Now our early-blooming trees — especially the wild plums — are celebrating the returning warmth of March by popping open their buds. It makes one want to plant a fruit tree to join the fun, and to enjoy the fruit for years to come.
The first year, you want fruit trees to establish a strong root system, so it’s good to snip off any fruit that forms and make sure they get enough water during our summer drought. In subsequent years, the tree or fruiting shrub will produce larger and larger crops until they reach their mature size in about five to 10 years.
March is the month to plant for fruit and flowers for several reasons. Some sought-after plants sell out quickly and may not be available later in the year. The plants are shipped dormant, having been kept in cold storage. Their bare roots are kept moist, but they’re not potted up in soil or balled in burlap. Young trees, especially, are most easily handled bare root, since plants in pots or balled in burlap are heavy and can be hard to move. Not insignificantly, they’re cheapest when they’re bare root. By selling bare root, the nursery person avoids the cost of pots or burlap, the mess and extra weight of moist soil and the expense of shipping heavy potted or burlap stock. And you avoid that in the price.
Bare-root fruit trees can be just a single whip or a two-year-old with trimmed branches. It’s simple to just pop them into the ground, and they will do best in ordinary soil. As they grow, their roots will have to contend with the native soil, so it’s best to introduce them to it from the get-go.
What you don’t want to do is to dig a hole and fill it with rich soil or compost and plant the tree in that. The tree will respond with delight to the rich environment, but when the roots reach native soil of lesser quality, they will tend to curl back into the rich soil, becoming sort of in-ground pot-bound. If your native soil is woefully poor, top dress it with compost after you’ve planted the tree in the native soil.
Full-size fruit trees are for people with tall ladders and a hankering for hard-to-reach places. Stick with semi-dwarf or dwarf fruit trees. The former grow to about 15 feet tall and dwarf trees to about half that size.
The main consideration is quality of the fruit. Since the fruit will be for you and yours, you want the best quality you can get. Here are the varieties of common fruit trees that are frequently named as the standard of quality. You might dispute these choices; taste is in the mouth of the eater, after all. But all of these picks have won many taste-offs around the world, and you won’t go wrong with any of them.
Apple: Cox’s Orange Pippin almost immediately shot to the front of the popularity line when it was introduced in its native England in 1825. And there it remains. Rowan Jacobsen, author of “Apples of Uncommon Character,” writes, “Think ambrosia salad — pineapple, oranges, marshmallow and coconut. With lime squeezed over the top. And a sprinkle of flower petals. Cox rarely loses a taste contest.” While most apples need a pollenizer, there is a variety called ‘Queen Cox’ that is self-fertile while producing typical Cox fruit. Raintree Nursery in Washington carries it (raintreenursery.com).
Apricot: The variety originally called Royal was changed to Blenheim, and today many people call it Royal Blenheim. Whatever you call it, it is the best-tasting apricot out there. It thrives in our dry summers, and in the 1920s it was widely planted in Santa Clara and Alameda counties and in the Sacramento Valley. The fruit is small and tinged with green, so shoppers often pass over it for bigger, sunnier-complexioned apricots. That, and the fact that it bruises easily, has made it hard to find it in markets these days, but that also makes it a prime candidate for the home orchard. The superior flavor of this apricot was recognized by Slow Food International when they added the apricot to their Ark of Taste, a living catalog of delicious foods facing extinction, to preserve it for future generations.
Cherry: There are sour cherries for pies and sweet cherries. For fresh eating, sweet cherries rule. Among them, the flavor standout is the Bing. At a sweet cherry taste-off in Oregon a few years ago, fruit scientists and breeders once again gave Bing top marks for flavor. It was developed in Seth Lewelling’s fruit orchards in Milwaukie, Oregon, and introduced in 1875. Some accounts say Lewelling made the cross that produced it; others say it was his Chinese foreman Ah Bing. But in either case the cherry was named for Mr. Bing. For millions of people around the country, the arrival of Bings to the market marks the height of the cherry season.
Nectarine: Nectarines are peaches that are a genetic sport that has lost the fuzz on the skin. ‘Snow Queen’ is the variety that will make you do a double take when you taste it; it’s that unusually good. The people at One Green World, a Portland, Oregon, nursery that carries fruit trees, describe it this way: “Snow Queen nectarines are one of the sweetest and juiciest of all nectarines, featuring snow-white flesh and freestone fruit. It is a consistent taste test winner and constantly astounds the uninitiated with its bright white flesh.” ’Snow Queen’ is early to ripen and prefers a warm climate with low humidity, so it’s right at home here in Sonoma County. Dave Wilson Nursery carries it (davewilson.com).
Peach: Peaches that have ripened on the tree are nature’s gift for home growers, with unique and luscious flavors that commercial peaches can’t match. While there are many good peaches, Red Haven is so great that in the Pacific Northwest it’s called the “dessert peach.” The fruit is large, with dark red color over a golden background. The flesh is yellow and the pit is a freestone. Picked just shy of tree-ripe, they are firm and excellent in cobblers, jam, baked peaches and cream and many other peachy dishes.
Pear: ‘Comice’ is a large yellow pear with juicy, melting flesh. It provides the flavor standard by which all other pears are judged. Growers harvest them in early October when they are mature in size but still firm. Then they’re stored for a month and a half in cold storage and later left to ripen at room temperature for a week, when they become the pear you always hoped for. ‘Comice’ needs a pollenizer, and the ‘Bosc’ pear is a good mate.
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March 06, 2021 at 07:11AM
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What fruit trees are best to plant this March? - Sonoma Index-Tribune
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