Fast growing and producers of fruits, any ideas?

Hi, I am wondering what I can grow in my backyard that is fast, so far I have planted blueberry bushes because I was told that they should start producing within 2 years but I am wondering what other things can I grow that might produce in 2 to 4 years. I live in Mobile AL, but since my DH is in the Coast Guard we might have to move in 4 years from now so I would hate to plant thinks that might not produce anything while living here, any advice.

Thanks

Carmen

Strawberries and raspberries produce a significant crop in a year or so.

Loquats produce pretty quickly. Try buying a five gallon size tree and you might even get fruit the first year. They taste very much so like apricots if you are not familiar with them. Don

Maury, I did plant some strawberries, I was able to get a nice wine barrell when Target was having all their sales this year for very cheap, I bought some of those roots that come in a baggie at walmart for 3 bucks, they are small roots so I would imagine they will take a litlle longer to grow, I had about 5 or 6 roots with a few leaves and aout 2 of them died so I might replace the dead ones with regular strawberry plants. I was wondering about raspberries, I would love to plant some as well, but was not sure if they produce quick or not, they are selling raspberry canes at my local Lowes so I might try and see, how many should I get for a decent crop, I was going to try to plant them along my fence so I could tie the canes to the fence, is this a good idea? Are they climbers?

DLmcgrw thank you for telling me about the Loquats, I will look at the tree online I am not familiar with it at all but if you say they taste like apricots I really will like it.

What about fig trees? do they grow quick, I used to have one growing up and really produced great quantities of fruit but I just can't remember how long it takes to produce.

Another thing is we might be here 4 years or might be able to extend for another 4 years but that is not for sure, so I am always wondering if I should just take a chance and buy other trees that take a little longer to produce and hope for the best.

Thanks again

My fig tree has been in the ground, for about 5 years now, and only last summer started to give me more than 5 fruits. So for quick, I would rule out figs.
Plums on the other hand will give a huge crop the first year! ( Might want to plant 2 nearby, unless your neighbors have a tree that could cross pollinate.)

DLmcgrw, I just checked on the tree you mentioned and the funny thing is that my dad used to grow these in Spain, they are of course called different but I do remember having lots of fruits on it and yes just like you mention they do taste a little like appricot. i will be looking in my area to see if I can find one, if not, do you recomend a place where I can get it?

Mrs_colla thank you for recommending plums, also another favorite of mine and had no idea that they would produce so quick, I know for a fact that none of my neighbors have trees or even a veggie patch so planting one will be a problem.

Planting the raspberries along the fence to tie them to a support if necessary is a good idea. They don't climb really, but the canes can get long and sprawl. Some varieties (like Autumn Bliss) are more stocky and hold themselves up pretty well, but others (Meeker for example) send out long viney side branches.

If you get an Fall bearing raspberry, you may well get some fruits the first year. Then, if you prune just the top off the canes (leaving a 4 to 5 foot cane), you will get a second crop in the early Summer. Prune that to the ground after harvesting and the plant will send up new canes for the Fall crop. Within a year or two you will be harvesting plenty. 5 canes would give you a fair amount of berries. Some nurseries sell them in bare root bundles, usually 5 together, and this is often the most economical way to purchase them. Don't get just one cane in a pot for an exorbitant price. The bare root plants take off pretty quickly.

Thank you Maury, I am always looking for the cheaper alternative, this is why I bought the roots of the strawberries as well and decided to save money this way. We do have a wonderful flee market here in mobile where you can find tons of vendors selling fruit trees or any other plants, I will check for raspberries as well, is it still good to plant them in my area, or should I wait till next year?

I don't know specifics about the Southern region even though we are both in zone 8. It is a good time to plant them here in the Pacific Northwest. It is probably fine where you are also, but you might want to check with a local gardener to be sure.

Thank you maury will do.

