Orchard People

[00:00:00] Introduction: Starting a Community Orchard
So what do you do when you have an exciting project on the horizon? As a journalist and filmmaker, my go to approach is to go to the library and do some research. So in 2009, when I decided it was going to be a fantastic idea to plant a community orchard in my public park, my very first destination was the library.
I knew a lot about organic gardening, but I knew very little at the time about fruit trees. And I wanted to know about the best cultivars to grow and I wanted to learn all about fruit tree care. So I searched for books on fruit trees and bought, brought home a whole bunch of them. And then I went to town just dreaming about what my local community orchard could look like and what the fruit would taste like.
One of the best books I browsed through then was writer and horticultural consultant Lee Reich's book, Landscaping with Fruit, which was a great resource then and still is today. Lee Reich has gone on to writing lots more books, and one of them pushes the boundaries of growing fruit in your garden.
It's called Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden. Expand your palate with Pawpaw, Shipovas, Jujubes, Maypops, and more. It's a book where he teaches us how to grow types of fruit that most of us have never even heard of, and fruit that we will never be able to buy in our local supermarket.
[00:01:28] Guest Introduction: Lee Reich
So I've invited Lee to be my guest on the show today.
So if you guys are ready, let's dig into today's topic. Lee, welcome to the show today. Hi Susan, nice to be here. Oh, it's so great to have you. I have this image of you. When you talk about in your bio, who you are and what you do. You talk about your farmden. It's not a garden and it's not a farm. It's a farmden and I have this image of this farmden just being rich with all different types of exotic and interesting fruits.
[00:01:59] Lee's Farmden: More Than a Garden
Can you tell me a little bit about this farmden of yours and why you call it that and what it is? I call it a farmden because, it started out I had a garden. My original property was only two quarters of an acre. But, I did plant a lot of vegetables and I planted as many fruits as I could pack into three quarters of an acre.
But then I bought a two and a half acre field just to the south, connected to this property. And I decided, since I write and I lecture and I consult about gardening and fruits, I should plant more. So instead of having, say, pawpaw trees, only two of them, which I had on the original property, I thought I'd plant 20.
And same thing with, planting more apples, planting more pears, everything, I multiplied many times. So at that point I decided this was more than a garden, or as I like to say, more than one person can take care of and remain sane. And, and I am the only person that cares for this, mostly.
And, and so then I decided it wasn't quite a farm. And I sell a few things off here, but mostly it's, just to be able to study the plants and check out different varieties and see how they grow. so it wasn't a farm, so it's less than a farm, but more than a garden, which I call a farmden. hopefully you are still sane, because it sounds like you've taken on a lot.
I occasionally get some help now. I hire some help. Oh, I'm glad to hear it. so you had your apples, you had your pawpaws, which are interesting fruit. You, had other things.
[00:03:35] Experimenting with Uncommon Fruits
When did you decide it was time to start experimenting with the uncommon fruits, the types that many of us haven't even heard of?
I guess it was early on when I started gardening. I remember one of the first plants was a long, time ago. And before people had hardly even heard of things such as gooseberries, even. And, early on, I guess I just started planting a few of those things. But I really got interested in it. I was working for Cornell a number of years ago.
And, here in the Hudson Valley, I was working at one of the research stations. And it was mostly apple research. some pear, but mostly apple. And, it just seemed like that's all people grew is apples. And then I also looked around and I saw that, in backyards, people have crab apples and weeping cherries that didn't really make fruit.
And I was thinking that the trees are so pretty when they're in bloom, and then people don't get fruit, so I started really just thinking about plants that, were pretty, but also edible. Plants that were easy to grow, because apples, around here and much of the world, they get sprayed very heavily. so one fruit said we're easier to grow and I just started researching and I'm not sure I just bit by bit I started humiliating a lot of different fruits.
I'd and That plant, for instance, I had a hedge Forsythia along my driveway, which was really nice in spring. Of course, it doesn't make the fruit But then I one plant that I had been fond of for a long time this name King cherry prunus commentosa Which, is as pretty as forsythia in the spring with what, white or pinkish white blossoms.
but it also makes tons of cherries. So I, ripped out the forsythia and I planted man king cherries. And I guess that was on my way then. Just planting all these, weird Oh, not weird. Uncommon fruits in addition to common fruits.
[00:05:30] Nanking Cherry: A Resilient Fruit
So let's talk about the Nanking cherry, because that's something that I myself haven't tasted before.
