What is your favorite fruit to grow?

[Chris]

I am partial to blueberries.

[Matt Mayer]

All of them? Probably peaches. I'm waiting on my three trees to arrive. Until they bear I eat my father in laws, when he'll let me.

[Chris]

What varieties did you get Matt?

[Matt Mayer]

Columnar trees from Stark Bros. I planted three of these.
http://www.starkbros.com/access?action=product&productID=8558&a...

I also have a end of season special from Home Depot planted but I'm not sure if it will make it. It was full size and I don't know what kind.

[Crunchy Chicken]

Wow. I've seen columnar apple trees, but not peaches. I'll have to add that to my list of garden items to dream about.

[Edson]

Peaches & cherries for me. And grapes. And also apples.

[Shasha]

Unfortunately, our soil isn't acidic enough for blueberries. Any good recommendations for increasing acidity?

[Edson]

I've got three mini-blueberry bushes in a big 3' x 6' planter box. It's filled with a 50/50 mix of peat moss and sand (with a couple shovelfuls of compost + native soil for good measure). It's got a mulch of pine bark nuggets on top. It's only been a couple years, but so far they are very happy and productive little shrubs.

[Sharon Astyk]

You can use sulfur and pineneedles. Or there are some varieties of blueberries (Top Hat is one, also most of the wild blueberries) that will grow well in a container - in containers, peat helps a lot.

Sharon

[Alison Kerr]

You want to avoid using peat if possible. Large areas of our planet's moorland have been dug up for gardeners to use in the form of peat. Coming from a country with a lot of moorland (Scotland), I'm very aware of this. Here is a website which explains more and suggests coir as an alternative: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/news/story.php?S_No=904&storyT...

Here is a website recommending the use of sulfur to acidify. Of course I'm not sure how sulfur is mined either: http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/components/2...

If you want to go local and don't have pine trees to get the needles from there are lots of other types of berries you could try planting. You can get ideas at the Raintree Nursery site: http://www.raintreenursery.com/

[Matt Mayer]

Stark Bros sells some soil acidifier which seems to work really well, and they even sell it in a package with some bushes. I ordered some bushes this year along with the acidifier so we'll see how it goes.

I have a friend that says it took 4 years for his blueberry plants to get set in the ground (and the soil to get acidic enough) and then they took off.

[Sharon Astyk]

I'm excited about our honeyberries (which may be premature since I haven't tasted them yet) - the big appeal is that they are supposed to be something like blueberries, but come in late May, early June - which is exciting, since other than rhubarb, which ain't a fruit, there's nothing fruit-like until the middle of June here and the early strawberries.

Sharon

[Sue W]

I think you'll be pleased with your honeyberries. I'd say they were better than blueberries, very tart and great for cooking. They do come very early (June in the frozen North here) and they were not very productive for the first couple of years. The main bush is now about 5 feet tall and about 4 feet wide so they need plenty of room to allow for getting around them. The pollinator bush is very small and I had to move it because the other bush was shading it.
Picking the fruit is rather fiddly. I found that putting down a clean tarp or old bed sheet and running my hand over the bushes when the fruit is ripe works well. Not all the fruit ripen at the same time though. They are rather small to pick individually and the most productive branches are low down. Sitting on the ground was the way to pick most fruit. I think one of those comb-like blueberry pickers might make easier work of it, but it might pick green fruit also. Cheers!