Adzuki Beans Satsuki Madori Cucumbers Spacemaster Cucumbers American Flag Leeks Hale's Best Jumbo Melons Purple Top White Globe Turnips Roma Tomato Guajillo Chili Perilla/Korean Shiso Bouquet Dill Summer Savory Boothby's Blonde Cucumber Mexican Sour Gherkin Homemade Pickles Cucumber White Long Cucumber Pizza Pepper Blacktail Mountain Watermelon Honeydew Melon Black Cherry Tomatoes Reid's Yellow Dent Corn Buckwheat Plain Wheat - All corn & Grains are organic & not genetically modified. I also have smaller amounts of certain stuff (tomatoes, peppers, melons, etc) -- All stuff is heirloom and/or open pollinated. :) I'd love some of your current cuttings! :)

You can top an American persimmon and keep the height in check. American persimmons are astringent so birds and other wildlife don't generally bother them until they ripen. This is not the case with some Oriental persimmons. I use American persimmons for deer specifically because they are native to my area and low maintenance. You can't do much maintenance on hundreds of trees scattered across a couple hundred acres. Astringency helps me because flying and climbing animals don't much bother the persimmons. The don't get fully ripe until the fall on the ground. At that point deer have an equal chance as other wildlife. Most critters in the woods eat persimmon when they are ripe. So if you are living with wildlife in the area, they will keep the persimmons cleaned up pretty well from the ground. There are also some oriental persimmons as well as crosses between American and Oriental that are astringent. For a situation like yours, they may be a fit. If you use Lotus rootstock instead of Virginia they tend to be smaller trees. Many of the Oriental persimmons ripen on the tree and do not fall. If you use an astringent variety, they will be largely protected from animal use until they ripen. At that point you will need to compete with climbing animals. In a landscape setting you would not have the fruit on the ground issues if you don't have wildlife around to clean them up. My personal experience is with American persimmons for wildlife. I just throw Oriental out as an option for you. Others can help with specific varieties. I don't know if they are as maintenance free as American. Thanks, Jack

I will try to grow just about anything. I have plenty in the ground and way too much in pots that I drag around the yard during the summer and shove into a makeshift greenhouse for the winter. February marks my second year in this new house (which is actually an older house) so a lot of what I have is still too young to fruit. Even things that normally were not my favorite flavor ended up growing on me so now I can't imagine gardening without them (guavas come to mind). I guess the oddest thing in the ground is my Arbequenia Olive which is planted right up against the brick wall of the house and doing just fine. They are rated zone 8 and I am a warm zone 7b. In its entire life (most of which was in a pot) it has only made ONE tiny olive that made it all the way to maturity. I joke that I could have squeezed one drop of oil onto one tiny crouton with that crop. This year's lack of winter is making what looks like bumper crop of Loquats - we'll see. They don't ripen til April. I have the best luck with the small pomegranate sold by Plant Delights as 'State Fair'. It is a small bush with half sized fruits that are more brown than red but the flavor is great and the bush is very very very prolific. It pretty much blooms from early spring til December and sets more fruit than you can pick. It even self sows, the ground under it is covered with babies. I have good luck (sort of) with the bush cherry series: Jan, Joel, and Joy. The bushes are way cute when in bloom but they do catch every plum disease out there and the fruit is often disfigured. But right about when you think they should be starting to rot is when they finally taste like regular cherries - otherwise they taste more like wild plums. Some people don't like the flavor of Goumi's but I flat out love them and plan on growing an entire row of them this year. Sweet Scarlet is very prolific but Red Gem has better flavor (with only a fifth of the fruit). They taste kinda like a cranberry and more berry like than their cousin Autumn Olive which is highly invasive. Years ago I stumbled upon a very tasty form of native passionvine. I have allowed it to escape into my yard and so far it has behaved. The fruit is nasty looking but tastes like Hawai'i to me. It makes a great smoothie mixed with orange juice and guava. I have European pears which do fine but lack any great flavor. I have two Asian Pears but only one of them has produced so far and the raccoons got all the fruit. I have apples which do ok - I haven't sprayed in the past and the fruit really suffered. I have peaches but they didn't care for the high heat and drought of the past two summers. I have no problem growing raspberries and blackberries and elderberries. I am growing but so far have not gotten any fruit from: fuzzy kiwi, hardy kiwi, pawpaw, wineberry, pineapple guava, service berry, cornelian cherry, shippova, quince, che, medlar, mulberry. I've already ordered sea buckthorn, aronia and honeyberry to plant this year (they should show up in early April). The greenhouse is full but worth all the hassles to keep it warm - guavas all fall and citrus all winter - yum.

there was similar post earlier this spring; you may want to search for more info. there's also an edible landscaping forum, which may be fun to peruse. i have many cane berries and crosses- black, red and purple raspberries, 2 red raspberry/blackberry crosses, 3 varieties of blackberries, and wineberries (sort of a red rasp that will fruit in shade). they've all done pretty well for me, even though i'm borderline for the amount of light they want, and all have fruited. i also have an asian persimmon*, asian pears* (3x grafted- not sure the varieties off the top), seckle pear*, another european pear, an espaliered apple* 3x, not sure of varieties, a grafted 4x apple* (fuji, braeburn, wynochee early & cox's orange pippen), 2 cornus mas aka cornelian cherries, a sour cherry* (northstar), a sweet cherry i think i lost to the frost (compact stella), 2 types of bush cherries*, contorted jujube, 4 or 5 types of figs* (but some are still tiny), pomegranate*, rabbiteye blues* (climax, tiffblue, powderblue and premier), evergreen huckleberry, which is still small, hazelnuts, tree hazel, loquat, trifoliate orange*, pawpaws, a potted meyer's lemon*, a potted patio nectarine*, potted gooseberries*, mulberries*, honeyberry and red currents, hardy kiwis*, artic kiwis, schizandra vine, regular strawberries* galore, alpine strawberries*, and probably some other stuff i'm forgetting. a couple things that haven't done well are the honeyberries and i can't keep rhubarb going for anything (wish i could, i miss it). the gooseberries and tree cherries have struggled. thimble berry aka flowering raspberry which is a thornless bush that bears red rasps, has done well, but will not set fruit below a mtn elevation (didn't know til after i bought them). the easiest things i have are the blues, persimmon, strawberries and asian pears. the pears require some pruning but that's about it, and the other 3 don't even really need that. caneberries are pretty easy, but you do have to know how to prune them. about 1/2 of what i have is too small to bear still, so i can't say about the fruiting, but the plants have been ok. i'm starring the stuff i've had that's fruited. apples need sprayed to get edible fruit. there are organic methods out there, but since i'm lazy about spraying, we haven't had great yields. peaches and nectarines are probably the most labor intensive fruit you can grow, fyi. autumn olive is edible and makes a good syrup if you have some growing near you. it's related to goumi. we haven't messed with grapes because the regular ones don't do so hot and we don't care for muscadines. in general, we prefer to grow stuff you can't find in market, or is too expensive, or just tastes a bunch better fresh. we haven't bothered with most nuts because we don't have the sun or space. hazelnuts are bushes that do ok in part shade, so they are going in the backyard (still potted for now). there are 3 books i highly recommend if you get into edible landscaping: both stella otto's 'backyard berry' book and 'backyard orchardist' books and another that goes by 'organic gardener's edible plants' by van patten. have fun experimenting and bon appetit!