Is it actually a part of the cherry family, or is that just the name of it? Yeah, it's a true Prunus species, Prunus tomentosa. It's one of my favorite of all the uncommon fruits. And why? What is it that's so nice about it? a few things. First of all, that it is beautiful. Second thing, as opposed to, most cherries, I have a lot, I, should preface this whole thing, the thing I farmed in, is much of the fruit is, one of my favorite, fruits are one of my favorite foods to eat, but in spite of that, my farm then has a very poor site for fruit growing, because it's a very low lying area, so the, so you get late spring frost, and it's always colder here, and the air's more damp, and there's, thousands of acres of forest right Next to me.
So a lot of pests come in from the forest. So I have a lot of trouble growing a lot of fruits. But, like for instance, sweet cherries I can't grow at all. Tart cherries I can grow But the Nanking cherries always have borne an excellent crop for me. And, and I don't spray them. I don't even have to prune them.
Usually I just prune them when they get too big. I just whack them back. There's no art or science in pruning a Nanking cherry. And, I was exposed to this years before when I was in graduate school, I would ride my bike to school, and there was a golf course that had a hedge along one part of the path that I was riding, and it was sheared, and it was a hedge of, Nanking cherries, and it was just like this wall of cherries.
Wow. The one downside to Nanking cherries, the fruits are small. They're only like, half to five eighths of an inch in diameter. And so do But the pit is also small. And, and they taste great.
They're somewhere on the spectrum between a sweet and a tart cherry. And I've tasted many different varieties. not varieties, seedlings, because there are no varieties available. And they all taste great. That's great. and they're good to eat fresh, right? Right off the bush? Oh, yeah.
That's the way to eat them. And, people often ask me, because, along my driveway, they're just loaded with fruit, so a lot of people coming along the street see them. And they ask me, don't the birds get all of them? And I say that the birds eat all they want, the squirrels eat all they want, the chipmunks eat all they want, I eat all I want, and you still would hardly know the plant's been touched.
In my book, I have a color photo of a branch. Nanking cherry with my hand holding a whole bunch of cherries and the branch is almost you can't see the branch just because the cherries are so solid along the branch. That's incredible. And so why do you think it is that Nanking cherry survives, whereas, sweet cherry trees around you just wouldn't?
they seem to be, one reason is where they're from the hills of Manchuria, where in winter the temperatures can be minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and in the summer it could be 110. So this is a tough plant. It can take a lot of, a lot of bad environmental conditions.
That's one thing, and I don't know, just, certain varieties of things, or certain species are just more pest resistant than others. we got, an email here from Wallace. Now let's see, Wallace is from, hi, listening from Red Deer, Alberta. Is it true that Mr. Reich is a PhD? Wow.
[00:09:01] Lee's Educational Journey
Can he tell us a bit about his education?
Thank you, Wallace. jeez, I'm blushing, delving into my personal life. Yes. No, actually, I, feel that I really lucked out with my education and it was just by chance. It wasn't that directed. just briefly, I started out as an undergraduate as a chemistry major, and I was really pretty enthralled with chemistry.
And then I went on to graduate school, three semesters of graduate school in theoretical chemistry, like quantum chemistry. Which I loved and I still like, except I felt it wasn't, really going anywhere as far as answering big questions. It was not ever going to. So I decided to, so I dropped out for a year, lived in Vermont, started reading about gardening, and then decided I wanted to go back to graduate school and study agriculture.
And by chance, when I checked out different departments, the head of the soil science department, coaxed me. He said, you gotta come into this department and, we'll set you up, we'll give you funding and all this. so I ended up getting a master's degree in soil science, which is a great foundation for, anything horticultural.
And then I realized there's a lot of aspects of soil science, but I, one aspect I really liked was the horticultural aspect. So then I went on to get a master's in horticulture. Then I got a job with the USDA, which was then called the Soil Conservation Service for about two years, which I didn't really like the job.
So then I decided to go back to school, and then I got my doctorate, and I had the opportunity to work at one of the best research places in the country, the Beltsville, USDA Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. And, and from there I was hired by Cornell, and the rest is history. one thing that's very important, And in this whole story is when I, when I switched into agriculture and started graduate school in soil science, I started gardening like a madman.
And, I kept through all those different places. I, always had a garden and it was really, I was crazed about gardening. And the cool thing is I'm still crazed about gardening. Oh, there's so much to learn, hey? you can have your PhD in soil science or, but there's, nature always has something to teach us.
Oh yeah, I find it really fascinating, and I find luck, I find that I'm lucky that I had science, the soils, the chemistry, the soil science, and the horticulture foundation, and then to apply it out in the field, and, my most recent book speaks to that, because, a lot of One day I was making compost and I was thinking how everything I did in making the compost was not, by chance, it was subconscious that I would, but really, I drew from the science that I had in how I was making the compost, and I do make really good compost.
