I've just had some people in the last month or so ask about growing various fruits/vegetables. I'm just trying to be honest. Some people I've run across want instant fruit (not waiting 5 years) and not have to deal with backpack sprayers, rubber boots and a gas mask. I've tried to be totally honest with what I've dealt with (insects, disease, squirrels/birds/rodents).

Obviously pest issues/disease issues/etc vary greatly by area. I'm sure most areas are better then here for growing various fruits. I just live in the pest hell hole of N America (and winter sucks).

On the west coast it is pretty easy as long as you purchase trees that work in your area. I have had to pull out most of the Home Depot trees and not I pick up stuff from a Nursery that carries Dave Wilson trees and only carries trees that work in my town.

I think it in general is good advice. Start with the less expensive, faster, and easier stuff and get some satisfaction.

That said, in z10 and z9, citrus, and in z10 some mangoes and a number of rarer tropical fruits can grow with next to no care. Here in z7/8, Japanese persimmons, figs, rabbiteye blueberries, a couple pears, muscadine grapes, and among nuts the right pecan and chestnuts will grow and produce in a yard with virtually no care, though would appreciate occasional fertilizing and watering.

Every Home Depot I've seen in Bay Area carries Dave Wilson trees...

What amazes me is how cheap tree fruit is to purchase in comparison to something like raspberries. People always have the notion that they can grow their own and save. When you consider all that goes into producing a decent piece of fruit, it is quite an investment in not just money but time and effort. I do think the pests and diseases are worse now than ever--and environmental changes certainly have posed new problems.

I think you're wrong. With bagging most people should be able to get some good apples without any spraying at all. They would have to look and make sure they're bagging ones that weren't hit. If you're getting 100% of your apples hit before bagging time you got some bad PC populations.
Pears should be able to work without spray as long as there isn't fireblight near and the squirrels are manageable.

Now the ones that say they want to grow organically need a cold slap of reality upside the head. I'd tell them to go minimal IPM. The stuff they can get as a homeowner isn't that bad and hopefully they won't have to spray that much as long as they don't let it become a problem.
If they insist 100% on being organic then I'd say not to do it because they will end up being a problem for someone else. (For the militant organic types, not that it absolutely can't be done but most people aren't going to do the amount of work they need to in order to do it.)

When I was planting my niece's trees I told her and my great niece's, "Just think, in 5 years you will have an apple." and laughed.
Of course I've been asking if they got any apples every year since. I usually get one or two the second year but I know how to force these things.

brookw,
I don't think fruit is cheap. When I bought a half bushel from the Upick (a cheap out of the way one) I would never buy enough to press cider with at that price. Then the singles are about $1 each at the store. I have about $400 worth of apples bagged and that's all they would need for the year.
Yes some people grow those proverbial $20 tomatoes. I try not to.

Please, don't tell the synthophobes not to grow fruit. Let them try and they may get a fresh perspective on what's involved in growing food- particularly fruit, outside of a climate with a rainless growing season.

I know a few very proud organic vegetable growers that have gotten a bit more humble when they turned their sites onto the greater complexity of growing tree fruit. They may continue to struggle for their smaller crops of usable fruit but they never turn down offerings from my synthetically enhanced harvest, and I suffer much less sanctimonious commentary on my methods- not that they don't suffer from some of this treatment from me.

gonebananas I would add Pawpaws to your list of virtually no care fruit.

Benny

I knew I must have been forgetting some, but not such an obvious one! Here, pawpaws take a small amount of care if you want more than just a few fruits: very easy hand pollinating, but that just a few times spread over a couple of weeks in spring. And they do apparently appreciate being mulched. They don't need a drop of spray though, or the first bit of pruning.

Some old-variety dooryard plums (names?) don't seem to need much care either. Their isolation probably helps.

I take the other side of the argument. I belong to a bunch of web forums, some for gardening, some for building muzzleloaders, carving decoys, etc. etc. and I see a lot of people trying to scare beginners away from the hobbies or trying to make themselves look smarter, harder working or more serious than the next guy.

Admittedly, I'm certainly no expert but I live in the northeast and have been casually growing fruit for my entire adult life and I do alright. I sometimes have horrible pest or fungus problems but with minimal spraying of a commercial product and a bit of pruning and other care to my trees each year, I end up with fair quanitities of nice fruit and some "perfect" fruit.

I personally believe that a person of average to slightly above average intelligence who's moderately motivated to learn how, can grow fruit in most areas that will make them happy. Just my two cents and certainly no more valuable than anyone else's impressions or opinions though.

