Orchard Overview

“Right from the start you need to know about temperature, soil, light and water needs for plants you want to grow. With few exceptions, fruits and nuts are perennials. You commit to these plants for years, so choosing the right plant, putting it in the right place, and selecting the best cultivar for your climate and taste is really important.” Excerpted from “What’s Wrong With

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Mulberries

“Black mulberry fruit has a combination of sweetness and tartness mixed with intense flavor that explodes on the tongue. Other mulberries may be less flavorful, or merely sweet but not tart, so it pays to search out specific cultivars known to have excellent tasting fruit.”  Excerpted from “What’s Wrong With My Fruit Garden?” by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth. Timber Press, December, 2013. Click here

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Olives

“Their gnarled trunks and silvery gray leaves grant olive trees a commanding presence in your landscape. In addition to their great beauty as ornamentals they bear an extremely valuable fruit which yields, when cold pressed, the rich, healthful, and delicious extra virgin olive oil so necessary in contemporary cuisine.”  Excerpted from “What’s Wrong With My Fruit Garden?” by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth. Timber Press,

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Hazel Nuts (Filberts)

“Hazels are multi-trunked, suckering large shrubs or small trees 10 to 18 feet tall and wide. The plants are deciduous, shedding all their leaves soon after the nut crop matures.”  Excerpted from “What’s Wrong With My Fruit Garden?” by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth. Timber Press, December, 2013. Click here to pre-order your copy of the book.

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Mandarins (Tangerines)

“Our mandarin trees in Hawaii had been planted by a previous owner and we never knew which cultivar we had. The trees had been neglected and were stunted but were nevertheless able to regularly produce delectable fruit for us. What a joy it was to walk out into the garden first thing in the morning and harvest a handful of ripe, fragrant, delicious mandarins for

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Melons

“Melons are a warm season, annual crop. They need a long, warm growing season with plenty of heat to develop maximum sweetness in the fruit. When the fruits reach baseball size, put two bricks or stones, side by side, beside the fruit and place the young fruit on top of them. The stones absorb heat during the day and keep the fruit warm at night.” 

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Limes

“Lime fruits are spherical and from one to two inches in diameter. They are usually picked while green but when fully mature they are yellow. Even when fully mature the fruit is not sweet. It is very tart, with high acidity and a strong and distinctively “limey” aroma.”  Excerpted from “What’s Wrong With My Fruit Garden?” by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth. Timber Press, December,

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Loquats

“Loquat fruit ripens three months after flowering, in late winter or early spring, at a time when most other fruit plants are only just beginning to flower. The fruit is one to two inches long and round to pear-shaped. It is a thin-fleshed pome like an apple or a pear and is borne in clusters, like grapes, of four to 30 fruits.”  Excerpted from “What’s

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Lemons

“We once owned a large lemon tree when we lived in southern California. It was loaded with dozens of ripe lemons one spring when a friend came to visit. He promptly harvested all of the lemons. All of them. Then he juiced them, made a fresh lemon meringue pie, and froze the remainder of the juice. The pie was fabulous, we used the frozen juice

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Pineapple Guava

“Pineapple guava has small, tasty, strongly aromatic, kiwi-like berries one to three inches long in August to October. The berries are smooth skinned and gray green. The fruit falls off the plant when it’s ready to eat. You can pick it early and it will ripen indoors.”  Excerpted from “What’s Wrong With My Fruit Garden?” by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth. Timber Press, December, 2013.

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