What would stop you planting fruit or nut trees in your garden?

1. Climate: potential for frost would damage the fruit

2. A few of the fruit trees in the neighborhood have black rot from high humidity. I wouldn't plant until those trees are properly pruned free of the infection.

Permaculture Bella! I guess you don't want to be told to browse Permaculture!

I'm in West Yorks. As I am also a Permaculture fan I already plant fruit trees. A grafted apple tree (2' approx) costs me aprox a fiver. When the tree fruits it takes me less than a month to pay back the initial cost. After two or three years I have apples every year. No maintenance. Easy to do, I dig a hole, stick the tree in and forget about it until I harvest the fruits.

Yorkshire Orchards near Pocklington East Yorks has some great varieties.

http://www.yorkshireorchards.co.uk/cgi/news/news.c...

I've already got some fruit trees planted here. Cherries and plumbs.

The birds get ALL of the cherries....bummer. The plumbs produce every other year, and are very tastey.

I nearly cried when my new neighbor moved in next door, and ran out first thing with a chainsaw, and cut down 90% of their apple tree orchard the former owners had planted.

Being in such a rotten plant zone is the only thing that stops me. I'm in plant zone 4, borderline 3. In other words, we have loooong, very coooold winters. There's just a ton of stuff that will not grow here. I've only been here three years, so I'm still learning.

By the way, along with the perminant type plantings/gardens that fruit and nut trees are, people should not forget rubarb, artichockes, asparagas, many herbs, berry bushes and plants, and a smattering of other perminant type garden plants.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Most things you try will work for a little while. In the long run, they don't. They are VERY adaptable creatures. Scents, soaps, hair, wind noise pans etc etc will only deter until they figure out they won't get hurt..An expensive fence is the only true way. A dog will work also. Try a motion detecting light OR a motion detecting water squirter. ..You could try soaking a some hot pepper flakes in a gallon of water and making a spray out of it. Doesn't hurt the plants but it can't be "tasty" for the deer. This is NOT an easy thing to do. A high fence is the only guarantee.

I live on a small farm in Northern California USA. I spent the last week pruning all of my fruit trees and any of my neighbor's trees that needed pruning. Every year I try to plant a few trees, this year I planted 5 table grapes and another apple on my place as well as a plum along a public road. And that last is a point...check this out... some times I just plant trees (usually plums) out in the woods along a stream, or like I mentioned... sometimes just along a road in a roadway fence line, out of the range of road mowers of course... It costs so little to plant a tree. In my area I can now drive down several roads and see trees I planted... flowering... people pick the fruit, later, when it comes ripe, or wild life eats it. Most people around here don't know where the trees came from... that is OK with me planting them is just a way for me to care for posterity. The flowers enhance the spring beauty of my area and do a bit to increase land value. It gives me a good feeling to see the trees and that feeling is pay off enough for me to keep planting them. I encourage more people to plant trees in unlikely places, it is really pretty easy..

it makes good sense financially as well as from a health standpoint to grow as much of your own food as you can. by harvesting food exactly when you need it and at its peak freshness, you do yourself a favor. by not having to pay increasing shipping and storage costs involved in the food production and distribution industries, you save money and cut down on the pollution these activities can cause. the sense of satisfaction that comes from providing for you and yours while cultivating the earth is only an added bonus. local wildlife will also thank you for your efforts!

but you ask, why would someone NOT do this? here are some potential reasons why not, and possible rebuttals.

"it takes up too much space/time." false. your crops can be grown on as small a parcel as you like, and in some cases grown simultaneously on the same plot. the corn/squash mix the native americans used is an example of crops grown together. so far as taking up too much time, a well-designed plot using existing land contours and native plants will thrive with far less attention from you than a poorly designed one filled with exotics. plan wisely.

"i don't know where to begin." true, but there are countless resources from your local garden center to excellent websites that can steer you toward crops that will do well and supplement your needs. search native crops, permaculture, usda hardiness zones, county extension sites... see what's recommended in your area, or better yet, explore existing communities that practice permaculture, local plots of community gardens, and talk to the people who tend the land.