Well, I guess its like anything else, you reap as you sow -- or, you get back proportionally to the level of input. If you are willing to work at it and learn, you can do a lot. But it certainly is NOT the easiest of hobbies. I guess the folks that want an easy hobby should stick to watching NFL games or collecting movies on dvd.

I just emphasize how hard it is, especially for the people that want to go organic. If they look skeptical I start listing all the bad things that have happened in my past: deer munching new plants to stubs, waking up to a barren peach tree and full squirrel bellies, etc etc. I leave them to draw their own conclusions based on how much time and ambition they have.

Scott

Well, it sure isn't easy to grow tree fruit. I don't think I'll have anything this year. The apple tree that was growing and had a crop last year got eaten by rabbits over the winter and had to start over. I'm not sure what happened to my cherry tree but I've got almost nothing on it again. My other trees are still too young to do anything. But at least I don't have to spray anything since I don't have any fruit. I was going to try the fruit sox footies this year if I did have any but I was too late to save the one plum that set.

My raspberries do well without much care. The black raspberries already set fruit and are growing wild over the back fence. I gave up on the blueberries though since the rabbits love them a little too much.

Well, in contemplating all of this, it seems to me the biggest issues we all have are insects and animals. The problem, IMHO, is that our ecosystem is all out of whack. Especially when it comes to herbivores from voles to deer. We create all of these areas where we kill off the predator species and allow the herbivores to breed unchecked. My community has been "no hunting" since the 1970s, and it shows by the numbers of deer, rabbits, etc. The only thing that takes most of them out is traffic. We really don't have any large predators here -- if someone sees a coyote, it makes the news and they all panic because it might eat a toy poodle. Its a real bummer, but I don't know what the answer is. Deer are driving me nuts again. I planted my tomatoes friday, and they ate the tops out of them saturday night.

I can't say my insects and animals are because of any eco system being out of whack.
No predators go after squirrels effectively here. No predators I know of that target PC.

My insect and disease problem are all on my neighbor who won't cut down the fruit trees he obviously doesn't want. Squirrels aren't really a big problem but if I was allowed to shoot them (understandable that I can't living in town) I could control the problem ones.

I guarantee you coyote aren't your answer for deer. We have an over population of coyotes and still have an over population of deer.
Predators are not the great control people claim them to be.

I have to agree with frank. I bought a new home last year and it came with 14 fruit trees. Two pear, two peach, and the rest apples. I cant cut them down. But I would have never planted them. I love to grow things, but I know tree fruit would be a pain. So I bought some of those foot socks with surround on them. Thought I would give them a try. They are just about ready to put on. I grow blueberries and I don't think there easy. Way easier than apples I'm told. But jap beetles are a Pain in the #%#@. filix.

Mykl, it's about more than predators- it's humans providing food and supporting unnaturally high populations of pests as well. There are probably 10X the number of squirrels in suburbia than where I live (sub-suburbia) and though we do have more predators we also have far fewer bird feeders per square mile. When did it become acceptable to feed wild animals like birds, and why can't somebody invent a birdfeeder where the birds don't knock off more food than they eat?

Same deal, different food sources for raccoons and deer. Deer benefit from the removal of large trees. Crows can be a huge issue and are another species that thrive in the presence of humans. The list goes on.

May I ask what PC are?

Harvestman, our neighbors FEED THE CROWS. You read that correctly. We have so many crows it's like living in a permanent horror movie.

I am truly a novice to the topic of orcharding, but I can offer this: I've tried to get my feet wet by starting out with some very basic things. One of the easiest trees to grow is the Damson Plum. Now, compared to the beautiful French Mirabelle, these are definitely a "horse of another colour". However, they are easy to grow (and, if not grafted, will spread by stolon to form a nice plum grove!) require no spray, never a pest, but aren't for eating fresh. They are, though, unsurpassed for jam and brandy. THE best.

Also, pie cherries are very easy to grow. I've never heard of them having diseases or pests, although of course still need to be protected from birds (and, depending on where you live, the plum may need protection from coons.)

Just a couple of suggestions to add to the above, and I second the berry suggestion as well. In our world they provide much gratification for very little effort. (It's easy to grow enough berries for the birds as well as us.)

As far as squirrels go, we use 22 calibur squirrel-be-gone. Works every time.

I can fully agree with that, Harvestman. IL being one giant cornfield is why we have so many deer.
It's the blame or credit given to predators that I know is a mostly wrong. The deer will populate according to the food available. Likewise the predators will populate to the food they have available. A good year of hunting or an over population of coyotes just means more fawns will be born and survive.

What I have seen control animal populations is disease. Seen it with rabbits and it's happening with deer (CWD). Coyotes didn't cut them down but disease sure does.

