Growing a Greener World Episode 501 – Edible Fruit Gardens

The first step for most new food gardeners is the addition of a few vegetable and herb plants. Yet once they’re hooked, the desire to grow more and different plants and varieties grows as well. From the classic food garden, this episode takes home gardeners to the next step of adding a wide assortment of fruit trees and shrubs for their personal backyard orchard. In this episode, host Joe Lamp’l installs several fruit trees and shrubs on the GGW Garden Farm, while sharing everything you need to know for homegrown success, even if only on a deck or patio.

Read the full show notes for additional information from this episode at: https://www.growingagreenerworld.com/episode501/

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I’m Joe lample when I created Growing a Greener World I had one goal to tell stories of Everyday People innovators entrepreneurs forward-thinking leaders who are all in ways both big and small dedicated to organic gardening and farming lightening our footprint conserving vital resources prot protecting natural habitats making a tangible difference for us all they’re real they’re passionate they’re all around us they’re the game changers who are literally Growing a Greener World and inspiring the rest of us to do the same Growing a Greener World it’s more than a movement it’s our [Music] mission you know when we grow food at home the natural starting point for many of us is a vegetable garden but when we stop there which many of us tend to do we’re missing out on a lot because growing fruit is just as important as growing vegetables to have more control over what’s in your food and when we grow fruit at home we get the best flavors and a lot more variety choices than what we’re going to find in a typical grocery store and when we grow fruit organically we’re cutting down on the demand for conventionally grown fruit and that’s good for the environment last year we showed you how we installed a vegetable garden here at the ggw farm and garden in Atlanta it’s been exactly one year and today we’re expanding our food production to include an extensive list of organic fruit of course we’ll be sharing our fruit growing tips along the way to lend a hand along with her expertise is my friend and horticulturalist Melinda Myers with Stark Brothers with over 30 years of experience she’s a veteran TV and radio host author of over 20 books a certified Arborist and a seasoned expert when it comes to Growing fruit so Melinda you have been around the gardening World a really long time and I mean that in a good way I’m sure you do but you’ve seen a lot of gardeners come and go and you’ve seen their preferences for what they like to grow as well as those things they tend to shy away from right like fruits yeah like fruit that’s been my observation what do you think are the main obstacles for people not wanting to take it on well I think first of all they’re intimidated maybe their parents never grew any rasberries blueberries or apple trees or maybe they live in the city and think they don’t have enough room and probably worse is they’ve heard it’s a lot of work and you have to use a lot of pesticides so they decide not to do that so what would you say to those gardeners to give them the confidence to give fruit a try well they’ve already got a good start they’ve probably grown perennials that’s what strawberries are bushes like blueberries and raspberries and maybe an or Al Tree apples and peaches so they’ve already got a good start plus it’s just like any plant right plant for the growing conditions you’re off to a great and easy start exactly okay speaking of starting this Garden was started just a year ago so nothing existed before then and I focused on well like most people on the vegetables and the herbs but now it’s time for the fruit and honestly I grew a few strawberries because they’re so low maintenance look at that these were left in the container the whole year and we have some new strawberries coming on so this is where a lot of people start as I know you know but when you want to move on from strawberries where does that Gardener go well how about blueberries equally nutritious equally beautiful both plants have flowers that are pretty both have great fall color and fruit that you can enjoy plus the nutritional value you can unbelievable yeah well guess what okay I can feel a favor coming here I just happen to have about 15 or 16 blueberry plants just about need to go on the ground I’ll be glad to give you a hand but I was hoping you say all right so I’m going to put half of them on this side of the fence and the other half right there blueberry plants are incredible in the garden they not only produce Delicious Fruit for decades but they’re extremely ornamental as a hedge edging or even a specimen plant the blueberry is one of the only foods that is truly blue in color making them a favorite among children they’re low in calorie but high in nutrition and packed with antioxidants in fact they have the highest antioxidant capacity of all fresh fruit they’re surprisingly easy to grow the most difficult part in fact is keeping the birds and other Wildlife