasn’t a definitive test, as such old coastal stalwarts as ‘Osborne Prolific’ and ‘White Genoa’ weren’t available to trial. But the superachievers, ‘Violeta de Bordeaux’ (already in production), ‘Blue Celeste,’ ‘Bourjassote Grise,’ and ‘Flanders’ (coming soon!) ripened their first “crop of the year” (versus an overwintered, spring to early summer ripening breba crop) even before ubiquitous but usually lackluster ‘Brown Turkey.’ Most importantly all had substantially superior density, sweetness and flavor as well. Performance was in the order just listed, with ‘Violeta’ coming in first. All four should be considered to be at or near the top of the list in cool-summer areas and of course anywhere warmer as well. The others, below as already in our catalog, are best sited in warm to hot summer climates. rev 11/2013”

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