I have a neighbor that feeds the raccoons drawing them out of the woods and through everyone's yards. There's a path worn through my neighbor's and I think they often live in my problem neighbor's shed. She throws a fit if anyone tries to do anything about them.
You can hear them fighting in her yard at night so if there is rabies she's spreading it.

Amyjean,
PC is plum curculio. A type of weevil/snout beetle that leaves a ) scar and has no natural controls that I know of, few organic controls and even few chemical controls.

We've had this discussion before. Nice to see that the idea of growing what can be grown successfully/easily has gained some traction. Strawberries are dead simple and a great entry point into fruit growing. They can be planted in hanging pots, in ground or "shoe-horned" in just about anywhere.

We inherited an apple tree (it's old) and it has beautiful apples and we never do a thing to it. Just pick the apples in the fall and they're wonderful!

We live five miles from the Idaho border and for whatever reason, we got really lucky with this apple tree. The deer eat the apples on the ground, but the tree never gets bothered...but it's pretty big (about 30 feet). Here's a couple of pictures, with the lilacs :)

{{gwi:114870}}

{{gwi:114871}}

I have heard bluebirds like plum curculios. Since I finally have bluebirds in my garden, I am careful about using any chemicals that could harm them, although bagging is a pain, but worth it. Northwoodswis

"Strawberries are dead simple and a great entry point into fruit growing."

Strawberries are tougher here. The slugs, and weevils destroy them, and since they ripen during the heavier rains, they want to rot to pieces. They have to have good drainage or the roots rot, and since their roots are shallow, they have to be watered some in the summer, or the strawberry bed will slowly die.

I used to have two beds of strawberries, but have scaled back to one, because they're a lot of trouble here.

If you can get past these issues, they do produce an amazing amount of fruit from even a small patch.

Not to mention the botrytis mold, which is always exacerbated by the always rain.

The rabbits ate my strawberry plants :( I'll try again but I think I'll have to fence them since the liquid sprays weren't enough to save them. I did actually get a few apricots and peaches bagged yesterday that the PC didn't find.

I'm a newbie and also a "city folk" so I can relate with the comments here.

I only wished I knew about this website or even just this discussion PRIOR to acquiring fruit trees. All I do is read, eat, breath and dream trees now. If I didn't think I had any time to just "do nothing" before, I certainly don't now.

franktank232 is right, if I love my friends I would discourage them from getting a fruit tree - way too addicting and its hard to get out once you're in.

harvestman is also right. I do have a fresh new perspective and appreciation for people who grow their food. Except I have no idea what a "synthophobe" is?

So why don't I just hang it up, you ask? Because I am not ready to admit defeat. I'm refuse to allow fungus, bacteria, blight, shot hole, aphids, thrips and the others take me down without a fight. Grrrrr...

synthophobe is a unnatural phobe. Used to date one.

@ramble: LOL!

Fear of synthetic chemicals. Will scoff at the idea of spraying a permethroid once every few weeks but will happily spray permethryn every 3 days doing more damage to themselves and the environment in the long run. Have been known to do stuff like mix tobacco and water creating a very deadly and unsafe poison but it's "organic so it must be safe".

"Will scoff at the idea of spraying a permethroid once every few weeks but will happily spray permethryn every 3 days"
Should be,
Will scoff at the idea of spraying a permethroid once every few weeks but will happily spray pyrethrum every 3 days

Hmmm... Interesting how you guys feel about it.

I grow fruit trees because they are easier than any other food crop. They aren't any harder than anything else, except for iris. Iris gets the number 1 spot for easiest to grow.

If you have deer eating your trees, they will also eat your roses and anything else you try to grow. If the squirrels eat your apples, they will eat your strawberries. If the PC eats your peaches, then the cabbage moths will get your veggies and the blossom end rot will ruin your tomatoes.

All plants need to be watered and weeded. All plants need to be fed. Most plants need some sort of pest control.

Organic fruit (the actual edible piece of fruit) is tough to grow. The trees probably do OK when grown organically. But organic anything can be tricky to grow.

I've got drip lines on my trees. It takes me a total of 10 minutes every week to water them. Then, in summer, I go out and spray them every 3 weeks.

Of course, there is the effort of thinning fruit, and harvesting fruit, and preserving fruit.

Add a couple of dormant sprays every winter, and that's it. What are you guys doing that is so blasted impossible?

A lot of my neighbors have planted fruit trees because they saw my trees doing well. They stop and ask me about the trees, what varieties to plant, how to spray them. As far as I know, nobody is having a difficult time of it.