Well I went a little nuts today at homedepot and bought a lemon tree Ponderosa is the name, it actually already has little lemons poking out of it so I thought I should give it a try, and 2 blackberry bushes. I have not been able to find the Loquats in my local area so if I really want to grow this tree I'll just have to go ahead and order it.
There are plums though so I might have to go this direction instead.

That all sounds delicious! I would love to have a lemon tree someday, but here it would have to be a houseplant in the Winter.

Yes I am definetely going to have to be careful during the very cold winter months and may have to cover it, I am planning to plant it outside and not in a pot like many folks do, so I'll have to be extra careful.

In Spain where I am from the have tons of lemon and orange trees growing everywhere even on the streets, they just grow really good, and there is this expecific lemon tree called lunario which produces all year round, it also can take the cold weather fairly good, I wish they had something similar in here but the only choices I saw in Home Depot were this Ponderosa lemon tree and another called meyer lemon tree ( I was told this one is a mix between a tangerine and lemon so it does not have the strong lemon flavor).

I spent 6 months in Spain a while back when I was in college, studying history, culture, and language. It is a beautiful country.

Thank you yes it is, and the food is great I really miss it.

We went there around April time fram last year and stayed there for 3 whole months, it was actually work realted for my husband but it was nice to be able to visit family etc... although I really got tired of living in hotels for that period of time, the houses there are not very big so my mom could only fit the kids confortably.

On another note I will be planting my plum trees today hopefuly, I have them right now in a bucket of water, they will look kind of bad in my front yard for a while but I've been looking at pictures of these trees and they are beautiful when they do flower, very ornamental.

What kind of plums did you get? They can be a beautiful tree for front yards. Mine all have white blooms and are attractive even when they aren't blooming.

Twiggy the plums I bought are methley plum and the other is I believe Blue Samson plum ( the tag on this one got a little ripped appart). I went and planted them today in my front yard and placed some alfalfa hay on top, I did not feed them at all, just plain ol H2O, the fella that sold them to me told me not to feed them until they have been in the ground for at least a month. He mentioned this were the ones he liked out of all of them and that they would cross polinate nicely.

On another note I decided to return my lemon tree the ponderosa one and get a meyer lemon tree instead, after I bought it I started doing some research and found out that the lemons grow really big but that also they are not very productive and are kind of dry inside, so since I can only plant one lemon tree, lack of space I guess I decided to get the meyer instead, I know you mentioned you have one and it also seems to have good reviews here on Daves.
My DH thinks we should plant it in the front yard as well, since 1/2 our backyard gets flooded plus I have all the raise beds going on and all the different projects.

My Methley is the most productive plum I have. That one tree, in a good year, produces buckets full and I used to sell them to a market. It's good you got a pollinator because they're supposed to be self pollinating but mine didn't bear until I planted a second different one.

The Meyer is very hardy once it gets well established. I'd suggest you plan on protecting it for the first winter at least even if you plant it in a sheltered location. All the citrus suffered this winter but even a normal one is rough of young trees.

I had soooo many too many plums, after giving them away by the buckets, I started drying them in a machine for drying.
( I am from Belgium, so I don't know what you would call such a thing, sorry)

I cook with them later in winter, that works very well!

Christie
( I lived in Javea, Spain too for a while, loved it!)

Hi Carmen, I mail-ordered raspberry plants from Nourse Farms last spring. They arrived as little bareroot sticks. My DH and I skeptically planted them, and they grew 4 feet in a few months and cranked out raspberries like you wouldn't believe! I recommend e-mailing Nourse to find out about the best varieties for your area.
And I, too, can vouch for the beauty of Spain - used to go to Madrid a lot on business. :)

Mrs_cola I bought a pitter and a dehydrator so I can make better use of my plums all year. They do well every other year and this is supposed to be the big one. I've always loved dried fruit and can't wait to try it.

