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| I just...I'd like to invite you in for coffee but I'm afraid you'll tell me about vinyl siding. |
That's been the common urban wisdom for so long it's become idiomatic, so when I started reading about the amazing public food forest in Seattle I thought it sounded literally magical, something that they could only achieve in the northwest, like non-ironic Northface jacket-wearing. Food forests (large scale permaculture food gardens) have popped up all over Oregon and Washington, touting multi-layered plantings that all produce consumables--often a canopy of fruit and nut trees, an understory of berry bushes, and a forest floor of wild vegetables (thinks asparagus, squash vines, lettuces). Many are converted public parks using the existing landscaping budgets to care for vegetables instead of flowers, and providing fresh produce to anyone with the time and inclination to gather it. Thoughts of converting my front yard into a consumable paradise just like the ones in Portland and Seattle were what compelled me to buy blueberry bushes last year...but even as I was at the nursery choosing which cultivar of blueberry I was cheating in my heart, looking longingly down to the end of the aisle to where the fruit trees tempted me into their red light district of delights--all kinds of different apple, pear, pomegranate, fig, almond, pecan, quince (what's that?!) and persimmons, their tags boasting fragrant, delicious, visually spectacular fruit. Bing cherry trees winked at me with impossible promises of my absolute favorite fruit growing in luscious bunches outside my window. Lies, I thought, lies! It'd be twenty years before I ever tasted a single one of those quince, whatever that was, and we'd probably have moved by then. Why should I plant a delicious treat for the jerks that would someday live in our house? Those freeloaders, moving in on my fruit. Forget it. I had a barren dwarf meyer lemon tree in a pot already and I decided I'd satisfy myself with trying to make it bear this year.
First stop, the library, where a faded, pastel-covered, unappealing little book jumped out at me. "Grow a Little Fruit Tree".. Wait, I HAVE A LITTLE FRUIT TREE. Yes! This book is for me. I checked it out and devoured it that afternoon.
To my surprise, the author wasn't talking about growing dwarf or semi-dwarf fruit trees in pots despite the picture of her snipping what looked like oranges off an incredibly lush waist high tree. She was talking about growing regular (read: enormous and lawn gobbling) fruit trees in a way that makes them accessible for an ordinary schmo who has a little sunny corner of earth. Backyard orchard, on a small scale. Turned out, the tree in her picture was actually a nectarine tree that should have been fifteen feet tall, pruned down to fit perfectly in the backyard. My interest was piqued.
Ann Ralph started her book off the same way, "when's the best time to plant a fruit tree twenty years ago" and scoffs at it. I was startled to read that Johnny Appleseed's famous trees were not, after all, still around after hundreds of years, feeding the tourists, and that fruit trees--yes Apple trees!--could bear the second year! I started to get excited. Her pruning technique kept the trees at a size that made them easy to harvest from and allowed them to be close together that a person could conceivably have one or two of every kind of fruit they wanted in a single small California lawn. (Note: NOT a green, getting watered every day lawn. I said a CALIFORNIAN lawn. Fruit trees need full sun and deep water, not a daily shallow water like a typical lawn sprinkler. Convert your lawn to the trees' watering schedule or find a different sunny spot for the trees.) At first I was skeptical about whether or not the trees would produce enough at that size.
Bare root fruit trees appear in the nursery in Southern California in January--by early April they're already on clearance, so I took a chance and grabbed two Gala apple trees (convenient, since they were 50% off) the next time I was in the nursery. Ann Ralph said in her chapter on pruning not to be afraid and I had scoffed, right up until I took the loppers and went over to make the fatal cut. Ann expected me to cut off two thirds of my new sapling, contrary to everything I knew with positive certainty from elementary school science: big trees make big apples, and lots of them. Isn't this also an American indictment? Bigger better more? I couldn't do it. Even though I'd read her book chock full of anecdotes of people who hated the idea of the hard prune, tried it against their better judgement, and then we're blissfully happy with the results, I just couldn't bring myself to butcher that little clearance bin sapling, half price or not. The sad little wilted and browning leaves looked tenuous enough, like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Surely such a drastic measure would end it.
