[SustainableTompkins] easiest fruits to grow

[Joel and Sarah Gagnon]

With planting time for dormant stock fast approaching (mid-April), and 
since there seems to be some interest in growing backyard fruit, I thought 
I'd share some of what I've learned in the last 30 years.

The easiest fruits to grow

Rhubarb, if you call it a fruit, is the easiest of all to grow. Give it 
sun, plenty of water, compost or manure and some supplemental nitrogen 
(urine is cheap and effective). Slugs will disfigure the stalks if you 
don't control them, but the damage is more annoying than harmful.

Raspberries are next-easiest. Crumbly berry virus can ba a problem where it 
is in the neighborhood (it is spread by so-called raspberry aphids), but 
some varieties are quite resistant. I like Autumn Bliss in a red, Royalty 
in a purple, and Amber in a yellow. All of these respond well to 
organiculture and are wilt resistant as well.

Blueberries are easy if you have acid soil. Chances are you do if you are 
up on the hills. If in the valleys, check because the probability is much 
higher that your soil is neutral or thereabouts. You can acidify soil to 
lower the pH, but it is a constant need in the valley. Blueberries are 
otherwise very easy. You will probably have to net them unless there are 
few birds in your neighborhood or lots of blueberries. Don't use urine or 
fresh manure on blueberries. They are very sensitive to chloride ion, 
present in animal wastes due to the salt in our diets. Bat manure is 
excellent because it is high in nitrogen while having little chloride (no 
salt in their diet of insects).

Strawberries are pretty easy. Honeoye and Jewel are good varieties for 
around here, with excellent flavor and size, as well as good quality when 
frozen. Honeoye is rot-resistant, a real plus in our uncertain spring weather.

Currants are pretty easy too, with the only serious pest the sawfly, whose 
larvae defoliate the plants. They are the same color as the leaves, so are 
hard to hand pick. Bacillus thuringensis controls them. Also annoying is 
the currant worm, but the damage is limited and can be lived with (although 
he market won't put up with it).

Gooseberries are tough plants, but getting fruit off of them is not as easy 
as the nurseries suggest. Mildew, saw fly, currant worms, and an 
exasperating tendency to drop fruit when stressed limit the yield. Yummy, 
though.

Pears are the easiest tree fruit. Asian pears can easily be grown without 
any pesticides and still get a decent number of edible fruit. They profit 
from thinning of the small fruit, which lets you select out the worst. They 
appear to have some frost-resistance. European pears are also fairly easy, 
with the biggest problem around here being Fire blight, a bacterial disease 
that can be fatal to the tree. There are many resistant varieties (Bartlett 
is NOT one of them).

Quinces are easy, but again, beware of Fire blight. I try not to induce 
heavy growth because it makes them more susceptible. Go easy on the 
fertilizer -- in good soil you my not need any, and to control size, summer 
prune. Dormant pruning promotes growth, so once you have the tree bearing, 
control size with summer pruning and then complement that with moderate 
dormant pruning. Quinces make good jelly and fruit leather, but are too dry 
for fresh eating. Great aroma! Requires no spraying.

Mulberries grow like weeds and are generally twiggy. Perhaps best treated 
like a bush to keep the fruit low enough so you can get at it, but 
requiring a lot of pruning to do that. Summer prune to control size in a 
vigorous mulberry. Illinois Everbearing is an excellent variety, with 
fruits a couple inches long and good balanced flavor.