Christine, I am wondering how old are your plum trees? I just planted mine yesterday, they look like 2 funny sticks in my front yard, I am sure the neighbors are loving them but hopefully they wont take too long to grow and at least have some leaves on them.
( I am from Belgium, so I don't know what you would call such a thing, sorry) I can definetely realte to that as well, I have been living in the States since I was 15 but I still have to ask my DH everyonce in a while questions on ( how do you say this in English) thankfully his Spanish is not that bad so most of the time he knows what I am talking about.

Snowline, I almost bought the raspberries from Homedepot, but decided to go with the blackberries instead, the only reason really was because they were thornless and since I have 2 little ones I was affraid that they would get really hurt trying to pick the rasberries, plus the blackberry sticks had already some small growth on them and just looked a little healthier. If I end up having some room though I am seriously thinking of purchasing some raspberries as well and planting them along the same fence as the balckberries. According to what I have read you are to plant them from 4 to 8 feet appart so I'll have to see how much room I have since half of my backyard just floods everytime it rains.

Twiggy I am wondering can you also make jelly out of prunes?, or are they mostly used dried or for fresh eating.

Carmi; I bought my trees 5 years ago as 2 year olds.
They have been producing good though from the second year they were in, they love to please :-)

My mom used to make jelly from plums, as well as preserves.

Christie

I have a hilarious story of thinking I had learned a word in Spanish through context, and being completely wrong. When in Spain, I washed my clothing in an old (ancient) washing machine on the roof of the building. I used bleach on the white clothes since they came out gray otherwise. On the bleach bottle was a single, large word: "CONEJO". I assumed this must mean "bleach" since that word is most often printed in very large letters on any bleach bottle I have seen here. One day, the bleach bottle was empty, so I went around to the other apartments asking people if they had any "conejo" I could borrow to put in the laundry. This request was received with puzzled looks and outright laughter, so I ran up to get the empty bleach bottle to show what I needed. Then everyone laughed uproariously and the joke was on me. For those who do not speak Spanish, conejo is the word for rabbit. It was the brand name. I had unwittingly been asking for rabbits to put in the laundry.

Maury; that is a hilarious story! ( Speaking 6 languages, I do sympathise with you!!)

I converse in MY version of Spanish regularly. I butcher the verbs and occasionally mix in an Italian word accidentally. Learning a new language is supposed to be great exercise to prevent an accumulation of teflon on the brain cells. I hope it works and it needs to be quick.

Homemade plum jam is heavenly. I saw the first bloom open today. I soooo hope there isn't any late heavy frost.

Maury that is hilarious! Yes I do rememeber that brand Conejo, weird name for a bleach bottle no?

I have a good one as well, my husband and I were blessed to get stationed in Spain for 3 years, back about 7 years ago, we were living in a town called Puerto de Santa Maria, very close to Cadiz which is in the south of Spain, anyways there is a town in Spain that is famous for their mahogany wood and they make beautiful furniture there, so a lot of American's had purchased furniture in that particular town, or ordered furniture to be made, a lot cheaper I guess.

My husband and I did not have a lot of furniture so my DH thought it would be nice to go go with some plans and get an estimate on how much it would cost to build a mahogany built entertaiment center, anyways he made the sketch of what he wanted and we proceded to the town, the whole time my DH kept saying let me do the talking, I don't want you to help me since I want to learn myself how to speak Spanish, so I said, O.K I'll let you do it.

As soon as we got to the town he showed the entertaiment center sketch to a mahogany carpenter and asked him in Spanish that what he wanted was an entertaiment center with lots of "cojones" instead of "cajones" . Even though the word is very similar,"cojones" is the male part, and cajones is the drawers of a piece of furniture, anyways we were laughing for a long time after that.

Carmi, that is too funny!!!

Back to the orginal question, did anybody suggest ground cherries. It's an annual, easy to grow and productive.

Are ground cherries different than cherry trees? I am just too new at this so I really don't know.