Luckily, there is a stronger stomach than mine in the house. After hearing me talk excitedly about this new small fruit tree method for weeks, my husband skimmed the pruning chapter and went out with the loppers. And then came back in, abashed. "Damn," he told me, laughing in surprise. "I couldn't do it either! It seems so wrong!"
We're sort of conditioned to think that a "tree" needs to either be a twenty five foot monster or a dwarf, and that a tree, like most kinds of plants grows best when left alone. Ann Ralph, an experienced nursery and backyard orchardist, says on the contrary: fruit trees only produce the way they do BECAUSE of human intervention. Left on its own a fruit tree will over produce to the extent that it breaks its own branches. An apple tree without anyone to gather the fallen fruit soon becomes infested with coddling moths that lay their eggs in the fallen apples (the iconic image of the caterpillar in the apple). Branches left unpruned become so thick the blossoms can't get enough sunlight to produce fruit and the tree shades itself into no productivity, and worst of all, only grows fruit on the very top of the twenty five foot high canopy--leaving you to struggle with a daily ladder and basket gathering ritual (which, again, you can't skip because the fallen fruit could become infested). Dwarf trees, like my little Meyer lemon, stay small enough to handle but don't produce much fruit (mine finally produced a couple of dozen lemons this year). Conversely, even a relatively small apple tree, just 12 feet tall, can set two THOUSAND apples. And remember, that's not spread out over the year, that's all within a few weeks. There's a reason your co-workers with fruit trees drag in bags of fruit and magnanimously give them away for free--an unpruned fruit tree produces too much for even a family to handle.
Ann Rakph suggests a knee high hard prune when you bring the sapling home, which for some trees may mean removing the top two thirds of the tree or more, especially cherry and fig trees that come bare root at five or six feet. She promised that even with the reduction in fruit production from the necessarily smaller number of boughs that the trees would still set around two hundred apples each and that the trees would be far more manageable, with all the fruit within reach. Still I couldn't do it. I headed off on a short weekend trip utterly disgusted with myself and feeling sick about the money we'd thrown away on the trees. We certainly didn't have room in our tiny lawn for two full sized Apple trees.
Imagine my surprise when I arrived at my hotel and the garden outside my door was a tiny orchard of Granny Smith Apple trees--none more than five feet tall. Their boughs were dripping with fruit and everything was beautifully within reach. The trees looked completely healthy--nothing you'd be able to climb to someone's window maybe but beautiful. I called my husband enchanted with the fairy garden and the incredible bounty, the number of different trees all growing in such close proximity to each other and to sidewalks and patios, and how easy it was to pick.
He sent me back a picture of our newly, ruthlessly pruned, Apple trees.
Stronger stomach, like I said.
By the time I got home the trees had already recovered. The bulk of their browning leaves had been pruned and they had new leaf buds popping out with beautiful soft pale green leaves sprouting already. Within a few weeks new branches sprouted, lower and more spreading, with an open center to the tree. As soon as the worst of the summer heat passed we planted them in the front corner of our lawn, 18" apart so we could ultimately cultivate them into an espaliered fence by binding their side sprouting branches together. By winter we started having dreams of making our own hard cider and apple doughnuts. Our trees have glossy healthy leaves and spreading branches covered in buds already.
And then this January the new bareroot trees hit the nursery bins. The other advantage of keeping fruit trees small is the ability to have more than one type of fruit tree--in fact, a veritable orchard of your favorite types of fruit. Hesitantly I took a stroll through the bins to see what they had for sale. My tiny start on a tiny orchard, the two trees that stand proudly at the corner of my lawn were one thing. A continuation on that line of fruit trees would be a bold stroke towards a permanent dislocation of my lawn and a commitment to this project...I looked in the bins and saw figs (not my thing), more apple trees, peaches, apricots and almonds with chill requirements far more than San Diego could provide, and then I spotted them. In a bin all to themselves, two kinds of sweet cherry trees that pollinated each other and were a new strain that could fruit even in the low chill of inland southern California. (Did I mentioned I am absolutely a cherry fanatic? Read "Back Away from My Cherries" here to see what a cherry freak I am.)Even though the whips were six feet high I knew I could prune them back to match the height of my apple espalier fence and in a few years, I'd have cherries that didn't come from Chile but from steps outside my front door.
I could grow a little fruit tree.