And, then I decided to write a whole book on, the scientific underpinnings of things we do out in the garden and how they can be applied directly. to, how we garden and how they make for a better garden. Oh, fantastic. we have another question here. We are going to dive back into Uncommon Fruits in just a minute.
But I have a question here from Lynn from Margaretsville, Nova Scotia, Zone 6. And so she's talking more generally about, fruit trees in general. She says, I was wondering about Lee's opinion on topping fruit trees to maintain a short stature what would you say to Lynne, a brief answer about pruning, and saying that Lynn, oh my goodness, Lee's got a fantastic book all about pruning, so tell us what you think about that Lee.
First of all, you got to be careful asking me of opinions because I have very strong opinions. But, topping generally is not a great idea. I guess if it's a dwarf tree and you want to maintain it to be dwarf, the better way is to start with a dwarfing rootstock. there are apple, did she say it was an apple tree?
She didn't mention what type of tree. But there are apple rootstocks, there are pear rootstocks, and there are cherry rootstocks that will keep a tree at seven feet. So that would be the best way to do it. And then if you do top the tree, you don't just do it arbitrarily. You top to a, sort of a weak side branch.
And then going to a weak side branch, you'll have less growth at the top. But plants generally, as I point out in my pruning book, it's just the physiology of all plants is that the highest point in the plant will be the most vigorous. it's not something you do once if you're going to copy, it's something you'll have to do repeatedly.
Yep, they'll keep coming back. So we have another email here from Beth, from Ashtabula, Ohio. she says here, looking forward to today's show. I hope to plant a few pawpaw trees next year, and we'll be planting two aronia berry plants next week, as well as some elderberries.
[00:14:14] Aronia Berries: Not a Fan Favorite
Have you grown aronia berries?
that's a good segue. Let's talk about aronia berries. Have you grown them, and what do you think of them? I grew them once. Actually, I do have them planted now, too, but, I grew them once, and I have to say, in all honesty, I don't know what the big buzz is about aronia, because it's pretty much inedible.
And, and you can make just about anything edible if you doctor it up enough with heat and sweetener, which is what you have to do with aronia. so I'm not a big fan of aronia. And a lot of plants did not make that, do have edible fruits, edible, but not, in my opinion, that palatable.
Did not make it into my Uncommon Fruit book. And aronia is one of the ones that did not make it in there. I'm not a big fan. I think it's a nice ornamental plant. And I did plant it just because I have a little part in my front yard now where I call my little permaculture place where I just stick plants there and I don't take care of them and see how they do.
And I have aronia there. And you have aronia there. So we'll keep an eye on it. Maybe it'll save itself one day by producing something yummy for you. If you're lucky. I don't think so. It's genetics. We've got another email from Andy, who's from Belleville, Ontario. Help. Oh my goodness. This is serious. Any advice on pruning gooseberries?
Yeah. And gooseberries are in your book. It's actually, it's very easy. It's basically gooseberry bears best on one, two, and three year old wood, or mostly on two and three year old wood. So ideally, you do renewal pruning, which is how you prune any shrub, and basically you want a certain number of one year old shoots, a certain number of two year old shoots, a certain number of three year old shoots, and then when they get to be four years old, you cut them all.
so annual pruning then would be to remove anything older than three years old, and to thin out if there's too many one year old shoots. So you might want six shoots of each age. So that's the theory. And I have to admit, I've written that and I've done it, but mostly when I prune my gooseberries, I just look at them and anything that looks really old, I cut to the ground and anything that's, if there's too many young shoots coming up, I thin those out.
And if there's anything drooping too much, I shorten that. Makes it pretty simple, huh? That's a nice approach. Yeah, it's not hard. And also, no matter what you do, unless you do something very drastic, you'll get gooseberries. that's good.
[00:16:43] Shipovas: The Rare Hybrid Fruit
I, wanted to, I got, the first time I saw your book, I thought, okay, shipovas.
I have to know what a Chippova is. I have never seen one in a supermarket. I don't know if you can get them anywhere. Tell me about shipovas, and how did you first find out about those? Oh, you definitely won't see them in the supermarket. I'm trying to think how I found out about that. I don't know.
It's jeez, I don't even know. Out of all the fruits in the book, that is the most rare. basically, I could probably travel around all of Canada and just find a handful of them. that's probably not true. But, only people that are really interested in common fruits would grow them.
But it's a very interesting plant. It's an intergeneric hybrid between a species of mountain ash Sorbus and, European pear, which is Pyrus. So it has the botanical, genera designated Sorbopyrus. First of all, I think it's a very beautiful plant. It has really nice, flowers.
