Not necessarily your favourite fruit to eat, but what is/are your favourite fruit tree(s) to grow based on survival rate, fruit yield, ease of maintenance, ease of harvest, grass-killing prowess, and any other combination of factors? What is/are your least favourite? If you have photos or diagrams to illustrate your point, even better!
(If you provide your region and/or Köppen-Geiger or Trewartha climate zone, it will help others to know what to plant or what to avoid!)
You must log in or register to comment.
Apples. Definitely apples. They’re easy and grow anywhere - or, at least we can say that the exists a varietal that grows where you live. Completely hands-off to grow, they grow and fruit relatively quickly, high yield, energy dense fruit that’s simple to eat, lots of sugars. Most importantly, the fruit keeps really well, for fruit. If you can keep it even halfway cool, it’ll last months. The skin is edible; heck the whole fruit is edible, although most people don’t usually eat the core. It’s the perfect fruit. It’s not necessarily my favorite fruit, but if you’re taking a staple food fruit, for survival, give me apple seeds, no question.
Blackberries come in second for sheer volume and rapid growth, but they don’t survive harsh winters very well, so without knowing the conditions or in uncertain environments, I’d rather have apple seeds in my pocket.
I enjoyed reading your apple evangelism! I don’t have the teeth for such a crunchy fruit as apples (way too much chewing for the calories), but if you do, might as well make the most of it! They definitely have their advantages, especially for storage of the harvest, but aren’t apple trees grown from seed notorious for taking many years to produce fruit of unreliable quality?
They’re easy and grow anywhere - or, at least we can say that the exists a varietal that grows where you live.
Just for the sake of argument, let’s say that someone lives in Chittagong, Bangladesh. The poor section. Near the DDT factory. Which apple cultivar should they plant?
Not exactly a tree, but I’d say pepino.
It’s in the same family as tomatoes and potatoes, and grows similarly. The fruits taste like in between pear and cantaloupe, and it’s perennial.
I’ve eaten that fruit. Do those plants have any trouble with Fusarium wilt or other fungal infections? What are the temperatures where you grow them? In this part of the world, they’re only grown at high elevations that are too cold for durian.
I don’t know, it’s my first year growing them. I grow them hydroponically in pots on my south facing balcony in Germany, and over the winter I’ll take them inside.
Ah, okay. They wouldn’t really be exposed to soil fungus that way. Would be interesting to see how well they handle the summer heat there.
Papaya grows fast and fruits fast too!
Not a tree though. :)
What’s the survival rate on papayas where you are? I get maybe 10%, not counting the plants that sprout too close together and need to be thinned.
First off, glad to see the farming cross post or I wouldn’t have seen this comm so I could sub!
We don’t do much fruit right now, but I’m hoping to change that next year. My favorite not-a-fruit-thats-easy would probably be carrots or lettuce.
From previous efforts, I’d probably say strawberries. We had moved, so haven’t done strawberries in a few years, but hoping to get some property for us to live/farm over the next year and strawberries will definitely be on the list for us.
Edit: We do a community garden right now, the lack of fruit is due to some of the rules of the garden.
Welcome aboard! Have you considered guerrilla planting some fruit trees in places that the community garden elites cannot control in order to make yourself ungovernable?
There already are, I’m not really worried about them in specific, and we know a good few farmers through my wife.
I’m just not growing them myself currently :)
Edit: The nearby plantings done by a neighbor who has since moved set up apple trees, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries. He had been in the area for about 20 years, so he has done basic tending and let them thrive over the years.
At this point they are basically a staple in the community
Sounds like you have a supply of fruit already, but there’s no telling what might happen to those trees going forward, so it’s always a good idea to continue to plant younger generations that can grow up to replace them.
In a different area definitely, at this point these have several caretakers, which is part of the plan post-move. The back there will be right by some parks, so I’m going to line the whole area with a few varieties. Thought about maybe doing some of those dwarf trees for easy reach for folks, but I haven’t seen them in the wild (lol) so I don’t have experience with them, but I’m going to try a few and see how it goes.
I’d be interested in getting any updates on your efforts there! You’ll be setting a positive example for others around here.
Will do! Its part of a much larger move (and home build or remodel depending) which will be next year as long as everything works out.
Sea-buckthorn. Because they fix nitrogen from the air, grow fast and reproduce with shoots.
However, they have thorns (good if there is a deer risk) and the berries are small. The plants aren’t very long-lived (you can see signs of aging after 10 years already). And whole plants (not flowers) have a gender, you need to figure out which ones are male or female. They pollinate with wind.
If it has to be a proper tree, then cherries.
Least favourite? I’ve cut down one plum tree, and will likely cut down another too. Pollination problems (they don’t self-pollinate), fruit spoiling on branches, apparently their good harvest depends on cutting the branches properly - I’m not competent to grow plum trees, except the small ones (Prunus domestica subsp. insititia - damascene plums?) which are foolproof, and also reproduce with shoots.
Your plum woes call to mind horror stories of cherimoya in the tropics… We should all learn to eat what we can grow rather than stubbornly trying to grow everything that we’d like to eat.
🎵 To the tune of Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Salt it, harder,
Can it, better,
Dry it, faster,
Pickle, stronger.Freeze it, colder,
Smoke it, slower,
Ferment, longer,
Keep it, fresherI still get more than I can eat, so I usually give some away to family and friends
Grew up in southern california amidst the orange groves before suburbia ate them. I’m still partial to growing the trees. The smell when they’re in bloom is a beautiful thing. Similarly, i had a satsuma that basically took care of itself up in the bay area. Moving out to the sierra nevadas soon, so if anybody has suggestions for trees or really any native to the area stuff I should plant that’d be appreciated. great thread idea jim
