The Unusual Fruit Garden
The Unusual Fruit Garden
Posts: 9
Hello fellow growers, I thought I'd drop in and say hello as I have just started my own fruit garden. After just realising I have a Tayberry tree at work (it's Huge) I decided I had to grow my own as the fruit was delicious. I have a decent back garden but with just ornamental plants / trees and a decent unused area so over the Christmas period I've had a huge clear out, made 8 large raised bed planters and went on a shopping spree trying to find other fruits and berries that (hopefully) should grow in the North East UK.
After discovering the Tayberry at work and discovering how nice they tasted, I wanted to hunt down other fruits I haven't heard of before (generally because they aren't sold in the shops as they can't be commercially cultivated or are still native abroad) so I gathered and ordered the following list:
Tayberry
Serviceberry (snowcloud)
Jostaberry
Funberry
Japanese Wineberry
Honeyberry
Goji Berry
Pink Blueberry
Chilean Guava
3x Blueberry variety
2x Raspberry variety
10x Pineberry (Hawaiian Strawberry)
10x Strawberry
So as you can see, quite the collection of things you wouldn't see down the shops. I am going to be documenting how well each plant grows on Youtube and I have an introduction video to the plants before I planted them here (if the link works): https://youtu.be/mcG7pNMjymM and I would love it if others would subscribe to my channel and follow along with the progress of some of these unusual plants as I I have uploaded all of the planting videos to here
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtdPTc5tOVkRp-_7iTSSG6g
If others out there have grown the above, it would be good to hear how well they have done in your general location to see how they compare to the north east where I am based, thanks for reading.
Posts
Japanese Wineberries are nice and very productive. I think they'd survive just about anything. You just need to be careful to keep them in check, or they can rapidly take over.
Amelanchier (Serviceberry) tastes great, although I'm usually very lucky if I get to eat any myself, as the blackbirds love them and bring their fledglings to feed on them. They need them more than I do, so I let them carry on.
I have a blueberry growing in a pot - it's easy to look after (I just feed it with a liquid fertiliser formulated for ericaceous plants) and quite productive.
Wishing you all the best with your new venture.
pbff
Goji grows like a weed but never produces any fruit in my garden. I've hacked it right down to the ground and it's grown 5 feet in one season but only 3 tiddly berries to show for it.
I've killed a Japanese wineberry. Not sure if it was the cold or the acid soil it didn't like.
I grow blueberries in the ground - I didn't get any fruit until I netted them effectively - the birds eat them when they are pink - before they are ripe - so I didn't get a look in.
Two more for you to try - Gaultheria shallon and Gaultheria mucronata. Both can be invasive weeds so keep contained rather than let loose in the garden.
well I am planting everything in raised bed planters so keeping things in check should be relatively easy. Good to hear the serviceberry should be tasty, I'll be netting over all my planters so the birds will have to make do with the worms from the lawn instead ha..
I have 4 blueberry varieties including the pink lemonade which should be interesting, again it will all get netted over too. Goji is a gamble but figured its worth a try. I hadn't heard of the Gaultheria but looking them up they don't sound the sweetest of berries and I'm trying to grow stuff that can be plucked and eaten raw so looking for sweet berries to plant. The one I'm looking forward to the most (until I sample everything else I have) is the Tayberry, they are great, here's me planting kine for anyone interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHcO_4zGWgI
Who else is growing Tayberries, these were what inspired me to grow unusual/unheard of fruits
Not got round to tayberries - used to have a loganberry (similar type of thing - slightly different cross, I think) and will get another once I have something to grow it up. Lovely fruit
Just added a lingonberry to the garden, supposed to be a sweeter juicier version of a cranberry so we shall see
I can't remember why I was put off the funberry, I think it has too little info on the strain, I'd be interested to see strawberries on a raspberry cane though.
I tried the pineberry but I had little luck with it and it died.
Gojiberries are completely overrated for their health benefits, taste crap and don't grow in our climate.
Your best one on there is the pink blueberry although the tayberry is a firm favourite in my garden too. So much better than the loganberry and better than blackberry and raspberry combined.
Never heard of the snowcloud variety of serviceberry. Some of the serviceberry varieties can grow up to 6 meters tall apparently.
One thing you are missing on your list is gooseberries. I know there are apparently over 200 varieties of gooseberries but I have always felt it is the overlooked oddball of the fruits.
I am trying a new variety puzskinskij this year which looks ridiculously vigorous as a young plant. It should outperform my invicta and is a desert variety.
Can't find much info about it apart from it being a heavy producer from russia
Sounds like you have the same thoughts as me :-) I've put a lot of the fruit bushes/trees you mention in over the last couple of years on my allotment and in my front garden - wineberrys, tayberrys, serviceberry, honeyberry, goji, chillean guava, etc.... Off the top of my head, in addition to these you may want to consider the Arione bush, the Nanking cherry and a hardy kiwi.
I should note that we're in the SE - albeit in a bit of a frost pocket - and my guava was quite badly set back this winter.
Oh, and a good book to provide further inspriation on unusual edibles to grow is The New Kitchen Garden by Mark Diacono.
kind regards.
Just out of curiosity I looked up the variety of serviceberry you have and... guess how big yours gets? Well and I spotted you have 2 of them.
How tall do christmas trees get?
You are looking at 8-12 meters which is 36 feet tall. 2 of them would barely fit in your whole back garden. Good thing they are in pots otherwise your back garden would have been a jungle in 5 years
The best example I personally have is blue strawberries. Yep I was sold some blue strawberry seeds once. They were cheap, I thought give it a go.
But with all these cheap experiments eventually we will have wasted a fair bit of money.
I'm glad I didn't spend another £10 on a funberry.
I am still curious about the pineberry though, whats the verdict - is it another blue strawberry or is it a worthwhile addition?