And the leaves have this whitish cast to them. So it's really pretty. It's a tree that people often put spreaders in the branches to grow. Give trees, fruit trees especially a good shape, good strong attachments, and shipovas just naturally has good shape. And the fruit, it's one of the best tasting fruits that I've grown.
So why do you think it's so uncommon? Like, why have people not discovered them yet? the whole thing about commercial fruit growing, at least, is very commodified. basically commercial fruit growing is selling, red orbs. Or, it used to be just red orbs like red, delicious apples or yellow orbs.
And, flavor is not the most important thing. And you want things that everybody's going to want. It's like the McDonald's of fruit growing. It's you don't want anything too strong that a lot of people won't like. Even if some people do you want something that everybody, likes pretty much, even if they're not crazy over it, it's good.
it's all good enough, but it's not great. So a shipova might be in that category. And then there's the way it looks. It's about the size of a, maybe the size of a plum. And depending on where it's grown, if it's grown in the east, it usually has a rusted appearance, and that often turns people off.
It's also a new fruit, so who's going to risk planting an orchard of these things? people don't know it. And I'm not so sure how well it keeps. I know when I had it, it did not keep that well. But it really had a really nice taste. Very much like a pear. But also had a really good texture, like a meaty texture.
And what about how easy is it to grow? It's easy to grow. The main problem is, and this is another downside I guess, if somebody's going to try and commercialize it, it's very slow to come into bearing. It takes eight years. Before it'll bear. So it's an investment in time. Yeah, you have to be patient. I guess on eight years, eight years isn't that long.
Once you plant it and then all of a sudden five years gone by and you know you got three more years. That's what life looks like when you're a committed gardener, huh? The time just flies. okay, we got an email here from Bob, and Bob is from Dallas, Texas. Hi, Susan, love your show today. Is Dr. Reich going to do any live seminars or workshops this summer in New York State this year, as I will be there for the summer?
Would love to attend one. The answer is yes. Oh, tell us. Let's see. He could get on my mailing list if he sends me an email asking that, or if he goes to my website, which is leereich. com, you can look on the workshops page that I, I don't have the whole schedule. I usually plan it only a month ahead, so you have to check it frequently.
But if he's on my list, my email list, then he gets notifications. Oh, that sounds great. Thank you, Bob, for that question. That's good. I'm sure there'll be a few people who are interested. there's going to be one actually in, in, April 14th on, pruning workshop here, at the farmden. we have a reply from Bob.
Guess what he says? He says, thank you. Woohoo! Oh, Bob. okay, so shipovas take patience. but the other thing I was thinking is, because it's uncommon, would that mean that you'll have less pest and disease problems? not necessarily, but I would say that all the fruits in the book, And if you talk about compare with apple, I would say almost definitely because no, no, fruit could have as many pests as that.
Not as many as bad pest problems. and pears generally. Of all the common fruits, pears are the easiest to grow as far as pests. And since that's one, parent of shipova and the other parent's, mountain ash, which also doesn't have tons of pests, I would say it's pest free. I have not experienced any pests on shipova.
Oh, that's great.
Lee, we've talked about a few different uncommon fruits. There's another one in the book that I just stopped and looked at for a while. Maypops.
[00:22:07] Maypops: The Hardy Passion Fruit
Maypops are interesting, and they have quite a history. Can you tell me a little bit about them?
Yeah, it's very, a lot of times if I give a talk, and we're in northern climate here, and I showed, fruit you can grow, and I show a picture of a passion flower, and people consider that to be a tropical fruit, so they're always amazed that you can actually grow, pretty far north, I would say into Zone 5 at least, maypops.
And maypop is a, differs from the, it is a true passion flower. Or passion fruit, and it differs from the tropical ones in that the tropical ones are woody vines and the maypop is an herbaceous perennial. So the top dies to the ground each year, but the roots survive and send up new shoots that, both flower and fruit.
And, and the flowers, it's worth going just for its flowers. The flowers are really stunning. And then the fruit is one of my favorite fruits. I don't get high production here. I know as you go further south, you can get. More production, and if you go really far south, they consider it a weed, because it spreads underground by runners.
Now, there is, there's symbolism, isn't there, for the Maypop? Is there a certain symbolism? Yeah, people often think the, passion fruit's called passion fruit because it makes you feel more passionate. But actually, the passion in passion fruit and flowers refers to a religious passion, the passion of Christ.
And when Christian missionaries first, came to the New World, where the passion fruit is native. They used the passion fruit as a teaching tool to teach the natives, all the story of Christ. Let's see, so ten so called petals, which is really five petals and five sepals, were technically the ten apostles.
The sort of fine rays around the fruit was supposed to be like the crown of thorns. So each part of this intricate flower, was taken to represent some part of the Passion of Christ, and was used, as I said, as a teaching tool. So what does the fruit taste like, and what kind of harvest do you get from this plant?
