Three Of The Best Fruits You Can Grow From Home

What's going on growers, Greenest Thumb here, coming to you live from beautiful St George today we're, going to share with you Three of the Best Fruits You Can Grow from Home. 

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I have been growing fruit in my backyard for years now and if I could go back in time and tell myself the three fruits that i should put into the ground immediately, the first one without a doubt would be strawberries.

STRAWBERRIES

I know this seems like an obvious one, but I think that's one reason that it's a good choice, because it's something we all love so when you're growing your first fruits and you're first getting started with growing fruit, you want to make sure you put something in the ground that's super delicious, so it encourages, you to get out there and work on them, plus you'll want to grow something that's super easy to grow.

I'm telling you, when you grow them yourself, it's nothing like the flavor from the store. Homegrown strawberries are incredibly packed with flavor, they're super juicy and so sweet, so good!

One thing that's great about strawberries, especially if you're a beginner gardener, is that you can get fruit quickly. So, if you put a strawberry plant into the ground in the spring, you can expect a massive harvest to come next spring, which is quick compared to other kinds of fruits like apples.

When it comes to gardening, what we love doing is harvesting. So, if we could harvest quicker, I think that's great and really encouraging, especially for new gardeners. Another remarkable thing about strawberries is that you can either get the plants for cheap or for free.

Like if you know someone with a strawberry patch, you could just go to that patch. Take some of those runners and then root them then bring that back to your garden and then create your own strawberry patch, but if you don't know someone with strawberries, you can order some great disease resistant strawberries from a nice nursery and you can get about 25 plants for only like twenty dollars and I'll tell you what that'll provide you strawberries for life also when it comes to growing Strawberries, they're not super particular about the kind of soil that they grow in, so you could plant strawberries in a relatively poor soil and still get a decent harvest.

I bet, if you go to a spot, you could plant a strawberry plant in the spring and not do anything for it and then come back about a year later and there might be some strawberries on it. I'll tell you that would never happen with an apple tree, so if we do a little simple comparison between growing at apples and growing strawberries, this is what we come out with strawberries take about one year to get fruit from apples take at least four years: strawberry plants are either free or, like you know, $20 dollars to get started.

An apple tree is $ 50 for a good disease resistant bare root tree. Growing strawberries is like walking and then growing apples is like running.

Another thing about strawberries is they're self-fertile, which makes it super easy and convenient you can get by with only one variety of strawberries. But if you want to grow apple trees, you need at least two different apples to pollinate one another.

The second fruit that all beginner gardeners need to get into the ground immediately are grapes which are some of the most flavor packed delicious and depending on which one you choose, can be used to make juices, jellies, raisins, and wine!

GRAPES

Grapes are a hardy plant that can tolerate a wide range of growing conditions. On top of that Grapes offer amazing health benefits, due to their high nutrient and antioxidant content.

Grapes are perfect for growing backyards, with fast-growing vines in clusters. 

Here are some of my favorites: 

Lollipop Grapes: Deep-red, seedless grapes. Delicious fresh and dried raisins. Zones 7-9.

Waterfall Grapes: Unique finger-like green grapes abundantly ripening in late summer. Zones 7-9. 

Golden Chalice Grapes: A delicious champagne-colored fruit in summer that are completely seedless. Zones 7-9

Catawba Grapes: Medium sized with deep green foliage, growing in clusters of round purple-red grapes are well suited for jellies, juices, and sweet wines. Zones 4-8.

Niagra Grapes: Green-gold grapes that are sweet and juicy. Zones 4-8.

Eastern Concord Grapes: Aromatic blue-black grapes that harvest from late August to September. Zones 4-8.

Growing: Select a location with full sun to allow grapes to fully ripen. Grapes require a minimum of 155 to 160 frost-free growing days to have a bountiful harvest. It is recommended to soil test your preferred site location several weeks prior to planting and apply the appropriate fertilizer amendments – grape vines require high potassium levels. The site needs to be weed-free and have a pH of 6.5. Vines grow best in deep, well-drained soils, as most root systems are at least 36 inches deep. Choose a north-facing location if an early spring frost is typical in the region. There is a delay in soil warming on north-facing sites and the vegetation starts positioning the grapes later to avoid late spring frosts. If an early frost is not an issue, a south-facing location will allow for early ripening of grapes. (Carpenter, J. (2020, January 20). Growing Grapes for Beginners. Retrieved January 7, 2023, from: (WVU Extension))

Penn State Extension recommends the following conditions for cold-hardy grape varieties: 

• Climate. An ideal site should have more than 160 frost-free days.
• Winter temperatures. The minimum winter temperature for European wine grape varieties — is 0 F and -5 F for hybrids.
• Soil. Well-drained soils like clay loam are most preferred, as they help remove excess moisture from the root zone.
• Sloped locations. A location with a slight slope can improve air drainage. East-to-south exposures are desirable.