Oregonwoods,

From you past posts, it's evident you're a pretty intense fruit grower. Drip irrigation, spraying every three weeks, thinning, pruning, etc. may not seem like much to you, but you mention this to someone new, and chances are you'll have their head spinning.

Part of it may be expectation. Many times folks unfamiliar with tree fruit expect to simply plant trees and harvest fruit.

I've gotten used to growing peaches and now feel like they're pretty easy to grow, but there was a sizable learning curve along the way. I've also lost a pile or two of trees as part of the learning process.

I do think vegetables are on average easier to grow than tree fruit. However, anyone who's a serious vegetable gardener, spending a fair portion of their free time in the garden, is also dedicated enough to grow tree fruit. It may surprise them how different it is, but they'll succeed eventually.

@oregonwoodsmoke -Applause!!!! Agree, agree,agree.... I find my fruit trees the easiest to care for of my entire garden, and I've got at least several hundred different plants between the perennials, annuals, bushes, bulbs, trees, pond and marginals, veggies and soft fruits (and that's just outside - let's not go into the orchids and gesneriads indoors!). I'm growing for fun, and to occasionally feed my family, so I can't speak to the issues of a commercial orchard (or any type of mono-culture -my gardens the antithesis of monoculture, which I think has a lot to do with the vigor of my plants). Then again, I'm not trying grow a giant, shiny and tasteless piece of fruit that I could get at Wegman's. I'm perfectly happy with a medium sized, slightly spotty apple that must be trimmed before making a delicious applesauce...

Bang for the buck, I believe for a serious gardener fruit trees are at the top of the list but east of the missisippi dealing with bugs and fungus makes them more complicated than growing most vegetables or ornamental plants. Pruning can be very confusing also and beginners often let things get out of hand.

Also, the vegetable starts you get at your nursery or big box will usually function adequately well in your region but the fruit trees may be another story altogether if you don't live in CA or somewhere that grows most types and there's more regional knowledge about fruit plants.

oregonwoodsmoke,
I'm with you, the hardest thing I've found growing fruit trees is finding the chemicals I need to spray as no one around here carries anything but that bonide crap.

Hmmmmmmm.........Well I just planted four whips this spring, two apple, a cherry and a pear. They are all dwarfs and will be espaliered into a three layer cordon fence. I can see there is going to be a big learning curve, but I think that if I am anal-retentive enough to think I can espalier them, I should be able to get a handle on learning about the various spraying regimens. I havent had much of a deer problem with anything else, squirrels may be an issue. If I dont get much fruit, I'll still have an interesting fence line.

I know my climate plays a major role (I know nothing about growing fruit in humid climates), but I'm with OWS and Olpea on this subject. I grow both fruit and veggies and it seems to me that I get much more return on my work / investment from fruit trees than veggies. The work is just different. Preparing the soil and double digging and planting every year is getting old - and veggies have their pests as well. I prefer the work and perennial nature of growing fruit. Plus nobody can deny that fruit tastes better!

If someone asked me I think I'd take a buyer beware approach passing on the plusses and minuses to trying to grow fruit trees around this area.

To me, it depends on the person, I.E. most around here are far less picky about things like worms in apples and achieving max. production ASAP as I am. My wife has no horticultural training and is no perfectionist, I am the opposite, we approach growing fruits and veggies differently with her reminding me to ease up now and then.

Definitely, raspberries have to be the easiest of fruits I grow with peach coming in second and strawbs., third. If the strawbs. were in a 4 ft. high raised bed I'd place them tied for 1st place once they have been planted properly.

Those of you in Oregon and Idaho and similar place in the mountainous West have a natural advantage in terms of insect pressures, I believe? Not the big, 2000 mile wide continuous habitat for PC and apple maggots we have here east of the Rockies.

denninmi,
I am in MO. and I still think fruit is easy

Well I grow both a garden every year and have many fruit trees. I am not organic. I spray the %^&* out of everything. All my fruit trees are big producers. I have lived in different states and only the bugs/critters change. I have put rat posion out for the squirials killed them all, along with the gophers. As for the deer a dog took care of that.
When it comes down to which is more trouble I have to say I think the garden is. Sprayed the trees 4 times this year (winter spring)and gave them some fert./water trimmmed them in the winter---done. The garden on the other hand is a day by day operation. Give me the fruit trees any day.

"Preparing the soil and double digging and planting every year is getting old"

I'm with you on that. I just took a row out of the garden to put in some plum trees last year.
I even have a comparatively easy to use walk behind rear tine tiller and I'm getting too old for that crap.
The hardest thing on my body with the fruit is lugging the harvest around.

