Monday, October 10, 2011

Edible fruit tree lust


As a resident in a urban suburb with a pretty small yard (about 1/6th of an acre including the space taken up by my house and garage) There's only so much space I can utilize for gardening. I've started to look at getting more dwarf edible trees, as ways to capitalize on landscape and edible space potential.

Some of the types of fruits I've been looking at lately are mulberry trees, grapes, nectarines, hardy kiwis, or paw-paws. Downsides of mulberries, paw-paws and grapes are that they need a lot of space. I've found some dwarf nectarines, and hardy kiwis can be relatively small. Paw-paws are shade lovers, which could be good for my front yard which doesn't get a lot of sun. Trying to consider what I would actually eat and use the most..

Paw-paws would be cool because they're native to North America, and they're unique as far as what's available in a conventional grocery store or even at the Farmers' Market. Hardy Kiwis would be pretty awesome for similar reasons- a way to grow kiwi fruit without having to buy it from across the globe would be great! On the site I was looking at, it said you could start the kiwi tree in a 5-gallon pot and then transfer it to its' permanent home the next year.

Mulberries can get to be really tall and I don't really need anymore tall trees in my yard. I still to want to do grapes, but I need to have the trellising structure before I invest in grape growing.

When you have a small yard and you want to grow your own food, you have to think creatively in order to make the best use of your space! In what ways do you creatively use your space to grow more food?

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