Most popular fruit trees will have dwarf varieties available that will grow in containers. Many other fruits can be grown in containers is you keep the plants pruned properly, which may include root pruning every few years when they become pot-bound with large roots. For all the information MeLikeEatPlants wants about different fruit trees, I would recommend one of my favorite books on the subject. You can get it used from one of Amazon's used book dealers for under $6 including shipping. If you want to raise a backyard orchard it is well worth the $6. It is a book that is straightforward and full of information. On Amazon's "Look Inside", you can see the table of contents, a few example pages, and the index. One of the best parts of the book is not shown in the preview. It has a 50 page alphabetic encyclopedia section, which gives almost everything you need to know about a variety of fruits from Apricots to Tayberries. All of the fruits are for small backyard gardens, and all but a few are great for containers. I cannot recommend this book high enough for beginners or experience gardeners who are new to growing fruit. In 160 pages, it has more information about a home orchard, than I have ever seen in one book, even ones many times longer. By Rodale Press ISBN-978-0875966380 "Backyard Fruits and Berries: Everything You Need to Know About Planting and Growing Fruits and Berries in Your Own Backyard" One shortcoming of the book is that it was printed in 1995, so when it recommends specific varieties of plants, it will not have the newest varieties listed. This is not to say that the information is not still valuable. I have a fondness for heirloom varieties that are often some of the best tasting. Many of the advancements with new varieties are not for taste, but for better shipping for commercial growers. Some traits that commercial growers want are the opposite of what a home grower would want. Commercial growers want a plant with fruit that ripens all at once, while home growers often prefer an extended fruiting period. MeLikeEatPlants, since you live in California, you should look at the University of California (Davis) Agriculture and Natural Resources Division's collection of free information for growing a home orchard. "http://homeorchard.ucdavis.edu/Fruits_&_Nuts/" I live in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the local university's agricultural extension office has a wonderful collection of PDF publications for gardeners and farmers, all of which are available for free to download. I have a huge collection of PDF files I have downloaded from them and other sites as well. The advantage of getting information from a local source is that it will be more specific to your local soil and climate, but there is still very useful information available from sources outside your local vicinity. Uni. Of Tenn. Gardening Publications "http://www.utextension.utk.edu/publications/homeGarden/default.asp" Cornell Guide to Growing Fruit at Home is a great resource for gardeners in New York state. "http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/fruit/index.html" These are just a few of the many sources of information on home orchards that are available from universities, coop. extension master gardeners groups, and others. I've never posted photos on this these forums before, I so don't know if mine will work or not. If so, I'm posting pictures of my dwarf Black Tartarian Cherry with Ozark Beauty Strawberries, my Scuppernong grapes, and my Apache thornless blackberry. While my fruit trees are all dwarf varieties, My tomato plants are definitely not. They have already reached 8 feet tall and are covered with green fruit. We had our first ripe ones for dinner last night. My wife and I have gotten so spoiled by the taste of home grown tomatoes during the summer, we simply do without fresh tomatoes during the winter because the things they ship around the country don't really even taste like tomatoes. I'm so proud of my tomatoes, I've included a picture of them as well. They are technically a fruit and are growing in a 6 foot snap-set kiddy pool, which is technically a 300 gallon container. Like MeLikeEatPlants, I also rent a house, but I did not want to wait to start my fruit orchard until I can afford to buy a home. In March 2010, I started my "Container Orchard". I wish that I had found Ray Newstead's website about his "EarthTainer" design before I started my little orchard. Between now and winter dormancy, I'm trying to decide how I can adapt my containers to build his design with a bottom watering reservoir, but unfortunately I have already drilled lots of drainage hole in my containers, so they may not work for his design. Replacing my 25 containers won't be cheap, so I'm still working on ideas. I've planted my dwarf fruit trees, grapes, and brambles in containers so that I can move them when I finally buy a home. If I can buy a home with a yard, I'll put them into the ground then, but if I buy a condominium, I would go stir-crazy without at least a patio for gardening, so my plants will have new home as well. My containers can all be moved with a hand truck, but I'll probably have to make an extra trip with a U-Haul truck just for the plants. When I got the plants in early April, the grapes and brambles were in 3 inch peat containers and the dwarf fruit trees were bare root. Of the 25 plants, all have done wonderfully except for one J. H. Hale dwarf peach tree that died. I'm really happy with the success I've had with them. The excitement of watching them grow and waiting will probably make them taste even better. The dwarf trees will take couple of years, but the raspberry and blackberry brambles should have a good crop next year. I'm still hoping for a fall crop from my everbearing strawberries. The plants are growing like mad, but I'm not getting any blooms. Ozark Beauty strawberries are said to not make very many runners, but I'm having to cut runners off the plants at least twice per week. Almost every single plant is putting out 4 or more runners per week. This winter I'm planning to move the strawberry plants out from the base of the fruit trees. I've got another one of the snap-set kiddie pools I bought for $5 last fall on clearance that I've been filling up with compost for them. (Others may prefer cream and sugar with their strawberries, but I've always been a bit odd.) By winter, the new bed will be ready for me to move all the strawberries to a place of their own. Here are my pictures - hopein' it works. Dwarf Black Tartarian Cherry Tree Bronze Scuppernong Grapes Apache Thornless Blackberry Tomatoes in 6' Snap Set Swimming Pool