So it sounds like it's just, it's almost like a little perennial. Oh, it is a perennial, yeah. That's gonna die back. When it grows, it's not a little perennial, because the fruits, the vines can grow ten feet in a season. Oh. and the way the fruit tastes, oddly enough, it tastes like a passion fruit. Which, if you've never tasted passion fruit, it's the main flavor in Hawaiian punch.
It's a sweet, tart, the fruit is egg shaped and it's hollow but filled with seeds. And each seed is, has a gelatinous, a thick gelatinous coating. like a pomegranate. And that's, the part that you can eat. you can eat the seeds, too. But I think it's a great taste of fruit.
I wish they bore more heavily. if it's a vine, what's the trick? You have to have a trellis for it?
[00:25:01] Supporting Passion Vines
Is it, tricky to support it? You can do that. I've planted them on trellises. Years ago, I had one. I had a lilac bush right in the middle of my lawn. And I just planted it at the base, so after the lilac finished, putting on its show, the passion vines would be, climbing up into the lilac, and then they'd put on their show.
So that worked out well. And then the lawnmower kept it from spreading.
[00:25:26] Harvesting Passion Fruit
And does it get a decent sized harvest? Are you going to get a lot of fruit? I have, not gotten a lot of fruit, I have to admit, but I'm still working on it. , some of these things are still in process, right?
A work in process. We have, but I do, really, love each fruit that I do get. I think sometimes it's, again, like if you can't necessarily buy this stuff and growing it yourself, it gives a real feeling of satisfaction. I grew this beautiful thing. Oh yeah. and also it's, and it's worth going for the flowers and flower, they do flower very heavily.
So basically it's decorative plus. The bonus is you get some nice fruit, but it's beautiful as well, Or if you're in, a little warmer zone, say like zone six, or warmer, you can get a lot of fruit. Okay, so that's good.
[00:26:23] Listener Questions: Passionflower and Pawpaw
We have an email here from Beth. Beth lives in Indianapolis, Indiana.
She says, Hi, just tuned in. What is Mr. Reich's contact information slash website? P. S. I am a fellow Cornell University graduate, but in veterinary science. Love your show. So the website is, LeeReich, L E R E I C H dot com. And you get all the contact and everything. You get the workshops, blog.
Yeah, there's a blog every weekly also that's on there. Perfect. Also as well, if anybody missed the beginning of the show or any of my other shows, you can go to orchardpeople. com slash podcast and there's always the archived show. So we're out live now, but in a few hours we put up the podcast.
So if they missed the beginning, they can go back.
We have an email from Yi. Yi from Toronto and the, it's passion flower. She says, I see one of my local nurseries are selling passionflower right now, indoor greenhouse. The description, there's a beautiful picture, but she's just sending, oh, it's very pretty.
that's nice. Thank you, Yi. That's, you're just sending us a beautiful picture to see how pretty these flowers are. Gorgeous colors too. So it means that they're available. Although they're probably, selling the tropical ones. They're tropical. That's what I was going to ask you. So do all, if it's a tropical passion flower, will it also have an edible fruit or are you going to be disappointed if you get that one?
there's many species of passion flower. And, there's a few that make edible fruits. My guess is it's, I guess you'd have to, Passiflora edulis is one of the common edible ones. So if it's that, then it is edible. And I actually have grown that in a pot that I brought indoors in winter. And it was quite easy to get it to fruit.
Oh, that's fantastic. So I guess the moral of this story is, and I'm so pleased that she sent in that email, is if you know you want edible, you've got to do your research to make sure that particular cultivar will have the edible fruit. I think that's Oh, Yi also says, there's another question here.
[00:28:35] Growing Fruit Trees in Containers
Is it possible to grow pawpaw in a container, such as a 15 or 30 gallon or larger container? I've grown a lot of fruits in containers, because when I was in graduate school, I mentioned I was in graduate school, I thought I was going to get my degree sooner than I did. It took longer than I thought, but I had planted a lot of fruit trees, and I knew I'd have to move.
I thought I'd have to move soon, so I planted, just about all of them in containers. Just as a little side story, but then it turned out when I got, when I, after I got my degree and I went to work for the Soil Conservation Service, that was a thousand miles away. So in August, I had a U Haul, the biggest U Haul you can find, filled up almost completely with potted fruit trees, some apple trees with apples on them.
And so I guess the whole story is that, yes, I have grown a lot of fruit trees and pots. And you can, I think you can plant anything in a pot, you just have to, the few caveats for planting in pots is you have to root prune them and repot them to refresh the soil every year or more. And you have to make sure you can water them in winter, I mean in summer, and then also in winter you have to have a place, if it's a temperate zone fruit, you have to have a place where it can be kept cold, but not too cold.
