Moving Back to TN! Need Variety Suggestions

General Fruit Growing
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@Evdurtschi — welcome to the Volunteer State… been here all my life (60+ years now)…

I am in southern middle TN, south of Nashville about 70 miles.

You need a nice strawberry bed … they are my first fruits to ripen here (other than morel mushrooms). I ate my first strawberry on April 28 this year, with most ripening in May and my everbearing type (Eversweet, ripening some all season long).

Recommend Earliglow, Surecrop, Eversweet.

Goumi are my second fruit to ripen - easy to grow, good for fresh eating, I have Sweet Scarlet and Red Gem. They are planted next to apple trees (nitrogen fixers).

Down here my Loganberries start ripening end of May and produce for about a month and a half, loads of big pretty berries. I have Red, black and gold raspberries too and they start ripening around June 1, and produce heavy for a month or so.

Next Blackberries and Blueberries kick in…

I see you have your cane fruit selected already, but you might keep in mind that SWD pest, normally shows up here when our wild blackberry crop is coming in (month of July mostly) and here they really seem to prefer blackberries… so it is good to have Early Ripening blackberry varieties. A blackberry that ripened in June would be ideal to miss our SWD pest peak.

Note SWD were really bad here year before last, but hardly noticeable this year. I hope some natural enemy is taking them out.

On Blueberries… I have all Rabbit Eye types… Tiff Blue, Climax, Powder blue, Brightwell — and I have heard from others that Yadkin is a excellent RE type. I plan to add it soon.

I have a Chicago Hardy Fig (4 years now) in ground… but when it first goes dormant (frost, drops all leaves) I cut it back to about 2 ft tall… and protect that 2 ft, by surrounding it with hay bales and a tarp.
Then I uncover early April… and it grows like crazy… the last two years harvesting 400+ figs from it.

On Peaches… I took out 3 peach trees this year… like you man I love peaches… but between the OFM and brown rot… and my - NOT going to spray it attitude… it was a loosing battle.

If I were going to try another Peach variety, with a Low or No spray program… it would be one that Ripens Early… “Rich May aka Flavor Rich” ripens very early and is a pretty good peach.

When I had my 3 peach trees, I had one “Early Elberta” that ripened peached June 15… and I had my best luck with getting a few good (no spray) peaches off it. The tree that ripened 2-3 weeks later, the BR and OFM almost always got those.

Rich May is supposed to ripen peaches late May early June… less hang time, less time for pest and disease to take them out. That was my plan anyway, if I ever do try another peach tree.

I have one apple tree that i have had decent luck with (no spray) Early McIntosh… it is quite early, ripening fruit mid June - mid July. I am trying a few other varieties that have not produced fruit yet, but I have hope for… including NovaMac, Akane, Hudson Golden Gem.

I have wild persimmons and am adding some named varieties next spring (American H63A, WS8-10, Proc, (Hybrid - Kassandra), Asian - IKKJ.

Jujubes… I have a couple 3 year old trees… going on 4 now… but only one has fruited so far and I was not impressed with the fruit quality, taste, etc… I can recommend that you DO NOT try GA866 or Lang… That is what I have… I ordered a Shanx Li, but got a Lang (based on fruit shape). And not impressed with it at all. I plan to keep the Jujubes but top work them over to other varieties… Honey Jar, Chico, Maya, Black Sea. These are supposed to be better flavored fruit than my Lang. I prefer sweet/tart mix — really do not care for sweet only fruit.

Mulberries, I have a Gerardi Dwarf, and adding a Silk Hope.
I grafted Gerardi onto a stump last spring and it grew 8 shoots over 6 ft in one season.
I think it likes our southern heat. Hope to get some fruit this year.

Good Luck to you !

TNHunter

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Excellent information! Thank you

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There are two peach orchards in the Lebanon/Mt. Juliet area. The owners of Breeden’s Orchard were planning to build a café. Maybe you could pickup some free advice with lunch at their place. On this forum, I asked about varieties to plant that could tolerate late frosts. Based on personal experience and members advice, I’d start with Red Haven, Contender, and Carolina Gold. I think you could use Bonide Fruit tree spray per the label directions and have a nice crop from July 4- Aug 15. I’d rather do the work and know the spraying was done properly. Besides, there’s nothing better than a tree ripened peach. Unfortunately, it’s a not commercially viable option for most orchards to only sell the best.

The apples I have that do well and I like are Ginger Gold, Granny Smith, Auvil Early Fuji (favorite), and Arkansas Black (AB). It seems to me AB is a cooking apple that taste fantastic fried. I have read they are great after 60 days of storage but I have not had one that I like much better after storage.