I've ordered from Bay Laurel on-line several times. They have a very informative web site, with lots of great information about their stock. I found it especially enlightening for the beginning fruit tree buyer. I'm waiting for a delivery in January for an Eva' Pride on Nemaguard root stock, which has been mentioned as doing well on the Fruit Forum by folks in warm weather zones, being close to Elberta in taste. This was what I was hoping for. I planted a dwarf - Bonanza - I think, 2 years ago. It is only about 4 ft. tall - and am hoping to keep it close to 5 or so, in it's present location. It gave quite a hefty number of nice peaches - but a bit less tangy than I had hoped for. Still it is young yet, and perhaps hasn't reached its stride, but seems to be happy here. It never ceases to amaze me - with the variety that they manage to produce - fruit that originally meant to grow in colder climates and now can thrive in small places and warmer weather. Bejay

You're correct, Dan, I forgot they trapped some infected psyllids, which led them to the infected pummelo graft. And yes, the testing for trees allows an infected tree to stay in production much too long, allowing psyllids to spread the disease for a significant amount of time prior to finding an infected tree, and removing it. Damage is long done. This was part of Florida's issues in attempting to control the spread of HLB. Newer, swifter tests are being developed that have a high degree of accuracy, but of course, they are more expensive. And there are not nearly enough traps out there, or manpower available to manage the amount of traps we need in urban areas, to monitor the psyllid population. In listening to Dr. Allan Dodds, Professor Emeritus from UCR (whose graduate students, such as Dr. Erik Mirkov at Texas A&M) are leading the research in the fight agains HLB said that HLB will start in someone's back yard. Since about 70-90% of homes in S. California have at least 1 citrus tree, it is simply logistically impossible to monitor all the backyard citrus. One of the comments Dr. Dodds shared with us at our CRFG meeting, was the possibility of requiring the removal of ALL backyard citrus, if HLB is found in the state (as in spreading - not an isolated case as found in Hacienda Heights). That produced a rather loud collective gasp in our packed meeting. Considering many of our members, such as myself, have more than 50 trees (in my case, over 100) on our properties, that was simply an unacceptable solution, in order to protect our commercial citrus industry. And Dr. Dodds also proposed to us, that HLB very well may be here, but due to the situations you've mentioned - not enough monitoring capabilities - we may not discover it until it has really taken hold somewhere. So, California commercial growers are being much more preemptive, than the commercial growers were in Florida. Trying to learn from the disaster in Florida - they are treating their trees well, completely and thoroughly. They have been for several years, now. Much prior to HLB being identified here in our state in the hopes they can keep HLB out of our commercial citrus orchards. Hoping that they can stave off massive infection prior to successful treatments being made available. There are no "useful treatments" in Florida for HLB. Commercial growers are simply replanting every 5 years, a ridiculous and costly option. Some growers are attempting to flood their orchards with nutrients to make their trees as healthy and vigorous as possible, which really only slows the inevitable. But, might buy a grower another year of production, thus lowering their overhead. A few have tried super heating their trees, but that treatment is simply not practical in the large sense. It's much, much too late to remove trees - Florida became overwhelmed before this could have ever have been considered an option. They got caught with their pants down around their ankles, sadly. And, they are paying an indescribable cost for their lack of vigilance and concern. California will not be caught off guard, but for now, there is nothing much we can do, except treat all our trees on a regular basis, and hope for a cure, soon. Otherwise, our alternative may be horrific - the prophylactic removal of all backyard citrus trees. Patty S. Here is a link that might be useful: CDFA Press Release: HLB Discovered in Hacienda Heights

Hermitian, we trap all the time. Last year we got around 35 or so. I have not tried poison, but I would be concerned about them possibly coming above ground to die, as we live in a suburban neighborhood with cats and we are near a wildlife preserve and get a lot of coyote, skunk, raccoon and hawks. What kind of poison do you use? One neighbor used to have about a dozen feral cats and the other had a thick brush/hedgerow area decades old with a resident owl, and we had very little gopher troubles then. Cat neighbor sold the house and the cats went to the pound, and the other neighbor cut down the brush are and the owl left. That was about 7 years ago and we had a huge population boom of gophers. First year we trapped almost 100. It has gone down a bit but like Patty said, there are always more moving in from the surrounding area, one gone, one moves in. Patty thanks for the idea of hardware cloth cages. That will give me a few more years I think. I think it's better to plant in spring, so I could make the cages this winter. There is an old irrigation system from the previous owner, but it was done with very cheap plastic lines and the gophers,(again!) chewed holes in them. I will do drip but leave the main lines above ground, probably mulched, so I can see and fix any chewed areas easily. It used to be a home orchard with stone fruits, you can still see a couple left. But this area was not fenced back then and the darn deer really destroyed his trees over the years. The couple left have big strips of bark missing and are on their last legs. Now the fence keeps the deer out mostly, plus I don't think they are as fond of citrus leaves as stone fruits leaves, though they will eat them if there's nothing else. I think Steve was mostly saying that his plants do better in the ground, even the semi-container ones without bottoms. Not that it would deter gophers.