I am planning on using backyard orchard culture techniques to hedge row a bunch of fruit trees around my tiny 6000 sq. ft lot in the SF Bay Area. Our goal (my husband is roped into this) is to have many interesting varieties of fruit all year. I want to focus on growing varieties that are really hard to find or fruit that tastes better when you grow it, but also grow some favorites.
Hedge row questions:
Right now I am planning on going every 4’ with a tree about 4’ away from a fence. Is is better to have more small trees or a few large trees and just graft on all the varieties I want?
Variety Questions:
We get a lot of sun but not a lot of heat (I think my heat zone is 2 2017 excluded). We get somewhere between 300-500 chill hours.We can get a light frost ~30-31F, but that is super rare. I am totally prepared to fail a lot and do a lot of grafting, but want to know if the varies I am picking sound like good ones to start with.
Here is my to plant list (I already have a meyer lemon and I have my avocados and cherries figured out. We aren’t big fans of apples):
1 apricot - Blenheim (Late June early July)
1 aprium - Summer Delight or Cot N Candy?
2 nectarines - Arctic star( early to mid June) and Double Delight (July)
1 Santa Rosa weeping plum (Early July)
1 or 2 pluots ? either one multi graft pluot or two pluots: a Favor King (late Aug) and either a Dapple Dandy (early Aug) or Flavor Grenade (Sept)
1 strawberry free white peach (mid July); my favorite peach
1 Seckel pear ? Not sure if this is a good choice for our area
2 pomegranates - Parfianka and Eversweet
2-3 fig trees - A VdB for sure. Overwhelmed… I could spend years lurking on fig forums.
1 mulberry tree - dwarf morus nigra if I can find one
1 banana ? Looking for an interesting variety that can take some chill
1 Bearss Lime
1 New Zealand lemon
1 Moro blood orange
1 Red grapefruit (will any get sweet here)?
I would love some help filling in the question marks or any other feedback
We love apricots. Especially white apricots… was planning on growing Cot N Candy until I read all the bad reviews here, so now I’m leaning towards summer delight
Also, I love red grapefruits… I want to try to grow one even though it may never get sweet. Is there one I stand a better chance with?
Thanks,
Robin