away so that you can enjoy all the fruit yourself so the good news is although there are 15 plants not so big right I think we can handle these but these are the ones I got from Stark Brothers through mail order which is great because I can tell this is a really healthy plant it’s just heavy so I know it’s got a great root ball and it’s got plenty of moisture in there plus they’re easier to plant you bet and the small size means the plant will adapt quickly and actually catch up or even surpass some of the larger plants you may buy and going mail order means much bigger selection okay now speaking of selection you do have a lot of choices when it comes to blueberries you do first of all you need to consider which ones are cold hearty for your area so Northerners like me need to look for high Bush and have highs that will tolerate our cold Winters Southerners like you can go with Rabbid eye or Southern High Bush that will tolerate The Heat Of Summer and don’t need to be as winter hearty and that can be a little intimidating to people because there are so many choices but it doesn’t have to be that hard because there’s tools right you bet on our website we have a zip code finder so you type in your zip code and it marks all those blueberries suited to your climate now on top of that you have the choice between an early season a mid-season or a late season Bloomer or you can just order several and just get you know through the whole season right and extend the Harvest but you can also increase your Harvest by having more than one plant you increase pollination and you increase productivity so more for you and for the birds always a good thing now let’s talk about the most important require environments in growing and planting blueberries drainage and soil PH right and that’s probably one of the biggest challenge but most important things we can do if you get your plant planted in a good foundation it’s going to last longer so we want to improve the drainage because they like moist well- drained slightly acidic soils right blueberries Thrive with a lower pH in the 4.5 to 5.5 range now neutral is 7.0 and most people have soils more in line with a neutral pH so getting it down is really important and there’s a couple easy ways to do it the first one is Pete Moss now it’s a natural soil amendment that’s easy to add and work into your soil and not only does it lower the ph but it also improves the soil right which is very important for heavy clay soils like yours it improves drainage and for Sandy Rocky soils like mine it increases the water holding capacity so we get that moist well- drained soils blueberries like right now if you don’t want to use Pete Moss you can use a commercial product called a soil acidifier it comes in a bag it’s granular and it’s really easy to add add to the soil just about a cup and a half that you mix into the top area of the soil around the root ball and it’s just sulfur but it does a nice job of lowering the pH as well and if you have a really high pH like I do 73 to 74 then you may want to go to a container you can use an acidifying potting mix so if for acid loving plants use an acidifying fertilizer and then in my case my pH of my water is 8.0 wow so every time I water it’s like lming the soil so I use the water from my rain barrel which is slightly acid so I can keep that soil moist well drained and acidic very smart and it’s also a great reminder that you can grow blueberries in a container no matter where you live or how small the space blueberries are a great choice for that and this is a great choice for you to put in the ground right now okay let’s get started let’s divide them up half on one side and half on my side and we’ll get to [Music] work freshly picked raspberries are quite expensive in the stores but they can be grown at home with little effort or expense part of the reason behind their High grocery store price is the fact that they have a hollow core making them delicate and hard to ship but in the home Garden they only have to travel from cane to your mouth depending on the variety they produce fruit on new or second-year canes most raspberry canes are covered in Thorns but there are some thornless varieties available although you’re likely familiar with the red variety they also come in black purple and even a gold color when it comes to gardening we’re always looking for simpler ways to deal with some of the most common problems especially as it relates to Pest and diseases and more often than not a lot of those problems can be rectified with simple techniques such as pruning and that’s certainly the case with raspberries right you bet but it can be a little overwhelming so my suggestion is look at when the plant fruits to be your pruning guide and you’ll know that because that’s how the plant is marketed like a fall bearing raspberry or a summer bearing raspberry right okay walk me through the process and we’re going to do it this way raspberry 101 because I know that a lot of our audience has questions about this so I’m going to ask you some questions and let’s go through the process okay you mentioned fall bearing so let’s start there they’ll send up new growth in the spring known as