Luckily, there is a stronger stomach than mine in the house. After hearing me talk excitedly about this new small fruit tree method for weeks, my husband skimmed the pruning chapter and went out with the loppers. And then came back in, abashed. "Damn," he told me, laughing in surprise. "I couldn't do it either! It seems so wrong!"
We're sort of conditioned to think that a "tree" needs to either be a twenty five foot monster or a dwarf, and that a tree, like most kinds of plants grows best when left alone. Ann Ralph, an experienced nursery and backyard orchardist, says on the contrary: fruit trees only produce the way they do BECAUSE of human intervention. Left on its own a fruit tree will over produce to the extent that it breaks its own branches. An apple tree without anyone to gather the fallen fruit soon becomes infested with coddling moths that lay their eggs in the fallen apples (the iconic image of the caterpillar in the apple). Branches left unpruned become so thick the blossoms can't get enough sunlight to produce fruit and the tree shades itself into no productivity, and worst of all, only grows fruit on the very top of the twenty five foot high canopy--leaving you to struggle with a daily ladder and basket gathering ritual (which, again, you can't skip because the fallen fruit could become infested). Dwarf trees, like my little Meyer lemon, stay small enough to handle but don't produce much fruit (mine finally produced a couple of dozen lemons this year). Conversely, even a relatively small apple tree, just 12 feet tall, can set two THOUSAND apples. And remember, that's not spread out over the year, that's all within a few weeks. There's a reason your co-workers with fruit trees drag in bags of fruit and magnanimously give them away for free--an unpruned fruit tree produces too much for even a family to handle.
Ann Rakph suggests a knee high hard prune when you bring the sapling home, which for some trees may mean removing the top two thirds of the tree or more, especially cherry and fig trees that come bare root at five or six feet. She promised that even with the reduction in fruit production from the necessarily smaller number of boughs that the trees would still set around two hundred apples each and that the trees would be far more manageable, with all the fruit within reach. Still I couldn't do it. I headed off on a short weekend trip utterly disgusted with myself and feeling sick about the money we'd thrown away on the trees. We certainly didn't have room in our tiny lawn for two full sized Apple trees.
Imagine my surprise when I arrived at my hotel and the garden outside my door was a tiny orchard of Granny Smith Apple trees--none more than five feet tall. Their boughs were dripping with fruit and everything was beautifully within reach. The trees looked completely healthy--nothing you'd be able to climb to someone's window maybe but beautiful. I called my husband enchanted with the fairy garden and the incredible bounty, the number of different trees all growing in such close proximity to each other and to sidewalks and patios, and how easy it was to pick.
He sent me back a picture of our newly, ruthlessly pruned, Apple trees.
Stronger stomach, like I said.
By the time I got home the trees had already recovered. The bulk of their browning leaves had been pruned and they had new leaf buds popping out with beautiful soft pale green leaves sprouting already. Within a few weeks new branches sprouted, lower and more spreading, with an open center to the tree. As soon as the worst of the summer heat passed we planted them in the front corner of our lawn, 18" apart so we could ultimately cultivate them into an espaliered fence by binding their side sprouting branches together. By winter we started having dreams of making our own hard cider and apple doughnuts. Our trees have glossy healthy leaves and spreading branches covered in buds already.
And then this January the new bareroot trees hit the nursery bins. The other advantage of keeping fruit trees small is the ability to have more than one type of fruit tree--in fact, a veritable orchard of your favorite types of fruit. Hesitantly I took a stroll through the bins to see what they had for sale. My tiny start on a tiny orchard, the two trees that stand proudly at the corner of my lawn were one thing. A continuation on that line of fruit trees would be a bold stroke towards a permanent dislocation of my lawn and a commitment to this project...I looked in the bins and saw figs (not my thing), more apple trees, peaches, apricots and almonds with chill requirements far more than San Diego could provide, and then I spotted them. In a bin all to themselves, two kinds of sweet cherry trees that pollinated each other and were a new strain that could fruit even in the low chill of inland southern California. (Did I mentioned I am absolutely a cherry fanatic? Read "Back Away from My Cherries" here to see what a cherry freak I am.)Even though the whips were six feet high I knew I could prune them back to match the height of my apple espalier fence and in a few years, I'd have cherries that didn't come from Chile but from steps outside my front door.
I could grow a little fruit tree.
