If you could only have one fruit tree...

[loligo]

... (or two, if your Chosen One needs a pollinator), what would it be, and why?

We have room for a few fruit trees, and I'm having a terrible time narrowing down my choices -- I want them ALL. So maybe your opinions will help me prioritize my list!

I already know I want to plant Nikita's Gift persimmon (an American X Asian hybrid). Our woods are full of wild pawpaws, and we live in a peach-growing region so I can get all the tree-ripened peaches I want for cheap at the Farmer's Market. So those three fruits are taken care of. But what else???

Comments

[cyprinella]

I'd probably go with apples just because they store well and they're so versatile - lots of both sweet and savory uses. Sadly, my area is too humid to grow them well without a lot of spraying, or so the master gardeners tell me. I also don't really have room for a full-grown tree, so I went with lots of berries - blueberries, cranberries and raspberries.

[rainbow]

I'm shameless about always wanting lots of kinds of fruit trees. Fortunately we have room for as many as I could ever want now, but at my old house I had a 5 heirloom variety apple tree, a 3 variety apricot tree, and a 3 variety plum, so that I could have lots of different sorts of fruit in a limited area. (If you're not familiar with the multi variety trees, they're made by grafting different scions to the base tree so you can have one tree with different types of apples, stone fruits, etc.)

A big question -- what fruits do you love enough to use up (eating fresh, canning, freezing, etc) when the trees are more mature. If you like plums fresh but don't like prunes, canned plums, plum jam, etc., it's not a good choice. For me, I adore plums, apricots, cherries, apples, and figs, for instance, so I've platned some of each of those (well, excpet the plums; we've got wild ones and a newer one that the previous owner put in).

A lot comes down to your climate, too. Some fruits need a certain number of chill hours in the winter, and if you're in a warm winter climate they won't be good choices. And some do best with hot summers. Others like or hate humidity. Finding varieties that thrive locally helps narrow down the possibilities a lot.

[loligo]

Intellectually, I know that the trees will be mature someday... but I just have so much trouble believing it! More fruit than I know what to do with? It's inconceivable! I've spent most of my life carefully savoring and rationing the fruit that I buy, because it's usually so expensive.

It would be hard to find a fruit that I *don't* love, except for maybe apricots. And I'll eat just about any kind of jam, so I don't think disposing of extra fruit will be a problem -- plus I could always sell it, if there was a truly overwhelming amount.

Apricots, pluots, Asian plums, and sweet cherries are out of the running, because our variable winter/spring weather causes them to bloom too early. But that still leaves apples and pears and European plums and nectarines and tart cherries and a whole bunch of oddball things like mayhaws and shipovas and quinces and the list goes on! And I want them ALL! *g*

So do the multi-grafted trees actually work out well? I always wondered if they were just a gimmick....

[rainbow]

I know what you mean about rationing the fruit!

I planted a medlar last winter; I'm looking forward to that -- it's supposed to taste a bit like spiced applesauce!

I'd forgotten about quince. This winter I shall have to fix that oversight *g*

Nope, not a gimmick; just an example of grafting. I know someone who's enjoyed grafting for a couple decades on her quite large and venerable apple tree. She has over 50 varieties of apples on it now, I think.

I really enjoyed the multi fruit trees I had. The multi trees can be spendy though, and if you have inexpensive single trees available you can get a similar effect by planting 3 trees in one hole and tying or gently braiding them together. In time they grow together. I've not tried that, but read about it about 20 years ago and it still fascinates me.

more on cherries

[cygnet]

See http://www.maes.msu.edu/nwmihort/drkswtch.html for a listing of late and very late season cherries. Might be worth a little experimentation?

Re: more on cherries

[loligo]

Cool! Thanks for the info.

Serviceberry

[flora]

I realize I'm coming late to this thread... but if you're still looking for fruit trees, you might consider a semi-domesticated Serviceberry (Amelanchier sp.), aka Juneberry or shagbush or shadbush. They're beautiful springtime flowering trees/shrubs, they're native, and they produce abundant fruit with similar taste and use to blueberries (if you can get them before the birds do). Edible Landscaping usually has them in stock.

Re: Serviceberry

[loligo]

Actually, I just planted a serviceberry this spring! It's a shrubby cultivar that isn't supposed to get more than 4-5' high, though.

The jury's still out on how it's going to perform in my area. We had a very wet spring and it got all kinds of leaf spots, and then it got attacked by some weird caterpillar that I've never seen on any of my other plants. As a result of these two things, it has lost all its leaves! I see some new shoots ready to pop out at the base, though, so we'll see what happens.

[xenacryst]

In my experience (which isn't huge), apples are both fairly easy and easy to take care of the influx at harvest time -- applesauce is easy, keeps reasonably well, they can be used in lots of dishes sweet and savory, as mentioned, and they keep pretty well, too. I suspect quince would be fairly similar here (I love me some mince pie made with apples, quinces, and raisins). And old apple trees can develop very wonderful gnarly personalities.

My mom has access to a plum tree that drapes over her back fence, and it's lovely, but we still have plum jam from the huge batch we made last year, and plums don't keep worth a darn.

My own favorite would be peach, because I simply admore the taste of fresh peaches and peach cobbler and I know how to freeze them. But if you've got plenty at the farmer's market, then that works.

[loligo]

I'd been toying with the idea of a white-fleshed nectarine, because no one grows them here and my grocery had never carried them either, and fruit catalogs kept telling me how delicious they are. I had tentatively decided to go with that, and then they turned up at my grocery store this week. They really *are* that delicious... but if I'm going to be able to buy them regularly, and for a fairly reasonable $1.99/lb., maybe I should go with something more rare....

ooooh - black cherries!

[cygnet]

No doubt about it, if there were plenty of peaches around in the local markets, I'd next go for a black cherry. Or two! :-) I *love* cherries! And if you have a big crop, they freeze really well.