Primal canes right and those will grow and mature and in Fall bear fruit got it then we can cut those back to the ground anytime during the dormant season or let the rabbits and deer do it for us and they’re done we’ll get new growth and the process starts over okay got it summerberry summerberry and it will say that on the tag okay okay Primal canes Primal canes they do not have fruit in the fall all right you leave them stand for winter and then in summer you’ll have Flor canes on this Woody growth right so I’m waiting over a year to finally get fruit on a summer bearing crop right so you’ll have your summer crop and once it’s harvested take these flu canes right back to the ground level because they are finished and that’s goes back back to one of the key problems that we get in our questions why aren’t our raspberries producing anymore well that’s because they’re past their production growth in the summer it’s Woody it’s done we cut it back but they’re not doing that right and if we remove those especially in the summer increase air flow light penetration fewer pest problems and greater productivity okay got it now a little monkey wrench right here there’s a third type and it’s called everbearing walk us through that process okay it’s really not as hard as it seems so we’re gonna have Primal canes Primal canes and they will bear in the fall okay but leave those stand because the next summer there’ll be flu canes and they’ll bear fruit again okay then cut the fuic canes right back to the ground because once again they’re Woody and once they’re Woody and they’ve produced fruit they’re done right all right and that way you get a fall and a summer crop so much easier it certainly is not as scary as it seems not at all okay now let’s talk about how we’re going to plant these because I’m going to do a whole row of these and over the course of a year these can get quite gangly and they need to be tamed and one of the ways that we can do this so I’m going to plant all my raspberries on this row right against the fence rails and use the rails to tie the canes but then reach in and harvest and should be no problem and it’ll also keep those arching branches out of the lawn and garden area as well absolutely now there’s one more thing to think about you have the type with thorns and the type that are thornless so if you want to reach in there and not get scratched up in the process thornless would be the way to go but not as many variety choices right so may be worth a few extra scratches for a little more variety right okay now that is a lot of information to know about raspberries but you don’t need to worry because we’re going to have all that information on our website on a PDF you’ll find it under the show notes for this episode the website address it’s the same as our name it’s growingagreenerworld.com okay it’s time to plant okay all right blackberries are less sweet than raspberries and have a larger fruit but their growing habit is similar to raspberries but because they’re not Hollow in the center like a raspberry they tend to hold up a bit better and last a little longer once picked blackberries also grow on Long thorny canes but there are thornless varieties available now when you order your plants or trees through the mail typically they’ll show up in a box like this and it’s important to go ahead and open up that box and inspect what’s inside to first of all make sure that it’s what you ordered but to see also that it’s wrapped in plastic and that the roots are protected so so far so good and when I say the roots are protected what I’m looking for is this shredded paper and it’s nice and moist now that’s really important because it keeps the roots hydrated now the ideal thing to do is to plant these as soon as you get them put them in the ground but if for some reason you have to delay the process go ahead and make sure that you add enough moisture on this paper put it back over the roots wrap it up and then store it in a cool place for up to a few days and then you got to get them outside and get them planted planted now when it comes time for planting you want to take them out of the plastic get all the paper off and then you want to hydrate them in a bucket of water about 4 to 6 hours is ideal but no more than 24 hours and that’s really important because you know there’s not a lot of roots left on here when they come out of the ground but you want to give those roots an opportunity to take up all the moisture they can before they get into the soil so by placing them in a bucket of water and allowing them to soak you give those roots every opportunity to take up a little extra water that’s so important as these trees get established keeping your bare root trees and shrubs covered with some shredded damp paper inside the plastic will protect them for several days but if you’re planting is going to be delayed more than 10 days you need to heal them in and what that simply means is taking the root ball and covering up with some soil outside in this case I’ve got these Beds which is the perfect parking place for that and I’ll just dig a narrow Trench place the root ball down in it and cover it up at a slight [Music] angle keep