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Growing fruit trees - best place to live

15 years ago

I am finishing up residency in a few years and I have built a passion for growing herbs and fruit trees. Does anyone know the best place to live if I want to grow and fruit, all different fruit and nut trees, e.g. apple, cherry, almond, walnut, peach, olive, mango, medjool date, fig, citrus?

Perhaps someone out there is living my dream and I can be their favorite neighbor...

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Comments (6)

gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
15 years ago
The central valley of California will get you a lot of different fruit and nut varieties......one local nursery offers 95 different ones. But you need heat and pretty much frost free conditions for things like dates, mangos and most citrus crops. Locations that offer optimum growing conditions for them will not be as inclined to offer good growing conditions for fruits that require winter chill periods, like apples, cherries and most stone fruits.

Now if you were to have two locations - one in the San Joaquin Valley and one in the Imperial Valley - you could pretty much grow any fruit or nut you like! I'd still pick somewhere in CA to maximize the possibilities....
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
15 years ago
the traverse city area is replete with orchards .. apple.. peach.. cherry ... but not the tropical fruits ...

your list is somewhat bipolar in the types of fruit listed ... you arent going to get all your wishes in one place ... since some require cool season growth .. and some are totally tropical ....

there is a fruit forum.. and those peeps might have better ideas ...

ken
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I actually have a business that includes a bearing age fruit tree nursery. I don't sell my trees via mail and am in the east coast so I'm not writing this as a promotion, but I've been doing this for 25 years as a business that grows, installs and manages orchards, mostly on estates of very wealthy people. I can probably offer some useful advice. If there are any commercial orchards near you they will likely be willing to sell you some trees for a reasonable price if you are willing to dig them up. You can hire a man with a tree spade to do this for you, but apple trees, especially if they are under 3" in caliber transplant well bare root. It the orchard soil is light (not clay) it is not too much work do dig the trees out moving as much root as possible and wrapping everything up with wet blankets or tarps filled with wet leaves to move them to their new site. I have found that most species of fruit trees, pears being an exception, actually transplant extremely well as bare roots. If you can't do the work you can hire someone in the business to do it for you. I hope you are a beneficiary of the energy boom in your state so you can afford it. Of course, I'm not sure there are even ANY commercial orchards in N. Dakota. If there are none in your area that should probably tell you something. I would start with some cheap, small Honey Crisp, Zestar and other extremely hardy apple varieties and just see if they will survive.
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Since they are in the same state as me and because of less shipping time involved,I figure it's less chance for things to dry out,I use Burnt Ridge and Raintree. The plants have so far been fine and for the most part they are both highly rated. One Green World in Oregon has also been decent. Brady
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dogrunfarms: The best I found was Riverside Nursery, 5215 N Golden State Blvd, (559)275-1891. They sell many varieties that have done well in Dave Wilson Nursery fruit taste tests. You can find the results on line at Dave Wilson's website. They may be able to give you the results at Riverside. You didn't ask for variety recommendations but I'll give a few since I used to live in that area. For citrus I'd try Washington navel orange which will ripen in late winter and early spring. Chandler pummelo will ripen mid winter. Nectarines are great in that climate and the Arctic series is sensational. Arctic Star, Arctic Jay, Arctic Rose, Arctic Queen, and Arctic Blaze are the best of that group. You should try a pluot or two. Geo Pride, Flavor Grenade, and Flavor Finale are near the top of my list. The Fruitnut
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Comments (46)
Frank: There is no place east of the rockies that even comes close in my opinion. Ya I'm in a good place...for a greenhouse. But compared to CA, well there's no comparison. When I lived in Amarillo I often said that we get more bad weather in April than CA gets all year. Most years that was certainly true. Around lake MI you are looking at a 4 month shorter growing season and what you have is not nearly as good as CA. What I loved about CA is you had a long dry warm summer season that was ideal for ripening high quality fruit. Then you had a mild winter with some rain where everything greened up. It was like another summer only better in many ways than the real summer. You harvested citrus and many other fruits and harvested your cool season vegetables. I harvested sweet peas all winter just for an example. Around here all winter is good for is wind and drought. My peas, the one year I tried them were froze out in early November.
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love_to_plant
Original Author
15 years ago
Looks like I will need two homes or perhaps a one home and a greenhouse??

Thanks for the honesty.
cascadians
15 years ago
What you need is a good water supply and rich land. Test the water table before buying property. The water table all over the earth is going down. You'll want to be able to irrigate.

California is a great place to grow but they are in a severe drought and the water is cut off to farmers now. Not a good place to plan one's future.
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
15 years ago
and.. 2 houses leads to reduced garden capability.. because you never spend enough time at either house ....

are you talking about some fruit GARDENING .. in my adrian MI garden i have peach.. plum.. apple.. pear ... apricot [grandpa keeps buying us trees... lol ..] ....one of each on 5 acres .... its fun ... but real fruit growing entails multiple chemical sprayings per year.. and since the kids came along.. i am not interested in the exposures ... we get what we get ... it aint pretty fruit.. and its cool ...

or are you thinking being an orchard grower ... which is a whole nother ball of wax ....

define your goal .....

ken
Rachel Hart
last year
hi from 13 years later! Where did you go? What did you do? You must be a medical pro of some sort by now. Did your fruit tree dreams come true? I would love to hear from you, love to plant : )

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