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Fantastic!! Thanks for the information. I’ll definitely look up the peach orchard people. That will tide me over while I get mine established.

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Thanks to years of going to Andy’s Orchard in Morgan Hill, I can say that the best peaches on the planet are the Kit Donnell that he developed and the Baby Crawford, the former being very large and the latter rescued from UCD’s rejection because the peaches were too small to be commercially viable, although after Andy gets done thinning his I don’t find them particularly small. But those two are so very very good, and I highly recommend them.

I found him while searching for the Loring peach of my childhood. They appear to be descendants thereof but definite improvements on (he has a few Loring trees, too, so I got to do some direct comparisons.)

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Evdurtschi,

Peaches, “if there worth having, there worth the effort.”

We have 3 Red Havens and once you learn how to prune to open center, understand spray timing, deer and raccoon fencing, the frost is your main gamble. It took me 2 seasons, to get the list down above. Mostly from help on this site. In 6 seasons, one killing frost but still got 250 peaches. Last two seasons we harvested 1500 and 1000 respectively.

Peach trees grow so fast. We planted 30 inch tall trees, no bigger around than your little finger and still got two nice peaches that year. By the end of year two, they were 6 ft tall and 8 ft wide.

So, if having lot of peaches sounds good, give it a shot.

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That sounds very very good to me! Thank you

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Evdurtschi,

You shouldn’t have any issues finding trees in your area. McMinnville, TN is the Nursery capital of the world with 300+ nearby. It looks like it is south east of Nashville

Best to buy very small peach trees.

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That is great news!! Thank you

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The Orlinda Watermelon Company in Orlinda, Tennessee might be willing to provide advice. I purchased a Sugar Baby watermelon at the nearby Hancock Market. It was the best watermelon I’ve had in a long time.

I have some unused plastic laid for strawberries this fall. I’m hoping to fill that space with watermelons around May 1st. I’ve heard the Amish community around Elkton, KY sells watermelon starts.

As far as paw paw fruit. I do not know if there are different varieties but the one I had was not very good as fresh fruit. I read how to select the fruit and followed the advice. The texture was close to liquified banana, very sweet, and had hard seeds. I see that it could be a good ingredient but then contending with the seeds would be a headache. I know at least 10 people that have tried the fruit from at least 2 locations. None of them liked it. Actually, I do not personally know anyone that likes paw paw fruit.

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SKYO
I’m figuring you’re in the Cadiz area…

Folks pretty much fall into two camps, from the outset, with pawpaws, and there’s usually no crossover - they either find them delectably delicious or disgustingly insipid.
Then, there are folks like me, who initially really liked them, but now, I can eat one… and that’s enough to do me until next year.

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Check out the ground cover in the pic below… in my food forest bed.

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That was a single Charleston Grey watermelon vine… that produced 7 nice size watermelons. Not one was small. Delicious too. Big seedless heart area.

I have grown lots of watermelon varieties here in TN over the years… CG is my fav.

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Wild fruit can vary wildly (pun intended).
Largest patch near me (a couple videos on my YouTube channel) has TERRIBLE quality fruit. Would never want anyone eating those.

But like @Lucky_P said, even a top quality cultivated fruit will disgust some people. Just the way it is. (I mostly think this is because it’s quite different from fruits most Americans grow up eating.)

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I think you’re absolutely right, TT.
Most Americans are uncomfortable with soft fragrant fruit, after a few generations of eating only Granny Smith and Honeycrisp

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If gasoline is $2.59 and your vehicle gets 38 miles per gallon,
from Nashville you can afford to drive to Scottsville or Franklin
Kentucky to buy groceries (if the tally exceeds $100)…and come out ahead, counting the gas. On a $300 grocery run…much ahead.

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AWESOME!!! I love watermelons and will definitely be growing some. Thanks

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Can you tell me more about this? In Lebanon, I am about the same distance away from Scottsville. Why does it save money?

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You’ll generally find the shelf price a bit cheaper, but you save money because Kentucky has no SALES TAX on food. And you have ?? 9.75 or is it more in Lebanon?
Some cities in TN sales tx as high as 19%…such as Gatlinburg.

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This is true about McMinnville, but if I’m not mistaken the vast majority of the nurseries are wholesale to the industry only.
Surely there are a couple good retail garden centers there but possibly no better than anywhere else.

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McMinnville also sells retail. Just about all of my stone fruit has come from them. They’re just about sold out for this year.

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