I really enjoy eating fruit. After years of not eating very many, it’s been nice to start purchasing more fruit during our grocery runs. Eating fruit and trying to pick the good ones reminds me of my dad’s garden growing up in California. We grew peaches, plums and oranges in abundance.
As part of my gardening project here, I’m now planning to put in a number of fruit bearing plants. We had more land at that house than I do here in Houston. In the suburbs, you really have to manage the space efficiently. Self pollenating plants help to save space in that only a single plant is needed. Otherwise, you’d have to save space for two. The real treasures, though, appear to be the multi-in-one trees. This is where they graft branches from several different trees onto one trunk. The genetic differences mean that the pollen is as good as if it came from a completely separate plant. Add to that the different development times of the varieties and you have one very valuable and compact tree.
Another challenge with the area is the low freeze values. The winters have been getting worse in Houston, but it still isn’t cold enough long enough for many varieties of fruit. Then the summers are brutally hot and long with disease promoting humidity. Choosing the right kinds and varieties of fruit plants is a necessity. From my research figs, persimmons, most citrus, and muscadines are the only things that do well with little research, though the persimmons should be an astringent variety to discourage the birds. Muscadines are a new discovery from my research. They are essentially a giant grape. The plant grows like a grape-vine. The fruit even tastes a little like a grape. The main differences are the size of the resulting fruit, muscadines are sweeter, and they don’t grow in bunches. Other plants that supposedly grow well include most thorny blackberry varieties, and certain low chill or “southern” varieties of peaches, plums and apples.
Some planning in the selection of varieties should produce a nearly year round harvest of high quality, fresh fruit. I’m looking forward to it!