"it will take too much effort to cultivate." false, if you use sound design principles and add strategies such as composting and seed gathering, your land can flourish without a major reinvestment of money by you.

like any new (actually this is a very old concept) idea, it takes time to come into general acceptance, and for the benefits to come to fruition. but armed with the proper knowledge, you CAN supplement your family's food supply with healthy, rewarding alternatives!

Even though I have a small plot of land, I've just started planting veggies and citrus trees, though many of them are in pots. Mostly I have native plants because I live in the hotter parts of Southern California and so water is scarce out here, but you wouldn't know it by all the green lawns out here. I harvest rain water when I can, but it's not quite enough to sustain a good sized veggie garden.

I can guess why no one else out here does it, all my neighbors are the kind to "need' those perfectly manicured totally fake looking yards and they'd complain its too hot, then run inside and blast the AC. They really don't get it out here, but then again, most of them make enough money to pay for rising food costs and so it doesn't bother them....yet.

Reasons to not plant fruit or nut trees in your garden:

1. space. if you only have so much space available for gardening, you would want to be sure that you only plant what you would like to grow, and be able to grow. trees take up a lot of space (mainly would cause shading on other areas of your garden), and you would also have to be concerned about physical spacing (room for roots, stretch of branches, etc.). For example, if you are only able to do a rooftop garden or can only plant a windowbox garden as you have a small apartment, a tree may be too large/unwieldy for you to even consider. Or perhaps you just like vegetables better so you'd be better off trading the space for that tree for your favorite vegetable. There's always a trade-off when space is concerned, since you can't have two things exist in the same space!

2. climate. citrus fruits do not grow very well in colder climates (like where I am, in the northeast US), so it wouldn't make much sense to plant them in such an area. However, some other fruits, such as apples or pears, may do better...

3. soil/shading. perhaps your garden is not well suited for the growth of a food-bearing tree. maybe it doesn't get enough light to be able to grow this tree, or perhaps your garden is best left to growing pretty flowers and not anything to eat. (while house-hunting a few years ago, I was mortified to see a vegetable garden at one house, that had a serious lead-paint problem (with the paint flakes landing in the garden), and in another area of town the soil was known to be contaminated so food gardens were highly not suggested...)

4. costs/time. if you want your fruits/nuts soon, then you probably would have to purchase a nearly mature tree. Sure, seeds are much cheaper (and easier to get), as are saplings, but then you'll have to wait for the tree to mature before it'll bear fruit/nuts. Do you have the time to wait for the tree to mature? Do you have the time to look after the planting until it matures? If you're concerned about high food prices now, then having to wait a year or more for the tree to mature to fruit isn't going to help you in the short term.

5. you don't like fruits or nuts? Some people are allergic to tree nuts, too. Why plant something if you don't like it?

Myself, I have a brown thumb. Anything I've tried to grow will just wither and die, although I have managed to grow mold in its place. ;-) I just don't have the time to maintain a garden (proper watering, pruning, weeding, and harvesting), and apparently I don't have the knowledge either to properly maintain such a garden. I've been tempted to try some container/windowbox gardening at my current apartment, but I fear that my window doesn't get enough sun, plus I don't think I'd trust the soil (since I've seen all the diesel soot that collects in my window AC unit in that very window...) I might be able to fit a tree in a rooftop garden here, but I guess I'm just too lazy to climb all those stairs to the roof to check up on the plant regularly... I do see a few window terraces with small shrubbery in the neighborhood, but otherwise it is all blacktop and city buildings where I am - I'd have to visit a city park to see anything green that I could touch (and probably turn brown, too).

Sure, I'm all for growing your own food. Besides the sense of accomplishment and the inexpensiveness of growing your own food, you can't get much more local than your own garden. Locally-sourced food is fresher (therefore has more nutrients and usually tastier), and doesn't produce extra carbon emissions from all that transport... But I just don't have the ability to do so myself. 8( Best that I can do is buy at a local farmer's market, when they come into town.

Right now I can't plant trees since I live in a tiny apartment with a very small balcony that is soon to be home to a composting bin. What I am doing instead is growing fruits and vegetables that can grow in containers out there. This way we can reduce our carbon footprint, save money, and eat better. Everyone wins.

N.

http://badhuman.wordpress.com/

I definitely wouldn't put them in my garden. Creates too much shade for the tomatoes and corn, etc. Also, when I dig up the other veggies in the fall, it would likely damage the roots to the trees.