Trees here are not any harder to grow then a garden. First you have to remember the garden #1 rule "One for the worm 2 for the crow 3 for the animals and one to grow" I started 10 years ago to plant an orchard with 200 trees the first year. I plant 25 to 40 trees a year since and have a total of about 350 trees producing. the first 3 years is hell on trees. Trade a cooler full of deer meat for apples , no contest. 40+ deer and 80 + rabbits. just have to find a sauce for voles. CM very high protine can we find a taste for them?
+

I think in general, fruit is easier in the West, and vegetables are easier in the East.

I have been growing fruit intensely for about 15 years, and I think you just start with the easy ones (paw paw, medlar, pears) and graduate onto what you want to try that's harder. One of the great things about forums like this is you can share and learn ideas. I am an organic gardener, so it gets easier every year, and I just spray with compost tea, which is organic. I think that having an orchard and vegetables and flowers are entertaining all year long. I think it is one of the key activities humans have been doing all their existence. It's really cheap entertainment, great exercise, and organic fruit and vegies are a lot more expensive to buy but not to grow. It helps if you don't mind eating stuff that has a couple of holes or doesn't look too pretty.
John S
PDX OR

Great thread Franktank. You and Hman and OregonWS are dead on with your observations. My thinking has changed over time. Fruit trees do offer POTENTIALLY the best return on investment over time. The problem is the length of the feedback cycle: you can have four or five years into a tree before you really know what you've got. You need to accommodate that fact up front with a number of tactics:

1. Research the heck out of every tree and root stock you even think about planting. Consider all sources of information to be suspect so go broad and deep in where you look.
2. Create ideal growing conditions for any long term plant (soil,sun,water).
3. Go with lowest risk highest return trees (figs, pomegranates, persimmons, loquats, mulberries, pineapple guava, etc) first, then work your way down the list.
4. Use hardball tactics like planting two or three riskier plants in one hole, planning on cutting down the two poorer performers in several years. (Works especially well for grapes and berries.)
5. Pick your battles very carefully and be aware that you will almost always underestimate the amount of effort and time needed to succeed by a factor of five at least.

Please read this in a good natured tone of voice. I am not being snarky.

To someone whose idea of gardening is to buy a condo and let the landscaping crew mow the lawns, a fruit tree would look complicated.

Growing organic fruit can be a challenge. I gave up and I spray. The upside to that is I actually get to eat fruit.

When I grow fruit trees, I am producing food for my family and I literally spend less time working on the trees than it takes me to drive to the market and buy tasteless, under-ripe, expensive fruit from the produce department.

Thanks to the internet and especially thanks to this forum, all the information about how to grow fruit trees is readily available. Seriously, it is simply paint-by-the-numbers to get started. Follow simple instructions.

Get a couple of easy trees to begin and then you can get fancier as you learn. I'm still not ready to espalier.

My veggie garden is a lot more work. I only have to dig one time to plant the tree. Did I mention that tomato horn worms are close to being the grossest thing on the planet?

I'm going to agree that berries can be easy, as long as you like feeding the birds. Pruning brambles can be intimidating. They fight back.

I find grapes to be easy, but I know that they take a lot of spraying in climates different than mine.

The simple truth is that some people like to garden and some don't. For those who don't, that's why they build condos.

franktank232 has more fruit trees in his yard than most of us.

Every zone has its own suitable fruit trees: apricot, plums, pears, blueberries, etc.

Also various berries and melons grow well in different areas.

Look for what other people plant in your area.

If we really want to help other people, offer some information what work and what don't work in your area.

illustration Tagtail SoCal. You are so right. This thread is a perfect example why it would be helpful to know specific regions of the poster. The zones bring some relevence to the information, but covers too broad of an area. Zone 5 in the East does not necessarily equate to zone 5 in the west ,especially when it comes to fruit trees, obvious statement. This would make it easier to know if the topic and info actually applies to your specific region. luke

Luike

I think the "old timers" would really scoff at the idea of NOT planting as much as one could. I believe we have become dependent on the food chain and may God help us if there is a severe shortage of food. When Costco is out of onions or bananas because of a crop failure half-a-world away it disturbs me how dependent I am. Yes, one can plant vegetables on the spur of the moment, and berries are almost as instant, but fruit trees take a long time to grow and develop; they are sort of like the "ultimate preparedness" food. A fruit tree that's just let go for years can be brought back into healthy production quite easily. And if push comes to shove, all those birds, squirrels, and deer that have been benefiting from your trees might be on your own plate one day.

I think of a fruit tree as a "food assurance plan". The more the better!

The problem is that when the global crash does come, the chain that produces pesticides etc is going down, as well. We'll all be organic by default, like it or not.