Some 24 years ago when I moved, one of my first projects was a back yard orchard. Asian pears, Japanese plums, Peaches and Blueberries. Asian pears succumbed to fireblight relatively quickly. I did do a second generation of peaches but I am getting old and stone fruit require a lot of work to control the many insects and diseases present. Blueberries (Rabbiteyes and Southern Highbush) still giving me more fruit than I am able pick, but most of others are gone. One peach (Golden Jubilee)has survived for 15 years but has not cropped for the last five years. I have totally neglected it for the last several years and lo and behold it set such a bountiful crop this year than several of the old brittle limbs broke off. Maybe seeing me take out its contemporaries one by one convinced it to make a last ditch effort. Golden Jubilee is an antique from my youth so I am quite happy.

An orchard is nice but as you said too much work.

But my neighbors have a big pear tree and they do nothing but it sets fruit each year. They pick a lot of pears.

We have a couple of grown peach trees and a 75 year old apricot. Add to that are three more 5 year old apples and and a couple more peaches. This year we added three more apples, two more pears and an apricot.

I haven't got twenty years, so they better begin producing in the next few years. Now for a spray program. It WILL be lots of work.

I planted a Santa Rosa plum about six years ago. It grew like a weed, last year was dropping small fruit that we could pick up and ripen on the counter and then were tasty. This year all the dropped fruit seem to have rot started and I haven't tried any. The tree is big and I couldn't spray by hand.
I'm on my second and third peach tree sprouted from composted pits. They have pretty pink flowers. I sprayed the first one, one year, but haven't sprayed since. Squirrels, rot, and bugs must get them all. Spraying intimidates me.
Blueberries- so easy to grow here, and harvest and use. Two old bushes needing rejuvenation and two just bought this year.
Strawberries- marginal success.
Fig- OK but froze to ground this year, starting over.
Trying to grow fruit gives me respect for those who do it for a living.

I can see how northern and mid-west gardeners would feel like they were walking into fairyland with the fruit we grow in our backyards here, oranges, lemons, limes, avocados. But I'd feel as though I'd walked into fairyland where people have cherry trees and pears and lilacs. I can't even imagine it!

Ditto!

the grass is always greener...
Finding out the true cost of fruit gives me respect for rhubarb.

Kieffer pears about ready:


Muscadines are sparse this year. Deer and crows cleaned up the wild ones. Losing vineyard varieties to deer.

My older peach tree, poorly pruned and totally uncared for, is dropping some small, nearly ripe and unspoiled peaches. (between a lot of yucky ones. .. but getting any is a nice surprise ) tomorrow we will put up a ladder and try to pick some nice ones and get them inside to ripen. and I swore I'd never eat my own homegrown peach without huge effort. Grown from a sprouted pit.

One of the five year old apple trees had 18 apples on it all summer long. Last week I happened to walk to where it is to check on the fruit and saw a deer and her fawn at the tree. The doe was handing off an apple to the fawn. One apple left on the tree. No idea why they left one. It needed another week or two to be ripe. Next year there will be fences around all the fruit trees.

PaulF said:One of the five year old apple trees had 18 apples on it all summer long. Last week I happened to walk to where it is to check on the fruit and saw a deer and her fawn at the tree. The doe was handing off an apple to the fawn. One apple left on the tree. No idea why they left one. It needed another week or two to be ripe. Next year there will be fences around all the fruit trees.

They will probably go back and finish off that last apple later!!

I'd sure be interested in all your fruit harvests. How much, if anyone has made pies? Canning?

I have lots in my yard. Tons of Golden Dorsett, I might have 30-40, most of them drop to the ground while I was on vacation. Lots of apricots, more like 100 this year, I only had 10-22 this year, then I went on vacation and they were gone when we got back. Tons of figs. Lots of blackberries, some blueberries. I got one Santa Rosa plum this year, and 2 flavor supreme pluots. I have 5 Chinese Jujube, I've been snacking them. 1 large Fuyu persimmon tree, I might get about 20 persimmons this year. I have a few Asian pears but no fruit this year. My atomic nectarine tree has given me at least 20 small nectarines this year. Some citrus fruit like lemon, satsuma, and mandarin.
Last but not least, I have 4 Asian fruit trees, longan tree,
I pay about $7 a pound at a fresh fruit store. They are producing in my yard. They are big trees, I need to cut them down otherwise I won't be able to pick them.
Here is a link to longan fruit tree.
http://gardeningsolutions.ifas...

I tasted my first pawpaw today. I have nothing to compare it with so I don't even know if it was ripe, or overripe. And its interesting thinking of how when people could find these for free in the woods, and could not just drive to the grocery for a cornucopia of world fruit any old day, pawpaws were valued. Perspective.

I just google it, it's like cherimoya, my brother told me he ate some really good cherimoya and saved the seeds and he planted a few of them, this year he had 5 good fruit from one plant, that is amazing. I'm tempted to let some of my papaya seeds that are sprouted from my compost pile to grow big and tall. However I don't like the look of the plant. It's kind of odd to see banana trees here in my hood.

SoCal, if I lived next door to you I'd be sneaking over the fence and snitching fruit!

The birds will get it before you and I can get a hold of it. I removed all of my bags covering my Pete's honey figs and them birds sure ate all of them. Between the June bugs and the birds, I don't know what's left to eat.
I'm now patiently wait for fuyu persimmons, last year I picked them too soon, I had to throw them away. I covered them in plastic bags because the baby squirrel got to 2-3 fruits. I don't know why they don't finish what the started.

Rats! Er, birds...

Birds really stripped my blueberries when they first started bearing and didn't have a lot. But since the bushes got bigger, I get plenty of blueberries. I think I had to 'saturate the market' before I could have any Oddly, it also seems the birds leave the bushes alone till near the end of harvest and I get lazy, and then come strip them. I also have more bird friendly everything than when I first got this yard. I'm not saying you need to do something else, SoCal, just that all your neighbors need to plant things too and feed /distract the birds!

I'm the only one with edible garden here, they all hard cement or hardscape or a few flowering trees like crepe myrtle. I don't know if birds eat there. My trees are young too, so it's not in abundant with fruit yet, I don't mind they eat some, just make sure they leave some for me. I had lots of apples this year, almost 80 fruits, I had about 5 of them, but the rest I didn't pick or didn't feel like picking them. I do t mind if they eat them. But they tend to like soft fruit like fig and apricot.