The Ponderosa lemon was not a good choice. The meyers is a heavy producer and more cold hardy, their favor is slightly orange to me but it does taste like a lemon. I have a methley plum and it is also a heavy producer to the point that it has to have fruit taken off or the limbs will break. Mine are young BTW.

The only thing that comes to mind for your zone right now is muscadines/Scuppernong, grapes. Vines start producing at four years and those are native to the South East US. Heat, humidity, fungus nothing stops these guys. Can be eaten out of hand or use to make sweet wine or port. I can tell you I grow a few Scuppernong vines and friends of mind always want some when they ripen up. Very popular with the Southerns.

Forgot peaches. If you get the right type of peach tree you should be able to buy one that fruits this year. Now is the time to buy one. Those grow pretty fast when they are happy. I'm actually to hot for peaches(tried low chill hour peach trees and they died on me) but inland from me the grow huge amounts of peaches in zone 8a/8b SC. It is tricky to get the variety for your area, big box stores are not the place to look for those.

This message was edited Mar 10, 2010 9:57 PM

core, that's funny you mention that, after reading a lot of info regarding the Ponderosa I decided to take it back to Home Depot and get a Meyer lemon instead, it's been in the same pot for 3 days now just getting ready to be planted out, I guess I should have been researching before buying sort of thing but I always keep receipts so I was able to exchange it no problem.

As far a peaches go I love peaches but I've always heard that they are very dissease prone so that is one of the main reasons I did not want to bother with it but maybe I am wrong.

The following link will help.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Discover-the-Ground-Cherry

There are many other references on the Web. Google "ground cherry" for more information. They are Physallis species, related to the common Chinese Lantern found in many gardens.

They are not the same as regular cherries. When ripe, they are very sweet and delicious. Just a precaution, I would not look for wild ones as suggested in the article. There are numerous related species that are not edible and even toxic, that might be hard for someone not familiar with the edible form to determine. Fortunately, most of the toxic ones do not come with a paper shell, but know what you eat!. Seed is cheap and they are easy to grow as long as they get regular moisture. I grow them every year and they are a wonderful addition to the small fruit garden. Buy some seed, rather than forage for them.

These commonly come in two basic forms, actually two different species. One, the cape gooseberry (Physalis peruviana, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physalis_peruviana), is more tropical and needs a longer season to mature fruit. This one produces fewer fruit unless you live in an area that does not freeze during the winter. If so, the plant gets much larger and produces lots of fruit during successive seasons. The stems are woody and brittle. The other form, the common ground cherry (Physalis pruinosa), is an annual adaptable to hardy regions (zone 5 at least). This plant only gets a couple of feet tall and wide, but produces a lot of fruit. However, it is prone to dropping fruit before they ripen if allowed to dry out too much. Uniform moisture is important if grown in a hot area. It also helps you get larger and more ripe fruit. I'd suggest you try both in Alabama, as your milder climate will allow you to get some ripe cape gooseberries. However, you will get the most fruit with the common ground cherry.

Note that there is a lot of name confusion regarding these two species, with many incorrectly assigning the name Cape Gooseberry to the common ground cherry. Careful reading of the description should help you determine which type is being discussed. Few seed sources, however, identify the species.

Another option not discussed so far (unless I missed it) is to grow your fruits in large pots or use root control bags. That way, you can take them with you if/when you move. This is an option for things like blueberries, Nanking cherries, gooseberries, currants, bush cherries (Joel), etc. They all fruit well in pots. I would not sink the pots in the ground, unless you are prepared to have the roots grow through the pots and make moving more difficult later.

This message was edited Mar 11, 2010 2:59 AM

Krowten thank you so much the ground cherry looks like one I might want to try growing, I've been reading all the info you sent and it looks like a very versatile type of fruit which is something that I really like. Any good places where I could get the seeds that you could reccomend?

