UNUSUAL FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES TO GROW

judsoncarroll4

https://www.almanac.com/unusual-fruit-and-fruit-trees-grow

Jens the Beekeeper

Thank you @judsoncarroll4 for sharing this list.

I like Quince. My parents had a small bush type and I loved to make jelly out of them. Bartered for some Quince last year with a friend for honey and made jelly again. So delicious.

Monek Marie

@judsoncarroll4 Ohhh nooooo, how could you? Now I need more fruit trees and shrubs :)

Thanks for the site. I'll mull over all the possibilities over tea later this afternoon. I love the unique and different

@Jens I had my first quince in Gerogia at my Aunt's farm. I later found it could grow here in the snowy cold PA. Love the jelly!

Torey

I have bush cherries and they are very productive. Often so loaded that they bend the branches to the ground. Mine are larger than suggested but I have no idea what species they are. Two of them came from a garden centre at the end of a season and were just marked as shrub cherries. The other two are shoots from heritage plants that were brought in during the early days of settlement in my area. So the parent plants are well over 100 years old. They are quite a bit larger; over 10 feet but still shrubby, not tree form. Both types produce very dark cherries, almost black when ripe.

I bought a lingonberry plant this past year and will probably add several more this year.

I have 2 older haksaps and just bought 2 more last year. The older ones are finally starting to produce.

I tried goji berries but the deer got to the plants and stripped all the leaves. They are pretty hardy and tried to make a come back but the deer got at them again. If I try again, I will have to make chicken wire cages for them.

I tried this type of kiwi vine but even though it said it would survive in my area, it didn't.

I'd like to try a mulberry but I have never seen them sold in my area. I think they might like a bit more moisture.

Thanks for posting the article @judsoncarroll4 and inspiring us to plant more of these "unusual" fruits.

Linda Bittle

Oh, some of these are new to me!

We had a Pawpaw tree when I was a kid. I didn't much like them. I think the texture threw me off. Persimmon trees grow wild here in Missouri, and I do have fond memories of them. They are very good if you are patient enough to wait until they are good and ripe (never before a hard frost!)

judsoncarroll4

Most of what I have grow wild - pawpaws, black raspberries, blueberries, chokecherries, old feral apples, mayapples, grapes and wild persimmons. I need to plant some fruit trees this year!

Lisa K

Two of the trees which were considered unusual that I grow is Kaffir Lime and Pluot.

Cornelius

I have some of these! (Specifically the aronia berry, mulberry, pawpaw seeds (to plant out this year), and black gogi). I found the aronia to be very sour and will make them into either juice or a jam this year and I loved the taste of pawpaw.

@torey https://www.rareseeds.com/store/live-plants/mulberry-dwarf-everbearing-2-plants-march-may-ships-prompt-weekly-as-available. It is 2 mulberry for $8! I am not sure when they will start selling, but it is definitely in the next few days.

marjstratton

Cool. Sound like some fruit trees and bushes I need to look for.

JennyT Upstate South Carolina

Some of these I've not heard of, but many can be grown in my area which is exciting. 😊 Thanks for sharing the article @judsoncarroll4. I'll add them to the list of varieties I'd love to have in my food forest I'm designing.

naomi.kohlmeier

We had a mulberry tree when I was a kid. We'd all stand under it holding the corners of an old bedsheet and my brother would climb the tree and shake the branches like crazy! My mom would sort through them and make mulberry-cherry pie out of them. Or we would eat them on ice cream.

I live near a wooded trail with mulberry trees and my son and I go eat them off the tree when they're ripe.

There are three different kinds of mulberry trees that I know of. One has dark purple fruit, one has pinkish-red fruit and the other has a whitish fruit. The white one is the sweetest, but harder to find in the wild. Mulberry trees get planted by the birds here in Nebraska and grow abundantly.

water2world

@judsoncarroll4 Oh my......... You just keep adding to my to do list (Or at least to try list)! I would love to try some of these, even though I am not familiar with most---- Makes it more fun!

Torey

@Cornelius Thanks for the link. But I will have to look closer to home. I am in Canada and this company doesn't ship outside of the US. They have some very interesting looking plants, though, for those that can grow them.

LaurieLovesLearning

Well, my turn!

I have haskap and some bush cherries. I wanted to try aronia, but at the time, chose haskap because it suited the spot better.

I wonder if bleach plums are the same as the wild plums up here? They are getting increasingly hard to find.

I wanted lingonberries too, but where I planned to put them gets way too much spray drift. In fact, my haskap get hit a few times every year. I would have to think of another place that I might want them. I still want to try growing them.

I am wondering, though, how susceptible these are to the apple maggots & whatever the fly is (I never remember the name) that is widely infesting apples & berries of all kinds around here. Both seem to have become especially prolific and are heavily spreading in the past few years. My suspicion is the chemical use all around that is somehow either killing the insect's enemies or enabling them in some other way to thrive. It gets very frustrating and makes one really hesitant to plant anything more.

Monek Marie

@LaurieLovesLearning

Do you intermix your trees and berry bushes with herbs to help with insects?

Growing daffodils under fruit trees help the soil and certain bugs. I grow garlic by my trees too to help with insects

LaurieLovesLearning

I haven't. I didn't even know it could be done. What other herbs might you recommend? It is generally considered zone 3a where I live.

I have read that no natural control is known for the fly except for pruning to keep all branches waist height or higher to keep berries high (a big yearly task with nanking cherries) and to keep them open and exposed to sunlight, & to keep the ground underneath clean of debris. Picking fruit early is also recommended.

I think that laying down something under the bushes is supposed to help by limiting infested berries from reaching the ground so the maggots don't burrow into it. That is really hard to do in raspberries, though...and my raspberries aren't very tall either.

As far as apple maggot control, multiple spray times is the only "effective" option that I am aware of...or picking early & taking up debris. The latter is far from foolproof, however as so many people still have issues.

I have never sprayed my plants. Any spray that reaches anything is from the surrounding farming practices.

jowitt.europe

@judsoncarroll4 thank you for the link! I counted the ones I already have - 6. Not too bad. I have just cut four huge thuja trees. Now I have space for some new plants, hopefully with many blossoms and berries or fruit for my bees, birds and ourselves. I found some ideas.

JodieDownUnder

@judsoncarroll4 this week I’m planting, a red paw paw, finger lime, red banana, fig and grafted avocado. Last spring I added a white guava and a macadamia to our orchard collection. It’s nice to see what adapts to our climate and rainfall. Not cold enough here for quince, cherry and the like.

Monek Marie

@LaurieLovesLearning Give me a bit and I will get you a list. BY making a tree guils, below and near your trees or shrubs you can help them to be healthier, produce better and have less insect issues. Your zone is a bit differnt than mine so I need to check things out

LaurieLovesLearning

Okay, I found the threads where they are talked about locally, so here is the ID.

https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=908596&cat_id=61

https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=1039055&cat_id=61

These little maggots can be found in every little plump & juicy raspberry seed ovum. (Why don't I know what those are called?) Ah, they are called "drupelets." Well, I learned something new today.

I have appreciated the idea of a tree guild in the past, but my problem with one did come in with not being able to clean up infected fruit that would keep the cycle going. That was a concern to me.

The other possible clean up idea was pastured pigs (ones that don't root & would not dig up the trees) & chickens...but I am not sure if pigs would be adequate to break the cycle and chickens...we have them contained for good reason, even though we'd rather not.

Thanks for seeing if there are any possibilities for control.

MissPatricia

I'll have to try planting garlic around my fruit trees. Nice idea. If it works...I did plant under apple tree once, but it was hard to harvest them in July.