it moist and that will keep the plants protected until I’m ready to [Music] plant planting a fruit tree is an investment in your landscape and it should be planned carefully the tree will not only provide Beauty shade and food but it will also give you depth of flavors that you won’t find in a grocery store fruit most of the fruit in the grocery store was harvested early so that it would travel well but a homegrown fruit is allowed to ripen to Perfection on the tree and allows the sugars to develop fully whether you grow apples pears or even peaches there are literally hundreds of varieties to choose from so here we are beautiful spot I think so okay hey it looks great thank you it was kind of a tough decision on where to put these trees but I think we settled on the best spot first of all you know beyond the fact that the fruit gives you something delicious to eat those trees are very ornamental too beautiful blooms in the spring yeah so I’m right near the street and then I have the view from the house so I have the best of both worlds right there keep an eye on the beautiful blooms and the fruit when they start to mature right and then this is the highest point on the property that’s really important especially for those late season Frost you’re right cold air drains low so it settles out down in low spots so you want to make sure your plants are up high so you don’t lose your blossoms to a late spring Frost which means no fruit if you have no flowers and better for drainage as well well especially for those gardening in heavy soils like yours don’t remind me and then the other thing is I have great sun exposure here I love to observe a property throughout all four seasons to track the Sun and just really get a sense of how that flows and that’s one of the reasons why I don’t have anything else planted here yet but now that I know I’ve got great exposure all through the year this is going to be a good spot for that and it looks like from your spacing and checking some of the tags you’re growing semi dwarf plants I am y about 12 to 15 ft tall and wide on the semi you’re right the dwarf plants get about 8 to 10 feet tall some a little smaller depending on the dwarfing root stock so those are great for small spaces and containers semidwarf perfect for this area cuz you got plenty of space but they’re still easy to reach so great standards Big Trees great more production but a little harder to reach to manage the fruit and the Harvest you can prune anything you like down to the size you want but why do all that extra work yeah I agree with that but we do have a little work to do right now and that is to put these in the ground so let’s get these place let get started thank you Melinda you bet okay so I have peaches apples and pears kind of an Eclectic mix of semi dwarf trees but that’s not the only consideration have when you’re trying to decide what to buy right you want to consider flavor and use do you like sweet or tart apples are you going to make pies jams or jellies you want to pick the variety that works best for those uses exactly and then if you only have room for one tree it better be a self-pollinated and there aren’t that many of those especially with apples but the good news is if you or your neighbor have a crab apple within 50 ft of your Apple and they bloom at the same time you’ve got a source of pollin and you’ll still get a good harvest yeah and then probably the most important consideration for a lot of people the disease resistance but thankfully some good varieties today for that right breeders have been doing a good job of building in some resistance into many of our fruit trees so it means less work less maintenance better quality and you know you also get to choose what quality you want maybe you tolerate some damage but cut out the damage portions and eat those fresh or use them right away save the blemish free fruit for storage yeah and then in the process you’re using a lot less chemicals too you know for some people planting a be root shrubber tree is a new experience but there’s a few things that you can do to ensure success and the first is to inspect the root system right we want to look for any broken damaged roots and cut those off any that are winding around the base of the plant because they’ll continue to encircle the plant and eventually girdle it and if you have any really long roots that will extend beyond the planting hole trim those off but I think we’re pretty good right here yeah we are and that’s one of the reasons that you want to dig a nice wide hole about two to three times the area of the root mass but with a bar root tree or shrub you do something else and that’s to Mound the center of the area right that way we can drape The Roots over spread them out to make sure they go and explore the surrounding soil and then planting hide is really important especially when it comes to fruit trees because you will often have this grafting point right here and that has to be well above the soil level and allowing for settling and that’s why I like to back fill with the existing soil put the plant in the soil it’s eventually going to grow in yep and then just add the water and mulch one of the most