I don’t know if I can have a fruit tree. I need to first look at the yard and work out the exact placement of my vegetable garden, bonsai beds and greenhouse and then I can figure out if a fruit tree can even fit into the mix. Fruit trees raise other questions as well, because they’re a bit of a pain in a lot of ways.
They need to be sprayed and even though I am an organic gardener and there are a lot of things I refuse to touch, that spring hit of dormant oil is not one of my favourite jobs. A lot of fruit will not set and will instead drop to the ground and I really hate stepping on it and I’m not too nuts about constantly picking it up either. It’s not as if there is nothing else I need to do- I already have my work cut out for me.

I need to keep a fruit tree away from my eating area because it will attract those pain in the neck yellow jackets. Fruit trees also attract birds and squirrels (at least) who are intent and usually very successful at stealing the fruit that survives the early summer drop. And finally, when all goes well a fruit tree can be like having too many zucchini plants (that would be two zucchini vines) because it pretty much all comes ripe at around the same time.

But if I do have a fruit tree it will be a peach. They’re good looking and the size is easy to control and I can think of lots of things to do with peaches . One of my favorites involves a hefty amount of brandy. I can freeze them for smoothies all winter and I know of a great peach marmalade I can add to the Christmas baskets (OMG that makes me sound like such a perfect little Martha Stewart, but the real truth is I’m just cheap!)

But that leads me to start thinking about all the other food producing plants I plan to grow. At the moment the plans are pretty fuzzy, but nothing will make the cut into the final planning until I am satisfied that I’m growing something I like to eat and I know what to do with. That might sound like a silly thing to say, but bouncing back to the subject of the much maligned zucchini, how many people do you know who grew it and then had no idea what to do with it – besides try to pawn it off on their friends?

People get sucked in by seed catalogues and garden centers and end up growing vegetables that they either don’t like or don’t know what to do with. And a lot of home gardeners grow plants that just don’t fit their space. Take corn for example. I know a few people who’ve tried to grow corn and met with dismal failure because they couldn’t grow a big enough patch of it to get any real pollination going and for all the space and the plants, the actual yield of corn was pitiful. I nearly get seduced every year by Brussel sprouts. Have you ever seen them growing? They are so cool looking the way the sprouts grow up and around the stem and the leaves pop out the top, they remind me of a palm tree and I love the way they look, but I don’t like to eat them.

So really the point is that if you want to grow something to eat, you’re definitely thinking in the right direction, but like everything else you also need to think it through. For the last few years I’ve had very, very little space to devote to vegetables and the ones I’ve grown have been raised in hydroponic containers where space was at a super premium. Planting them into the ground offers me the luxury of more space than I’ve imagined in a long while and I plan to use it well.

Have I abandoned hydroponic vegetables in containers? Heck no! I’ve just moved them to my greenhouse for the winter.