Fruits
Small and relatively easy fruits …
Raspberries: A tasty weed. Very tasty, very weed-like if they’re happy.
➢ You should plan to thin raspberries each spring, either when the buds have swollen or when the leaves are less than ½” long. First, remove all dead canes. Second, remove all canes and roots that are where you don’t want them. Third, consider pruning back long canes with many leaves to 3’ tall or thereabouts.
➢ I recommend summer-bearing varieties over September-bearing varieties. The September varieties may not get enough sun to get really sweet.
Blackberries: Another tasty weed. Thin as you would raspberries.
Strawberries: Strawberries have become something of a default ground cover in my yard.
➢ Technically strawberries are supposed to be grown in the sun, mulched in the winter, have all their flowers and “daughter” plants removed the first year, be limited in how many daughters they produce after that, and be replaced entirely every three years. If you aren’t a commercial grower trying to maximize production, you can ignore all that advice.
➢ The biggest problem with strawberries, in my experience, is their tendency towards gray mold on the fruit. They need good air movement, so you may have to pull out many (up to 80%) of your plants each year. The easiest time to do this is in the spring, after the soil has thawed but before the roots have fully re-grown.
Blueberries: Take a few years to come to full productivity, but can last for decades.
➢ Blueberries like acid soil. They love pine needles as mulch. I recommend protecting them with cut-up Christmas trees.
➢ Birds can be an issue, especially since the berries become blue before they become sweet. Bird nets may be the solution. Or lots of bushes and a willingness to share.
➢ Highbush and lowbush blueberries have different advantages. If you get highbush blueberries, get multiple varieties that bloom at the same time for cross-pollination.
Grapes: Need heat (a southern exposure against a stone wall is perfect), sun, strong support, and annual pruning. Otherwise easy to grow. I planted a Seedless Reliance grapevine two years ago, and I’m very glad I did.
Nanking Cherries: Cherry trees can be fussy and birds often get the crop, but Nanking cherries are a beautiful bush with small, lightly tart, but tasty berries. The tricky thing is that you need two of them to bloom at the same time and cross-fertilize each other, since they are not self-fertile. If you happen to get two bushes that don’t bloom at the same time, you won’t get any cherries. So I recommend at least three bushes – and a full-grown bush is maybe 6’ in diameter and 8’ tall.
I recommend Fedco as a source for all of the above.
Crandall American Black Currants: The yellow trumpet-shaped flowers cast a sweet scent through the yard, and are followed by black berries that are tart but flavorful. One bush is plenty; I purchased mine from Edible Landscaping.
➢ For most of the twentieth century people attempted to exterminate this native plant (and all other members of the Ribes family) in order to protect white pines from a fungal disease known as white pine blister rust, but forestry experts now recognize that some Ribes, including Crandalls, are naturally resistant to the fungus. For more information, see this explanation.
Other fruits, for those who like challenges …
Kiwi: Take several years to get established, and require a very strong support for at least two vines (female and male). But the plants are gorgeous and long-lived and the fruits are tasty.
Figs: Can be grown in Arlington if you either grow them in enormous pots that you move to your basement or garage for the winter, or plant them with a southern exposure and bend the plants down and bury them under a few inches of soil and a lot of mulch every fall.
Standard tree fruits (peaches, apples, pears, plums, apricots, cherries): Tend to have disease problems and be a lot of bother. I recommend supporting the Farmers’ Market.
Pawpaws: Native fruit tree. Get at least four seedlings – they need two to cross-pollinate, and they have a high fatality rate.
Persimmons (American and Asian): The verdict is still out on my Meader persimmon.
Gooseberries, Currants, Jostaberries: All Ribes have a certain family similarity. Of the ones I’ve tried, I like the flavor of Crandalls and gooseberries best, but I haven’t grown gooseberries.
Elderberries: The raw berries are gently toxic, but you can make jam or wine out of them.
Mulberries: Tasty, I think, but the trees get big and messy.
Filberts: One of the few familiar edible nuts that will grow in New England.