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Post by daylilydude on Oct 6, 2017 4:26:36 GMT -5
What fruits do you grow?
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Post by ladymarmalade on Oct 6, 2017 8:31:35 GMT -5
Raspberries. Technically I have strawberry plants also, but we have yet to get any berries before the birds, so I forget I have them. ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/3247375/images/AgR8NN4iidU1wy_OcyQm.png)
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Oct 6, 2017 9:12:42 GMT -5
Blueberriesm but they are new plants last year so I haven't really gotten any production yet. I've also got 2 kinds of apples, pears, and low-chill cherries, one kind of peaches, 2 red lime trees and one Meyer lemon tree. Oh, and one lone strawberry plant that managed to survive the summer. ![::)](//storage.proboards.com/3247375/images/5fgItcrHDrgPaoOqpS2a.png) I'm going to ditch the deciduous fruit trees, though. Just takes too much effort to get any harvest (where one is possible at all) in my small yard they cast shade on my veggies. I'm keeping the citrus, though, and I will probably plant more berries.
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Post by paulf on Oct 6, 2017 10:05:37 GMT -5
Thornless blackberries, I think the variety is Navaho. Two varieties of peaches, three apples, two pears an eighty year old apricot. Does rhubarb count as a fruit? There are some volunteer strawberries popping up around the area where we plowed under the patch we used to have.
The blackberries are now three years old and did very well this year. The peaches are five years old and producing a bumper crop...for the raccoons. The apricots produce every three or four years and the three year old rhubarb gives more than we can handle. The pear produced two pears this year and the same with the apples. Both are in their 5th season. Maybe soon there will be an orchard.
Next to be planted are red raspberries and if we are successful in obtaining a next door property, more apples, pears and peaches.
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Post by september on Oct 6, 2017 10:07:41 GMT -5
None at present.
Had raspberries, but it was a constant struggle to keep them from invading the rest of the garden, so gave them up. It took a few more years to remove the suckers that kept popping up.
Had a strawberry bed for a while, but when it petered out and needed to be relocated, I had used up all my bed space for tomatoes, so have not grown any since. They should definitely be on my list to grow again!
Tried a couple of blueberry plants, but they didn't like where I put them and slowly declined despite acidic supplements.
Tried a couple of apple trees, but one unusually cold winter took one, and the other is not well.
I had a bunch of Nanking cherry bushes that were pretty reliable, but they got old and eventually developed cankers and fungus diseases and so were removed. I planted two pie cherry trees elsewhere, but they also now have developed cankers and are losing branches.
I wish I had better luck with fruit! On the up side, I have volunteer wild strawberries invading my back woods garden every spring. I enjoy the tiny bite of fruit, but afterwards, I have to rip out all the plants as they make a dense mat in my aisles and try to creep up into the raised beds.
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Post by meandtk on Oct 6, 2017 15:37:05 GMT -5
None yet, but I've planted pear, mulberry,apple, satsuma, lemons and peaches.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Oct 6, 2017 17:03:37 GMT -5
The satsuma, lemons, and mulberry should do well for you with little care (barring unusually hard freezes that could damage your citrus). Sand pears and oriental pears will probably do well, too. European pears can have a hard time close to the Gulf Coast. Expect to have to spray those apples and peaches early and often for any chance at usable crops, sorry to say. The last few weeks before ripening have been heartbreaking for me on more than one occasion - I've had good looking trees full of almost-grown green apples all go bad very quickly, just before ripening. If you're mostly interested in pears for cooking and preserving, you can't beat sand pears for ease...I see abandoned/neglected sand pear trees all around my area that still produce a tree full of fruit every year. The fruit is edible, but not really enjoyable (due to texture) for fresh eating. Plus the fruit is ugly - all lumpy and mottled green and brown. None of that stopped me and my cousins from climbing Granny's tree and picking and eating pears from it when I was a kid, though. Plus the tree always made more than Granny could use (even with all us grandkids sneaking fruit), and it was fun to watch the wasps get drunk on the overripe, fermenting fruit. ![:D](//storage.proboards.com/3247375/images/1O7SOWgs0dheN6ogmHMC.png)
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Post by pepperhead212 on Oct 6, 2017 21:28:49 GMT -5
No tree fruits here, as I don't have the room. And I have tried blackberries, but I pulled them after two years, as they were becoming a "pest"! Not worth the small amount I got from them. And I keep trying melons, but it is too hot for most of them here.
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Post by horsea on Oct 7, 2017 1:18:30 GMT -5
2 crabapple trees. One of them produces tasty fruit, edible raw, in large quantity. The other produces dark red hard little apples that make nice jelly. pepperhead212, Too hot for melons? How can that be? Melons like hot weather. What about all those watermelons they grow in Florida?
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Post by pepperhead212 on Oct 7, 2017 8:25:23 GMT -5
horsea I was talking about the cantaloupe, honeydew, and similar melons.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Oct 7, 2017 13:36:25 GMT -5
I have had good luck with many cantaloupes, but they do need to be planted ASAP after last frost to get a good harvest before the worst of the heat. Here that's mid-March, so harvest starts in late May. Usually they do well through June and start to suffer and die in July and August. I have had late spring (April & May) plantings produce, but earlier spring plantings yield better. It ought to be possible to do fall cantaloupes here, but I haven't worked out the timing. One thing, though: I don't plant cantaloupes/other melons that were developed in or for European/cool summer climates, like Charentais. Have you tried growing Athena* cantaloupes, pepperhead212? Those do really well for me, good 5-6 lb size and my kids love them. (I don't care for cantaloupe so I can't vouch for the flavor myself.) They are also grown commercially in North Florida and South Georgia, so you see them here even in big chain groceries; when I am not growing cantaloupe I always buy those for the kids. OTOH, watermelon produces all summer here, as Horsea said. *Park Seed says that this variety only spreads 2-3 feet. That's incorrect. The actual vine length is more like 6-10'. So it's not a huge vine, but it's not suitable to grow easily in a container or a raised bed.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Oct 7, 2017 22:13:04 GMT -5
Laura_in_FL I did try Athena years ago, and I did get more melons than on other varieties, but it succumbed to disease before I got an average of 2 per plant. I may try them again, in an SIP, since you tell me they are heat resistant in areas hotter than mine. I remember I got the seeds from Pinetree - I'll have to see if they still carry them.
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