Urban Gardener: Small Fruits, Big Rewards

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Leonard Moorehead, GoLocalWorcester Gardening Expert

photo credit: Jack Hartwein-Sanchez

Urban gardeners often debate the relative merits of what to plant in an urban setting. Our community gardens and confined spaces encourage creativity. Each gardener has personal goals for growth. Perhaps you conceive of your plot as an outdoor salad bowl. Or you may wish to cultivate favorite ingredients for the kitchen. Some of us desire a fragrant place that floods the senses with natural aromas. Many enjoy fresh blooms to cheer the heart and home. All of these are possible in plots large and small. It’s your garden and a perfect place for expression. Freedom is the ability to choose. For gardeners, the spectrum of choice is huge. What fun!

Gardeners are patient people. Beans for example are ready for picking in 60 days. What about those plants that require a longer span from planting to harvest? Don’t succumb to instant gratification. There are many crops that require a bit more time. Consider the role of fruits in the garden and the ways to enjoy fruits so fresh they are ready for eating right off the tree. Too long, too complicated, too much care? Sweep these deal-breakers under the mulch and start to peruse the nursery catalogs. Look around. Fruit trees endure and survive a long time. You can have your peach and eat it too.

I first ran into urban fruit trees on the edges of an established urban community garden. A long forgotten planter set out apricot, peaches and pears along the borders of the garden. On the garden frontiers these trees thrived with absolutely no attention. Some would hesitate in respect for the planters and watch ripened fruit fall to the ground. Others of less moral fiber yielded to temptation and tasted. Once bitten, the taste is remains permanent, the ambition to tend these bountiful trees secure. Why wait?

Dwarf fruit trees, especially the so called stone fruits, (from their large inner seed), take little space and have few specific if vital requirements. Gardeners are best when they take a long term point of view. Consider sunlight, drainage, soil and especially, those fruits that taste best to you. A full day’s sunshine is important, well drained moderately fertile soil is best. Look around the neighborhood for older trees. Which are covered in lovely blooms early in the spring? Do you find trees full of fruit harvested mainly by squirrels? If the answer is yes, you can surpass this success with modest effort. I discovered apricots in just this manner and decided, why not?

Fresh apricots and soft ripe honey sweet peaches are expensive when or if available in the market. They re-define abundance in the garden. Ask proud gardeners around you what works for them. The choices are wide ranging and surprises are in store. I planted an Asian pear, usually sold individually wrapped in protective sleeves at high prices. The first year I harvested 12 huge brown apple like pears with delicate flavor and taste. The price of the tree was regained within the first year. The next season gave more than 30 pears. I gave up counting in the third year, there were just too many. Too many? That’s a phrase all gardeners appreciate.

Dwarf fruit trees make good companion plants. I grow strawberries under those in my garden for a double harvest that is not only productive but also have pleasing appearance. Let’s take a look at the beautiful apricot.

photo credit: Jack Hartwein-Sanchez

The apricot is an old world tree that will grow to 25 feet. Fruit trees grow quickly. Chose the dwarf varieties to save on space. Apricots and other fruit trees bloom in cool April. I extract a paintbrush from a watercolor kit and quietly enter a meaningful frame of mind. With as much concentration I can muster I move from bloom to bloom and dust golden pollen from flower to flower. This peaceful activity duplicates the efforts of pollinating insects, especially the threatened honeybees found in cities. A step ladder is helpful for those of us built low to the ground. Precious time is not lost in this activity. Rather, I find this a chance to carefully examine the tree for dead branches, overly long stems, and to shape the tree with judicious pruning. Remove “mummies” or last year’s old dried out fruit. The spirit will carry every gardener through this task, it’s worth the effort now and latter. Be careful and don’t fall off the ladder.

I keep the lower part of the trees open and cultivate strawberries beneath, all mulched. Strawberries yield in June, apricots in the middle of July, peaches in mid-August and pears from September through October. By the third season I ate much of the crop out of hand. Many I gave away to colleagues, friends and neighbors. Afterwards, I managed to can over 30 quarts of fruit from 3 trees of each type fruit. Hand-pollinated trees “set” a lot of fruit.