That sounds like really good advice. And I know that often people just don't have the space. They maybe don't have a garden or, they don't, that kind of thing.
[00:30:09] Community Orchards and Easy-to-Grow Fruits
But that's why I'm a big fan of community orchards. if people have a local park, and they can work with the city and get permission, like it's so fun to go out and meet your friends and colleagues and go take care of your trees out in nature.
So that's another option if anybody is interested in that. Yeah. And the important thing I think with that is choosing the right fruits so that you do get fruit and that you don't, you obviously don't want fruits that take, detailed and knowledgeable spraying or, it's just not going to happen. And, or preferably, unless, everybody's very enthusiastic, not too much pruning.
there's so many fruits that you can grow that you can choose anywhere on the spectrum of how much care you're willing to learn about and then to give them. from intensive to almost nothing, as far as pest control, as far as pruning. and when you grow fruit, no matter what it is, you get much better quality than what you could buy.
Oh, for sure. So what would your top picks be for a community garden where there's very little care? What would you suggest? Depends on where it's going to be. Is this in Toronto? Yeah, sure. Let's say in Toronto. I would say, Asian and European, Asian pears are very easy. Not too much pruning, but they do need fruit thinning.
I would say European pears, they take a little more pruning. I would say, hardykiwi vines. a lot of shrubs, blueberry bushes definitely. blueberries are my favorite fruit. Blueberries, black currants, red currants. There's so many fruits, most people think of when they think of planting fruits, they think apples, and if not apples, they're in addition to things, apples, peaches, cherries, plums, that, and I usually tell people if they live in the east, where there's a lot of pest problems, I say, if you want to pick the hardest fruits to grow, apples, peaches, cherries, plums, and they always say, so what can I grow?
You have all these other fruits. Yeah. Yeah. American persimmons, you have, you have, pawpaws, you have, the pears that I mentioned. Cornelian cherries, we didn't even mention. Very easy to grow. and there's, so many fruits, really delectable, and fruits you can't buy, so if you like them, you wouldn't be able to get them anyway.
Perfect. Yep. Now we have an email here. Let's see who's next. We've got an email from Tracy. This is Tracy from Salinas, California. Listening for the first time. Love the show. Thank you, Tracy. And let's see, there was one more. Okay, oh dear. Brita writes, I don't know where Brita's from. Ha! My trees are a mess.
is Dr. Reich for hire? Ha! I love this show. Such fantastic advice. Okay, Lee, I think you're popular. I think everybody wants to adopt you or something. Possibly if she was down the street from me, I'd be fine. she didn't say where she's from, so she may be knocking on your door very soon. You may regret that you said that.
And getting back to the California one, much, much easier to grow just about all fruits. In most places in California. Exactly. There's a lot of pests east of the Rocky Mountains that don't, that they just aren't present, or present in large numbers out west. Yep. Makes you want to live in California. not so much.
Oh, and Brita says, oh, let's see, she's not around the corner from you, she's from, Macon, Georgia. M A C O N. Darn, she says. Oh, I was just down there. Oh, wow. Brita, you missed your chance, Brita.
[00:34:00] Uncommon Fruits and Their Unique Characteristics
Oh, there's so much more I want to talk to you about a chapter in Lee's book where the title is Che, Chewy Dollops of Maroon Sweetness. So Lee, you gotta tell me, what is this stuff, Che, that sounds so delicious and yummy. This is also quite an uncommon fruit.
It's related to fig, mulberry and Osage orange. And the fruit could be likened to if you took a fig, the characteristics of a fig fruit and a mulberry fruit and melded them together. But, honestly, I, didn't think, why, I'm not really a good judge of the ones I tasted have not been as good as fig or mulberry, but that's because I'm at the northern limit of, che survival, and they need not only to survive, but they have to ripen their fruits.
I think the fruits that I tasted were not sufficiently ripe. So can you, is there, can you get them anywhere else? have you ever traveled somewhere where you've tasted one where that just tasted just right? not in season. Interesting. But I've seen pictures of them also, if you go just a little further south where they're hardy and they have a longer season, the fruit also is a lot larger than the ones that I would get.
What does the plant look like? If it's, if it tastes, if it's somewhat fig like, does it look like a fig tree? Not really. It has shiny, I think it looks more like, if you're familiar with Osage orange, it looks more like Osage orange. And it does have, thorns. Not like Osage Orange. Osage Orange has the worst thorns of any plant, as far as I'm concerned, but it has thorns, which Osage Orange also does.
