I’m in central NC and I’ve noticed that some things grow like weeds: Muscadines, Persimmons, Figs. While other things tank from insect pressure or other issues; for me those were cherries, a plum, and concord grapes.
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Blueberries, if you like blueberries. Blueberries and pawpaws about your best choices if you desire to grow without spraying. Oh, and pecans.
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I’d add blackberry, serviceberry, and Chinese chestnut to the list.
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I’m in central NC also (Greensboro), and I concur with @BlueBerry - rabbiteye blueberries are hard to beat here. Pawpaws also grow well, but I can’t say I’ve had consistent fruit production from them yet. Serviceberries get cedar apple rust pretty bad for me. I’ve been happy with my pineapple guava production from bushes planted close to my house. When we’ve had temps down to the single digits some winters, then they lose their evergreen leaves and don’t produce the following season. Some jujube cultivars like Honey Jar and So have been productive for me, but others less so. Maypops are also great, but they spread aggressively, so it’s good to plant them in an area where you can mow a perimeter of several yards and keep them away from a garden area. Fireblight resistant pears have produced well for me, and the Asian pears like are more precocious - I particularly like Shin Li and Korean Giant. I’ve had some trouble with stinkbugs damaging my Asian pears, but bagging has helped prevent that. Mulberries are very productive, and so are goumi. I’ve had some good crops of Carmine Jewel bush cherries, but there are always some fruits with plum curculio. I’ve never sprayed them, though. My American hazelnuts have only just started producing, but they seem promising. As you already mentioned, muscadines, persimmons and figs are among the best fruits for our area.
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Awesome. Thank you all. I’m in Raleigh. I have some blueberries that are growing super slow and struggled a little. I think I’ll try to add some peat moss and see how that goes. I have a Korean Giant ordered to be delivered soon, so that’s good to hear.
Honestly, really cool to hear that your pineapple guavas produce for you. I have 3 in the ground (for only two years though), so maybe I just need some more time. They look healthy though.
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I’m a short drive north of you and agree about muscadines, persimmons and figs doing well here. Blackberries, rabbiteye blueberries and Romance Series Cherries are also doing well for me. I’ve recently added hardy kiwi, paw paw and pomegranate, but it’s too early to know how they will fare.
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Hey there,
Happy to see a fellow fruit grower from Piedmont here! I’m in Durham and I have a bunch of apple, pear, and persimmon trees that haven’t fruited yet, so I want to follow this thread. My figs have done great, but spotted wing drosophila and way too much rain last summer during their ripening made them less appealing for fresh eating. Lots of preserves!
The extension office was really helpful last spring with free soil testing. It turned out that my rabbit eye blueberries were in soil that was way too basic, which explains why they have done nothing since I planted them 4 years ago. The free soil tests are an awesome service here in the Triangle!
There’s also this really cool grafting workshop and Scion exchange happening soon.://trianglefruitandnutgrowers.weebly.com
You mentioned a plum that didn’t do well, what happened if you don’t mind sharing? I just ordered an AU Rubrum plum.
Happy growing!!
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Awesome that you’re right here in Durham. Yeah, I lost a plum and a cherry to some kind of (peach?) borer. A Redhaven peach got hit as well, and then it just grew like mad and completely recovered and healed itself. It really surprised me. I’ll check out the scion exchange, I didn’t realize we had a group like that here, so that’s awesome.
I feel like it’s good that this thread is going for fellow NC fruit growers.
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Yes, but I found growing service berries with out sprays in NC to about impossible…too much rust from the cedars (Juniperus Virginiana).
Most fruits badly affected and inedible. Tree can deal with it, but fruits deformed.
(Perhaps not in the mountains, but in the Piedmont.)
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Goumi should kick butt down there.
I’ll tell you one thing that did terrible for me this year: Pineapple Quince. It was newly planted dormant and grew amazing in early spring, then got completely rocked with rust. It looks really terrible. I’m willing to give this away to someone who doesn’t mind spraying frequently.
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I am in the Winston Salem area and had good luck with the rabbit eye blueberries and European pears so far, as well as blackberries. I planted a Korean giant and a harrow sweet pear tree this spring off recommendations from this site and I’m pretty excited about both of those. I haven’t had much luck with peaches or plums so far(I think a lot of that was bad initial choices on varieties and root stock). With apples early on I’ve had the most success with liberty and then hunge and gala but they haven’t fruited yet. My fuyu persimmon has grown well but late frosts have gotten it 2 out of the 3 years I’ve had it. What kind of persimmons have people had the best luck with.
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Persimmons, figs, some peach varieties, pears, blackberries, raspberries, some mulberries and paw paws do well here. I am relatively new to fruit growing but have grown figs, pears and peaches in the past by luck and without knowing much. Currently, trying Gerardi, issai and Pakistan mulberries, Salavatski pomegranate, fuyu persimmons, Asian pears, plum, etc. Pests are a major problem on almost all trees except persimmons and figs. I don’t know if the Pakistan mulberry will fruit consistently here but Gerardi seems like a good choice. I heard Silk Hope mulberry is supposed to do well here. The arboretum at NC state has a loquat tree that fruits like crazy. I don’t know the variety but it is loaded with fruit in April/May. I am told that fuzzy kiwi is also something that can do well here.
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Yes, quince rust is a nightmare. On the plus side all you need to do is give it one Immunox spray after petal fall and you are covered. Well, that covers you from rust, but not from fireblight. It was horrible for me and I took out all my quince except for some experimental fireblight-resistant ones. I’m not in NC but am in a very similar climate.
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My Tecumseh tree has been my most consistent and productive kaki. Giombo has been good for me too, and each Giombo fruit is twice to three times as big as a Tecumseh fruit, but my Giombo bears heavily only in alternate years. I’ve lost several mature trees to Kaki Sudden Death Syndrome, so I’ve been grafting more D. virginiana cultivars lately.
Greetings from Greensboro. We have good luck with Rabbiteye Blueberries and Blackberies. Also Peaches with a reasonable spray program… Not much luck with the Apples or Pears but still have about 600 apple trees we do not crop. Plums get clobbered by frost/freeze and Figs died when we had some unusually low temperatures. Wild Mulberries and Persimmons grow well. We are new to Muscadines and Elderberries but they look good so far.
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Have you tried growing “Redfield” apples? Resemble Arkansaw black in some respects in appearance…seem resistant to a number of insects.
Fuji does not seem to need a lot of spraying either.
Had that tree 30 years.
Ironically, I have Fuji and Arkansas Black trees. Some of the branches of my Fuji has been grafted with Redfield. None are producing yet. I’m excited to see what happens now.
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I am still trying to figure that out, I don’t yet have anything to add to what other’s have said, although citrus in pots does great here, once they start producing, and some of the more cold hardy citrus like Satsumas, and like Meyer lemon can be high production in the ground if you are willing to do some serious protection. For some reason here blueberries die one right after the other here, we had like 5 or 6 bushes, and only one is still alive, it’s still small, and I think barely alive after many years in ground. I think that grubs did a number on their roots, and I think that they don’t like the hard soil.
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