As far as growing things on pots yes I might do that in the future, the farmers market here has excellent prices on blueberry bushes and fruit trees, I would love to try to grow some in pots sice all the blueberry bushes I bought back in Feb I planted along my fence, I thought that even if I can't take them with me when I move it would make a nice addition to the house.

I bought my first ground cherry seed from thompson and morgan many years ago, named "goldie" Over the years I tried a number of other sources as well. Mine now self seed every year, an amalgam of the different ones. I don't think it matters much, but get a named variety as they have been selected a bit and you will get a larger berry. T&M carries them every year, but does not ID which species - in the description, the larger size plant with the longer growing season is the Cape Gooseberry - you want the ground cherry if you need to pick one (the ones with the shorter plant and the shorter maturity date) [I just checked and it looks like they are offering two forms of the cape gooseberry w 120 days maturity]. Other sources might list "Cossack" which is a form where the paper calyx is malformed and open - I don't like that one as it does not preserve the fruit as well and I think limits fruit from ripening if it falls early. Aunt Molly's is another selection not much different from Goldie. Territorial also sells them, both "Pineapple" and "Aunt Molly's" (both ground cherries and not Cape Gooseberries) . Personally I'd go with Pineapple at Territorial rather than Aunt Molly (http://www.territorialseed.com/product/1198/tomatillo_and_ground_cherry_seed). It's probably best to not mix sources if you want to keep the line pure

Start indoors if you can (so you will know what the plants look like) and be careful to press the seed onto the top of the seed start mix. These need light to germinate and it can take a few weeks. Cover with plastic so the seeds do not dry out. When large enough, transplant outdoors. These do not like to be transplanted, so expect some losses doing that. (in other words, start and transplant a bunch of plants!) You should order very soon and start right away due to the long germination time.

Glad to be able to help.

Hello I am kind of wondering what is happening to one of the plum trees I bought, I have 2 plum trees I bought, one of them is growing great and even has little leaves comming up, the other at first I thought it was dead but it has little leaves comming up in the lower trunk area but nono on the rest of the branches at all, does this mean that the upper part of the tree is dead?

Here's some photos to ilustrate what I mean. Here's the one that has little buds all over.

Here's the one that has buds on ly in the lower part of the trunk area.

Usually when you see limited leaf out, it means that there was a problem with not having enough roots to fill out the whole tree OR some damage above the leaf-out area. Damage above the leaf out area can be "cambium kill", where the living layer of the tree under the bark, the cambium, was damaged for one reason or another. Often you cannot see any sign of the damage because it is hidden under the outer bark.

What I would do would be to let the tree alone, and see if the upper area leafs out later on (water and fertilize as appropriate, of course). With the lower part of the tree growing, there is the possibility that the new leaves may generate enough energy to help heal the upper damage if it is not too extensive, and you could see a later leaf-out of that part of the tree. If you don't see leaves in that area by mid summer, I would trim the deadwood back to limit the strain on the growing portion of the tree.

Krowten, the roots on this tree were very small, the other tree had a much better root system so it could definetely be this problem. The problem is that I only see a few leaves at the bottom of the tree's trunk so if I were to cut the dead or sick part of the tree I would only be left with a stick in the ground, I am wondering if I should just go ahead and replace the tree since the price was just $4 or whether I should let it go for a little longer.

carminator1, I would let it grow. Those leaves at the bottom of the trunk, or even branches at the bottom of the trunk can be removed later. In the meantime they are absorbing sunlight and providing nutrients and energy to the roots. Once your new tree is established, it will still be young and flexible enough for you to prune/shape it however you want. Right now......the way the top part looks is not too important.

If you are in too big a hurry to let it recover and grow. Then you should look for something in a five gallon, or bigger pot with well established roots.

From looking at your somewhat indistinct photos it appears that all the new leaves are above the graft. You might want to check this carefully. If they are all from below the graft the part of the tree you want to bear fruit is probably dead. I don't think you have this problem but I suggest you check it out.