For our listeners in California or Florida, is it worth it for them to try? I would definitely try. But then again, you'd try anything, because you love to try different stuff. True. But also, you don't have to be that far south. I think if you're as far south, in line with the climate of, say, Virginia, Or even maybe southern New Jersey, I would try it.
Possibly try it even if I lived in northern New Jersey. I'm really at this line, it's cold where there's a number of things I can't grow that you can grow. Successfully, just a little south of here. Yeah, those chewy dollops of maroon sweetness. Oh gosh, I've got to try. I've got to try it at some point.
The other thing is, there is something in your book you talk about, and you'll know what this is. You say, this is a fruit you may want to grow, and it tastes like a mix of old fish, applesauce, and red wine. So what fruit am I talking about? That wasn't a medlar, was it? Yes, it was. Wait, you didn't say old fish, did you?
You did. I gotta look at this. Oh, have a look. Okay, because maybe it was something else. what would you say Medlar's taste like? I would say very rich applesauce with a hint of wine. Interesting. I don't know about the old fish. You don't know about the old fish part. let's have a, we'll have a look later.
[00:37:03] Medlar: The Medieval Fruit
But, tell us about Medlar's and their history. Medlar's one of my favorite ones. It's a fruit that reached its peak of popularity in the Middle Ages. And it's related to apple and pear. And it looks like a small, rusted apple with the calyx end, which is the end opposite the stem, flared open.
Which, so the food has not been praised for its appearance, although I happen to like the way it looks. And its appearance has often been likened to other things. And if you read old English literature, for instance, Chaucer, referred to the fruit as the open arse fruit. And, and, Shakespeare even mentioned that he was a little more delicate.
He called it the open et cetera. And, my favorite is one, oh yeah, in French, I guess there's probably a lot of French listeners who don't know what it means. Usually people don't know. It's called crosse du chien. Which is? end of the dog. so it has been disparaged for its, appearance, although I happen to think it has a very nice appearance.
it just has a real, it's like a real fruit appearance. It's, it's, rusty. It's got little, blushes of red on it. and, and, as far as that also, the tree itself has been praised for its appearance. If you don't, if, you have a small yard and only root for one specimen tree, and a small specimens tree, this is the one to plant because it doesn't, it doesn't need a pollinator.
And the tree gets no bigger than, say, eight or ten feet high and wide, and that's full size. And it's got a very nice form, too, like a gnarled, wizened form to the way the branches grow.
Medline? Yes, please do. So, I have this quote from about 100 years ago that is my favorite description, even though I happen to like the way it looks, the fruit. so somebody wrote, it's a crabby looking brownish green truncated little spheroid of unsympathetic appearance. And yet you want it as a feature tree.
and, but on the positive side, Charlemagne, whenever he conquered a town, he always, he loved, medlars and he always, made it a rule that a medlar tree had to be planted. Aha, that's interesting. That's on the, that's on the plus side. Before we move on, to Anthony's question, I just wanted to ask, with medlars, are there different cultivars?
Because you say it's a smallish tree and you described it so interestingly, but are there different cultivars? Yeah, there's a number of cultivars and they differ in size, and I'm not sure how much they differ in flavor, but it has a, oh, the other thing about the fruit that, that makes, it, you'll never see a medlar in the supermarket because when you pick it, it's rock hard and white inside.
And it has to undergo a process called bletting before he can eat it, which means you pick it in, the fall and then you set it on a counter in a cool room and undergoes this bletting process and then when it's ready to eat, the inside is turned to basically brown mush. Which, some people in past writings have said, it's it's, rotten, but that's not really rotten.
It's a banana ripening. it gets softer. It doesn't get to be brown mush, but when it's brown mush, it tastes really good. Oh, yummy. So we have two more questions, and one is from Anthony.
[00:40:43] Fruits for Zone 7b and Xeriscaping
So Anthony is from Baltimore, and he says, what are some fruits for Zone 7b? So I guess what he's thinking is maybe easy to grow or uncommon fruits that might work for Baltimore.
Any suggestions for Anthony? You can grow a lot of fruits. You can grow pawpaw, you can grow persimmons, both Asian and American persimmons. You can grow hardykiwi fruits. You can grow maypop. Okay. You can grow, no end. I would plant pears, as I said, both Asian pears and European pears. blueberries, I'm trying to think what you can, basically you can grow just about anything except for, tropical fruits.
Okay, yeah, he's got a good selection, so those are good, suggestions. figs, you can grow figs too, that's a big thing. Can you grow figs outdoors in seven? Yep. Yeah, here in Toronto we have to do the indoor outdoor thing with our figs. Me too, So you too, yeah. I have to have them in my greenhouse also.