Gardeners are usually very busy with other tasks as the fruit develops. Even so, co-operate with nature and remove any fruit that appears deformed or has succumbed to any disease or damage. The tree will devote more energy to the remaining fruit and reward the effort. Or do nothing and accept a lesser but still worthy crop. I’m not too fussy about perfectly shaped or colored fruits never found in markets where appearance over rides taste. Thrown in the juicer, right out of hand or sliced, the “seconds” are nutritious and worthy.

Enjoy observing the fruit develop from small nubbins onwards to fruit so lovely it’s difficult to pick them from the tree. A fruit tree full of golden apricots, fresh pinkish peaches or red to green or golden pears, is heaven on Earth. Sometimes, especially with peaches, growing fruit weights the branches down, sometimes to breaking. Thin out the fruit a bit or support the branches with ropes tied off to the main trunk or re-purpose old lumber and prop up the branches. Success has its price.

Winter is the best time for me to spray a dormant oil over the fruit trees. Some suggest a weekly schedule of environmentally friendly mixtures of dormant oil. Like many others, I’m pressed for time and do my best to establish a coat of oil on the tree bark and buds. In short, I’m reliable but not compulsive. Remarkably, I have excellent results and very rare cases of diseases on the fruit and trees. I’ve skipped this pleasant task to my regret. Spray bottles or sprayers are affordable, enduring garden accessories. Such oil sprays smother bark boring insect eggs and also suppress fungus spores. Weather will eventually wash off the spray, the soap is the binding agent. Renew several times over the cold season.

photo credit: Jack Hartwein-Sanchez

My grandfather mixed his own sprays. He soaked tobacco in water, shaved a bar of soap with his pocket knife into the bucket, mixed and let sit. His pantry was always full of canned produce long after applying this ancient, effective low cost mix to his trees. More contemporary gardeners take this basic formula and add cinnamon sticks, hot peppers, and other household ingredients. The garden supply center is awash with chemical mixtures as well as so called organic preparations. Read carefully, dispose of properly, practice safety: wear gloves, protective glasses and mouth guards. Most importantly? Don’t let polemics or apparently laborious or tedious tasks keep you away.

Local state universities have excellent, free advice for inquiring gardeners. You’ll enjoy talking to experts who are often generous with their knowledge and local conditions. Soon, gardeners form loving relationships with their fruit trees. Face it: the world needs love and we can never have too much. The heart rejoices and admires the fine presence of tended trees. Art enters the fray, pruning over vigorous branches has fine results. The goal is to have trees open in the center, no crossed branches, errant sprouts or out-right dead wood.

I mulch everything although I’m careful not to bury the tree truck. Leave a small space clear around the trunk to protect from nibbling mice and never use a weed whacker around any tree. Weed whackers will girdle life sustaining bark and effectively kill trees. Our colonial ancestors and local native peoples cleared forest lands by girdling tree trunks. We nurture our trees today rather than mourn the passage from forest glade to paved streets.

Urban gardens are fine places to cultivate fruit trees. They add height to space, reward with nutritious harvests easy to preserve for the future and certainly enhance the present. By planting several types of fruit trees an urban garden will produce fruit month after month. Protect your fruit from squirrels with Hav A Heart traps. Remove to the other side of town. Speculate if the same squirrels return. Accept the squirrel tax and move on. Do not be deterred by time. Fruit trees may live for many years. Gardeners move on. The first bite justifies the low cost of fruit stock, bean counters compare price and that mysterious value, quality, to calculate that fruit trees pay for themselves in the first years. But I wish to add another, important virtue to cultivating any kind of fruitful tree. Long after your heart is swollen with love, the act of nurturing fruit to harvest up lifts the spirit. I am grateful to the generous gardeners of the past who planted trees. Be certain, someone will respond and care for the trees, learn how to nurture them, nourish body and soul. It is within these oasis of life we prosper in the most important ways. You too can reach out and grasp a sun warmed apricot, peach or pear, bite, juice dripping down the chin, and understand joy, gratitude, and believe in goodness. What’s holding you back?

photo credit: Jack Hartwein-Sanchez

Leonard Moorehead is a life-long gardener. He practices organic-bio/dynamic gardening techniques in a side lot surrounded by city neighborhoods in Providence RI. His adventures in composting, wood chips, manure, seaweed, hay and enormous amounts of leaves are minor distractions to the joy of cultivating the soil with flowers, herbs, vegetables, berries, and dwarf fruit trees.

Urban Gardener: Small Fruits, Big Rewards

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