The investment in planting a fruit tree returns itself many times over as the life span can be 20-40 years in the case of avocados, apricots, apples, citrus, cherries, figs, nectarines, peaches, pears, plums and others. There are nut trees too - almonds, chestnuts, macadamias, hazelnuts and walnuts.
All these fruits and nuts offer so much nutritional value and can be grown at your place.
Now, in late winter, is a good time to plant these and other fruit trees. The ground is wet from winter rain and we have warm weather ahead which will promote growth. Planting trees now will ensure the new growth happens in the ground where they are to grow in the coming years. This will give some reasonable establishment before the dry of the summer months.
By selecting a number of different fruit trees and plants with some careful thought, you can pick your own produce from your garden and feed yourself every month of the year.
Fruits to harvest in winter
Citrus fruits are the number one produce that come ready in the winter months. The easy-peel, seedless satsuma mandarins are the first with varieties Miyagawa Wase, Okitsu, Miho and Aoshima all great selections. Following this, the first orange varieties.
Later in the winter and into spring, clementine mandarins come on stream. This variety has a few pips. I recently commented to a famous plant breeder and citrus grower that this was its downfall for wider appeal to home gardeners. He had a wry smile and said “Fussy eaters miss out on the best flavours because of a few pips or seeds”.
Other citrus that start fruiting during winter include lemons, lemonade, limes and grapefruit. The sweeter (if there is such a thing in grapefruit) varieties of Golden Special and Cutlers Red come first and in late winter and spring the more astringent Weeny variety starts to produce.
Early orange varieties such as Bests Seedless and Fukumoto start in June and fruit for several months.
Other winter fruiting plants include avocado varieties Bacon and Hashimoto, then later Fuerte.
Casimiroa are a subtropical fruit for warm, frost-free gardens, along with tamarillos.
An uncommon and unusual fruit ready in winter is the medlar.
Fruits ready in spring
The early spring months are dominated by citrus with the grapefruit well on-stream, plus many more orange varieties and tangelos adding some rich flavours to the fruit bowl. Lemonade, limes and lemons continue for vitamin C-rich drinks and flavourings.
Cherimoya and avocado Fuerte continue too with avocado Hass starting to fruit. Loquat ripen from September to December, the first berry fruits start to ripen as spring progresses with blueberry varieties Misty, Mirimba, Oneal and Petite Blue all starting in November. The short day type strawberries, including Camerosa and Warrior, start too.
Super-early herry Tangshe starts fruiting in November.
Fruits for summer
As we reach the summer months, the citrus really show their value to the fruit bowl. They offer so many months of production with lemon Meyer, lemon Yenben/Lisbon, lemonade, limes, grapefruit and oranges that started producing in late winter still offering food into the early summer.
Encore is a mandarin variety that has good flavour (albeit a few pips) and is actually a summer fruiter so it is good for extending the citrus season. Orange Harwood Late does the same for oranges with fruiting extending from November to March.
Continuing from spring and through the summer months are avocado Hass and blueberries in abundance, with many more varieties coming ripe during the warmer season.
Many other berries offer nutritional and flavourful delights including thornless blackberries, boysenberries, raspberries and loganberries. Gooseberries and currants fruit in mid-summer.
The summer months are known for stone fruit. The first plum varieties start around Christmas - Duffs Early Jewel (Christmas), Santa Rosa, Scarlet Sunrise and Plumcot Spring Satin will ripen, offering sweet juicy flavours, followed by many other varieties such as Billington and Hawera.
During January, apricot varieties Royal Rosa, Sundrop and Solar Perfection are first, followed by Trevatt and Fitzroy.
Cherries are associated with Christmas with Compact Stella ripening in late December. Others follow during January.
Later in January, we have the delicious stone fruit of peaches and nectarines. Later varieties come ripe in February. Like many fruits, planting a range of varieties will extend the harvest season in the home garden.
Later in summer, nashi start to fruit along with fig Mrs Williams – first crop.
Prune Plum Stanley, apples, almonds and the first grape varieties, Niagara and Lakemont Seedless, come on stream.
Fruits to harvest in autumn
Apples are in full harvest once we reach early autumn. Apples are a versatile fruit with numerous varieties which make good eating, cooking or storing for eating a few months later.
Along with apples, autumn is the season for pears. This fruit fascinates me – many of the varieties have been around for more than 100 years and, as a crop, they do not get a lot that goes wrong with them. In the garden centre, we get some double-grafted varieties (with two varieties on one tree) which lend themselves to growing in an espalier form along a fence or trained on wires.
Autumn is also the season for nut harvesting with walnuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts, macadamias and almonds ready for harvest and storage for use throughout the year.
As well as late plum Greengage, there are still avocados Hass and Reed, some blackberries, later blueberry and peach varieties. Peachcots also come ripe in the later summer/early autumn period.
Some other autumn fruiters are feijoas, persimmons, quinces, Chilean guavas, figs and grapes.
For more gardening information visit www.springvalegardencentre.co.nz.
