Yeah, we’re behind the curve with fruit trees. Just got some of those to start with last year. We’re trying to go with low spray (disease resistant) varieties to reduce the amount of pesticide we have to use (expensive!) and with our hectic schedule I don’t want to forget to spray one week and have a dead tree the next! So far we’ve got Liberty and Enterprise apples. Along with a couple varieties of low spray Asian pears.
We’ve got 4yr old blueberry bushes now that made several gallons last summer. Kids love those in muffins and pancakes. I just rinse them, let them dry off in a colander, put them in a ziploc and into the deep freeze they go! Pour out the desired quantity of little frozen pellets when I get ready to use them. My kids will eat them frozen too, right out of the bag. It’s fairly easy to grow these ‘organically’ down here. Just mulch around them with pinestraw and water them if it gets egregiously dry.
We also got some little bush cherries. Sour cherries but supposedly they’ll can just fine for jam and preserves.
I got a hanging planter of strawberries last summer on impulse at the local nursery. 3 little strawberry plants. Those three little plants sent off over SIXTY runners. I’m getting ready to put those in the strawberry bed this week. I think they’re everbearing because some of them were setting fruit last October. I’ll use the ones that don’t fit in the bed along a sidewalk as edging. Did I mention I hate monkey grass?
And I might be putting in *another* order to Jung this week LOL. I am an unrepentant seed collector.
There’s a blueberry place around here that I like to pick at and they do what they can to encourage the wild turkeys to hang around. She told me that the turkeys will eat every single blueberry they can find, even the rotten ones off the ground.
What that does is go a long way to preventing worms in the blueberries. Apparently the worms overwinter in the drops and then re-infest the plants the next spring. If you want to have to spray less and have more worm free blueberries, clean up under the bushes meticulously.
I’ve wondered about those cherry bushes. That sounded intriguing.