Apples are not easy. With little frost resistance in bloom, you are at the 
mercy of spring weather. They will tolerate frost once post-bloom, though. 
Most varieties require both fungicidal and pesticidal sprays for decent 
fruit, but there are some pretty good varieties that are disease-resistant. 
(Liberty, Enterprise, Priscilla are among these.) Priscilla is the easiest 
apple to grow, bar none. You can grow this variety with no spraying 
whatsoever and get a decent percentage of clean fruit. A regular annual 
bearer, with a nice easy-to-manage spreading growth habit. Tends to 
overset, so it needs thinning to size up well. Highly flavored, not 
everyone will like it (it is one of my favorites, though). Best as an 
eating apple, storing only into January. Liberty has similar storage time, 
but makes good sauce as well as eating. Liberty needs spraying to control 
plum curculio, which badly disfigures the fruit. Curculio candy, unfortunately.
There are some traditional varieties that are pretty easy to grow. Empire 
isn't too hard, Fuji, and many of the russets are good too. Baldwin and 
Esopus Spitzenburg are fairly easy, as is York Imperial. Baldwin tends 
strongly to alternate bearing.
Curculio can be controlled organically with colloidal clay sprays like 
"Surround", but it ain't cheap and it needs to be reapplied whenever it 
washes off in the rain. You won't find many organic apples on the market, 
for very good reason. We have one of only a handful of organic orchards in 
the entire state here in Tompkins County.

Plums have 2 problems of note. One is the plum curculio. The larvae of this 
weevil cause the fruit to abort. It only takes a few curculios to implant 
enough eggs to wipe out the entire crop. I have found it impossible to grow 
plums without sprays for this insect. Surround will work if you want to go 
organic, but you will have to be diligent. I use Imidan, an organophosphate 
pesticide I don't feel really good about. It is not very persistent in the 
environment, and I only use it for a few times (you need to spray for 
curculio from "shuck split", which is when the fruit get big enough to 
split the residue of flower that surrounds them it the beginning, until the 
end of June. After that point the pit hardens and the fruit is safe. Plums 
are otherwise fairly easy, with no need for fungicides for a decent crop. 
The second problem with plums is burr knot, a swelling of the stems that is 
very contagious. I religiously cut out any developing "knots" and find this 
controls the disease adequately.
Some plums are frost-resistant. I have experience with Big Blue. It has 
fruited in years when no other variety survived frost. Plums tend to bloom 
earlier than one would wish, making risk of frost a serious threat, 
especially in the valley, which is where I am. Less of a problem on hillsides.

Cherries are a problem for me, but perhaps some of you can grow them. They 
bloom early enough so that frost is a problem. Lapins is frost-resistant, 
but very susceptible to rot. I think it will require fungicide to fruit 
here. The sour cherries are all frost-tender, near as I can tell. Birds are 
a problem, if you get past the frost, and so are raccoons if you have them 
in your area. Cherry leaf spot can be problem in some years, causing 
premature defoliation. This may not be a problem for the current year's 
fruit, since it tends to show up later in the season, but it weakens the 
tree and reduces fruit potential in the following year.

Peaches have the same curculio problem I mentioned with plums and apples 
(and to a lesser extent, cherries). Like plums, developing curculio larvae 
cause the fruit to abort, so spraying is necessary most years. I find 
peaches can be grown without fungicides and with no spraying after the end 
of curculio season. Nectarines, of which there are hardier varieties (peach 
flowers survive to around minus 15, which gets us through most winters), 
tend to split unless sprayed with fungicides to prevent scab. The splits 
make them susceptible to rot as the fruit matures. This is disastrous in a 
wet year. I have lost the entire crop at that late stage.
Nectarines have no frost tolerance. There are frost-tolerant varieties of 
peaches. Madison is the only one I have experience with. It fruited for me 
last year (albeit lightly) after several frosts that wiped out the 
nectarines and most of the apples. Peach borers can also be a problem, 
along with peach leaf curl. The curl is controlled in my orchard by putting 
seaweed extract in the tank with the curculio spray. Borer may be 
controllable by dousing the base of the tree with urine during egg-laying 
in June. I am still experimenting on that one. Urine does work for sure on 
apple tree borer, a serendipitous discovery by a fellow in North Carolina 
who noticed that his apple tree, which borers had killed, died only down to 
the level his dog, which was tied in the yard most of the time, could reach 
when urinating.

More next week. I need to get to work!

Joel