If you plan ahead when it comes to having a fruiting orchard or fruit bearing plants in your garden, you can have a harvest of fruit or various fruits every month of the year.
To start, have a calendar in hand and research what fruits when in your climatic location. Talking to local fruit growers and fruit tree nurseries will be of help too, as they will know exactly what fruits to plant and when in your area. They will also know which fruit types and even specific cultivars that grow and fruit especially well in our climatic zone.
Choosing your favourite fruit and then finding that if you pick multiple cultivars, it can mean that specific fruit will fruit for many months of the year. For example, citrus can fruit across 10 months of the year by choosing a variety of types and cultivars. Or more specifically, say mandarins if you plant the early season variety – i.e. Imperial, then a mid-season variety like Emperor and then a late season cultivars like Hickson and Ellendale and so on.
Another example is avocados, they have early, mid and late season varieties. If you plant one from each season category, you’ll have avocadoes from March to October not just a couple of months.
One other great reason for having multiple cultivars of a specific fruit tree is that depending on the weather and climatic conditions of that season/year you will have at least one variety that will hopefully do well. Having all one type of a specific fruit can narrow your seasonal success.
Fruits to consider:
Mango, avocado, lychee, longan, citrus – lemon, lime, orange, cumquat, mandarin, grapefruit, pawpaw, passionfruit, grapes, stone fruit, apples & pears, pomegranate, pepino, blueberries, strawberries, custard apple, quince, olive, cape gooseberry, kiwifruit, feijoa, figs, melons, macadamia, walnut, pecan, almond, hazelnut, cashew, persimmon, and more.
Then there are all the more subtropical/tropical fruit;
Black sapote, soursop, abui, wax jambu, sea grape, grummichama, star gooseberry, jaboticaba, canistal, star fruit, jackfruit, dragon fruit, the list goes on.
You see, it can be quite easy to create a continual fruit harvest by having biodiversity in what you plant.
What you choose and which varieties, will depend on your climatic zone and what grows where.
Better Earth Tip
For pots, fruit trees love Rocky Point CoCo Pro, which has a perfect water holding capacity vs drainage. With the addition of controlled and slow-release fertilisers your plants will flourish and feed long term. The zeolite in this potting mix also helps with nutrient retention and releasing these over a sustained period of time. For gardens try our nutrient rich Rocky Point Garden Soil paired with Rocky Point ActivGrow Fertiliser Pallets which has a high microbial population that will transfer the nutrients to fruit and help prevent pest and disease.