Oh, that's nice to have room for a greenhouse. Yeah, that's what I need. Oh, that's lovely. So we have an email as well from Cody, and Cody is from Nashville, Tennessee. Cody says, Thank you for a very informative radio show. I am a big fan of Dr. Reich's. And really appreciate all he has done in this field. He has saved me several times.
That's really nice to get that kind of feedback. So it's been many years since you've been writing all these amazing books. Do you really know what an impact, can you tell as you live your daily life, what an impact you've made on all sorts of people everywhere? emails or I get, response, comments on my blog posts, that sort of every once in a while say, Oh, this is definitely worth doing, I'll keep writing and talking about these things.
but it's nice to get the feedback. I really appreciate it. And also you mentioned that you are doing on your website, you're doing a regular weekly blog. So what are you blogging about? Basically whatever's happening on the forum and on that week, it could be, trying to get my greenhouse heater fixed.
It could be sowing seeds when I sow the seeds, it could be pruning, it could be like, next week I was going to write about, I really to propagate plants, I'm addicted to it, and I really like, hardy cyclamens, so I start propagating different seeds, and I have little seed flats filled with, little tubers that are sprouting of, these seedlings that I started.
So it's not only fruits and vegetables, but, A lot of it's about fruits and vegetables, but also just other plants, too. I have some other favourite non edible plants, also. So if we want to see Lee behind the scenes, then we are going to check out your blog, and tell us again what the, the website is.
It's, leereich, L E R E I C H dot com. And the blog would be leeroyce. com slash blog. And also I have, a lot of photographs, pictures of my farm. As a matter of fact, last week, I think it was last week, or very recently, I had one. my nephew had a drone, so I took an aerial view. It looks quite cool.
Oh wow, that'd be really neat. Yeah. Yeah, that would be neat. Oh, quick question. She gets right in. Tracy has one more question here. Tracy, again in California. Any advice for growing on hillsides? I'm outside Salinas, so nine or ten.
Open to anything. So Tracy gets the last question. On Salinas, California, on a hillside, you could probably grow anything. If I could plant, geez, this is, I guess I would just plant, figure out what you really like, and plant that, and then plant what you'd like second, and do that, because I would say there's a few things you couldn't plant.
I'm not sure what, zone that is. She says zone, she said zone 9 or 10, but I wonder if her concern is because, it's on a hillside, the watering might be an issue. Yeah. And, learn something about drip irrigation. huh. And is there any of these plants that we've talked about, are any of them sort of xeriscape, or don't need lots of water, or okay with lots of heat?
Yeah, first of all, Nanking cherry is definitely one of those. I would say beach plum, which is also in the book, can get by with low water. Mulberries, oh, I know one plant that, if I was her, is a species of mulberry that I can't grow. I do grow it in a pot, but it's not hardy outside. It's a black mulberry, Morris nigra.
And the black doesn't refer to the color of the fruit, it's just, it's a different species. but that's one of the best tasting fruits ever, anywhere. fantastic. I would definitely plant that.
[00:45:43] Final Thoughts and Farewell
Okay, we're coming up to the end of the show. Thank you so much, Lee, for coming on the show today.
It has been so much fun, and I could talk to you forever about this stuff, so hopefully you'll come back again. Yeah, I would love to do it again. Okay, thanks and goodbye for now.
Okay, bye. Bye bye. that was Lee Reich, author of Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden and a host of other fantastic gardening books.
And that's it for today's episode of the Urban Forestry Radio Show. I really hope you enjoyed the show. If you want to listen again, or if you want to download other episodes, you can find them all at podcast.orchardpeople.com. And If you're ready to up your fruit tree care game, do check out my online fruit tree care training course.
My students include home growers and arborists and master gardeners and lots of other people. The course is great for both beginner and intermediate level growers and you can learn about it at orchardpeople. com slash workshops. You've been listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show brought to you by Stark Brothers Nurseries and Orchards.
This is Reality Radio and I'm Susan Poizner from OrchardPeople. com. Thanks for tuning in today. And I look forward to digging into a new fruit tree care topic with you next month.
You've been listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show on Reality Radio 101. To learn more about the show and to download the podcast where I cover lots more great topics, you can visit OrchardPeople. com slash podcast. This show is broadcast live on the last Tuesday of every month, and each time I have great new guests talking to me about fruit trees, food forests, and arboriculture.
If you're interested in learning more about growing your own fruit trees, or just about living a more sustainable life, Go to OrchardPeople. com and sign up for my information packed monthly newsletter. If you like this show, please do like our Orchard People Facebook page.
Thank you so much for tuning in. It's been wonderful to have you as a listener and I hope to see you again next time.
Thank you for listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show with your host, Susan Poizner, right here on Reality Radio 101.