common issues raised with growing fruit trees and Berry plants is their potential susceptibility to Pest and diseases and how to keep them in control well like any Healthy Garden in landscape keeping a clean planting site is key pruning and destroying diseased limbs removing mummified fruit especially in late fall and winter to avoid recontamination avoid planting in poorly drained SES and avoid over watering to prevent root rots like phyo and water molds we’ll have a link on our website for organic controls of pest and diseases on fruit trees and Berry plants so by now you’ve learned that lack of space should not be a reason for not growing fruit from a single strawberry pot to a couple fig or Berry shrubs and containers and even trees you can even grow several varieties of a particular fruit on the same Tree by selecting one that was grafted with multiple varieties on a single root stock you know of all the Edibles that we’re planting around here I think I’m most excited to plant my fig trees not only out in the yard in the garden area but here in these containers because they do so well there as long as they have great drainage right and they’re beautiful too and it’s a great way to have your figs right outside your back door now containers are a great way to expand your planting space but also if you live in a colder climate you can bring your figs into an unheated garage or indoors for the winter to protect them or buy one of the cold hardy types like we have here Chicago hardy or brown turkey and I like the fact that because they grow so well in containers people that don’t think they can normally have a tree on a deck or a patio can do it now I’m just breaking up the uh the circular pattern that’s formed because it’s been in this container and that doesn’t hurt anything at all in fact it stimulates New Growth with the roots and so they’ll fill in this container and establish more quickly and you’ve probably done that with annuals and perennials sometimes it’s a little more intimidating with trees and shrubs but it’s just as important now we’ve got this nice big container because even though this is a tall skinny stem those roots are going to fill up and this plant will leave out quickly and you’ll have a big plant sooner than you think it doesn’t look like much right now but what a difference it’ll make in a couple months you bet and sooner than you can expect you’ll be harvesting fresh figs right from your back door yeah absolutely that’s good one approach to Growing fruit trees in tight spaces offers Beauty and function at at the same time the technique is known as espalier it’s an ancient practice that’s believed to have started with the Romans the practice was popular in Europe to produce fruit inside the walls of a typical Castle Courtyard without interfering with the open space and to decorate solid Walls by planting flattened trees near them now there are a lot of trees and shrubs that respond really well to the espalier process and when it comes to fruit trees apples and pears are two of the most common now I’ve got this blank south facing wall with this narrow strip right here my spali apple trees are going to look really great right here to start this simple project I dug holes 2 ft deep for each of the 4×4 cedar posts that would support my horizontal wire I made measurements on the wall to use as a guide to make sure both post were the same height once I set them in the ground one bag per hole of quick setting concrete was the perfect amount to hold each post securely in place to make sure the post were positioned properly I used a post level I then allowed the concrete to firm up for a day to finish the project no special tools are needed for this job but you will need to have some wire wire clamps and eye screws to mount the wire securely to the post to fine-tune the tension of the wire I use turn buckles which are perfect for this but keep in mind the wire is only there to serve as a guide to train your branches so they don’t really need to support any weight once the lines were mounted it was time to plant the trees I chose two semid dwarf apple trees for this spot since the trees were pre- pruned as soon as I get some developing branches I’ll start training them to the wires well we’re off to a great start here at the ggw farm and garden SL Orchard now that I have strawberries and blueberri Beres and raspberries blackberries figs peaches apples and pear trees we definitely covered a lot today and if you’d like to watch this show again we have it on our website we’ll also have a lot more information on growing fruit including the step-by-step instructions on the espalier system that I installed the website address it’s the same as our name growingagreenerworld.com and you’ll find it under the show notes for this episode I’m Joe lample thanks for joining us everybody we’ll keep you posted on the progress and we’ll see you back here next time for more growing a Greener World we’re trying to get some work done you’re not I know you’re dressed in black but you’re not part of the crew I hate to tell you this hey come on man come on [Music] buddy come on buddy come come on no all right stay right there [Music] stay