Growing grapes at home can be a rewarding experience and is easy to do. They can be grown in containers, or in places where the vine can climb and grow like trellises and fencing.

Grapes can be grown anywhere in the continental United States with zones raging from 4-10. If you have good soil, some space to spare, and don't mind some annual pruning, like I've mentioned, growing grapes is quite easy. 

 

BLUEBERRIES

The third fruit that all beginner gardeners need to get into the ground immediately are blueberries. Now blueberries take a little longer to fruit than something like our strawberries, but they're easy to grow and they're also relatively pest resistant.

So, it's nice that these bushes remain small because they're easy to just take something like an insect netting or a bird netting and just cover them up.

Because if you don't, if you just allow these things to just be open without a cover, I'm telling you, the birds will take out a lot of your harvest, and that can be a big inconvenience.

So you make sure you get an insect netting, especially on a huge bush like this one, even though blueberry bushes are a little more expensive to get started than something like your grapes or your strawberries, I still think they're incredibly worth it, because when you grow blueberries yourself, not only do you have fat, plump berries, but I'm telling you the flavor is incomparable to the ones in the stores.

So, the blueberries in the store have a little bit of sour tart and a little bit of sweet flavor, but the blueberries you grow at home have more of the unique blueberry flavor and it just hits you like a ton of bricks when you taste it another wonderful thing about the blueberries is, after you put it in the ground, they will produce fruit for you for like 50 years, so you can be expect that the blueberry plant to feed you for life. Another important thing about blueberries is that they're easy to prune.

So, it's a great fruit to learn how to prune because pruning, especially when you're a new gardener it can seem counterintuitive, but actually removing some of the plant will result in a bigger harvest rather than a small one, because when we cut off some of that old growth and allow new growth, we can get more fruiting areas.

One downside to growing blueberries is that they don't really reach full production until about their sixth or eighth year. So, one way to get around this is to order a blueberry bush that's about two to three years old. This way you can get to full production, much quicker. Another downside about blueberries is that they're not self-fertile, so you need at least two varieties to pollinate one another.

If you're in a spot that doesn't have a lot of space, then you could plant two blueberries, right next to one another.

Blueberries are another one of those plants that you could put in the ground and then not do anything for like a year and come back and there could still be blueberry blueberries on it. That would never happen with something like apples or peaches.

My goal is to get as many of you growing fresh fruit in your backyard as possible, but what i don't want is some beginner gardeners to just plant a bunch of peach trees, apple trees and pear trees. And then, three years later, they're left with no fruit, and they're discouraged.

Start out with fruits that are super easy, delicious to eat, and that will give you fruit quickly, then, after you get good at growing and gain some momentum, you can take on some of the tougher more expensive fruits, because there's not like some weird thing, where it's like the harder the fruit is to grow, then the better the flavor is that's just not how it is blueberries are my all-time favorite fresh fruit to eat and they're, not that hard to grow so just keep it simple.

Fruit trees, on the other hand, are much tougher to grow for a few reasons.  You must stay on top of pruning to get a good, consistent harvest. Plus, they must remain on the tree for months until they ripen, your strawberries, your blueberries, and your grapes, ripen quickly on the plant, leaving less opportunities for issues to come and steal your harvest.

 Thats why we want you guys to start simply, because if you start simply and expand, you will always be encouraged to take more on and then you'll be able to grow more food and that's just the whole idea.

Then after a certain amount of time you look around and you don't even know how it happened, but you're surrounded by food and you're just thankful that it did happen.

We want you guys to be in that same situation.  Before we let you leave, though, make sure to check out the new summer merch on our webstore: greenestthumb.com.

We are selling new gardening kits; have various seeds and some useful tools to get you going off to the right direction here in 2023. I encourage you to check them out guys.  Until then read the next article.

 

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