I burn easily

For the last few years I have been experimenting with shade tolerant plants. One thing I have noticed is that many plants that like the shade are also acid soil loving plants. This sucks for me as my soil is neutral at the house. Here are some of the varieties that I have tried.

Chilean Guava
This is actually a berry and not a real Guava. It comes from Chile and is hardy down past 14F. The problem is that it burns once it gets over 98F. They are able to fruit in the shade so I am planting one in the front that only gets sun early in the morning. This fruit is insanely good! It is so rich that each little berry feels like it packs as much flavor as a large fruit. Queen Victoria delclared it the most delicious fruit in the world.

Evergreen Huckleberry
This guy is in the pot with the Chilean Guava. It is more heat tolerant that the Chilean Guava but it may have problems getting enough cold to fruit. Both are in a slightly acid soil mix. I should know how they are going to do by mid-summer. The fruit should be similar to a Blueberry but not quite.

Akebia
This vine loves the shade. If you plant two or more varieties, you will get large magenta pods in the spring that have a tapioca pudding like substance inside. I have three of these but they are unfortunately the same variety. I am ordering two new kinds this spring.

Ginger
I bought some Ginger at the store and planted it in deep shade last year. It shot up some very attractive young bamboo type shoots that froze back this winter. I suspect they will keep coming back each year.

Leatherleaf Mahonia
These guys are impossible to kill. They take the heat, cold, drought and keep on coming. The fruit is very tart unless dead ripe. They are related to Barberries and Oregon Grape. This plant is more on the wild foraging side of the fruit spectrum. It is actually starting to bloom now in December. I will keep this on the "i am starving" side of edible.

Serviceberry
These guys will go full sun or shade. They rock! They have incredible blooms, incredible Blueberry type fruit with an Almond aftertaste. They can take -60F cold and over 100F heat. I am trying many varieties to see which ones do the best in Texas.

Maypop
I didnt think they would do good in shade but they sure do. This Passionfruit vine will produce flowers and fruit in deep shade but yields are greatly diminished.

Mexican Plum
This wild plum will grow and fruit in the shade but sadly the fruit is very tart and not very good. I was disappointed but plan on using the tree to graft Cherries and Plums this spring. We will see.

New toy and volunteers

I have completely destroyed every gardening fork I have purchased in the last few years. Since we have clay soil, you have to pop the edges of holes after digging so it doesnt create a "clay pot" and stop all the roots from expanding further out. All the other forks have bent or snapped while planting out at the orchard. This one has been recommended to me by a "hippie" so you know it is good. We will be testing it this weekend when we dig 200 holes at the orchard.

VOLUNTEER PLANTS

I just love that description. It is almost like the seeds sat around and discussed which one would sprout and try to ink out a living in our backyard. We get lots of Loquat sprouts every year and I try to give them all away but last year we got a citrus sprout. It survived the 14F degree freeze last winter with some damage and it has started to grow again this year. I dont know if it is Lime, Orange or Lemon.

HURRY UP AND GROW FASTER!!!!!

Jujube

I love this tree. This is the tree that inspired me to start my orchard and growing my own food.

Why???

This is a lazy mans fruit tree! After you plant and take care of it for one year, you can just walk away and it will take care of itself. There are Jujube trees in our neighborhood that have been around for decades that still fruit with no one taking care of them.

The United States government developed Jujube varieties in the early 1900s and released them throughout the south. Unfortunately, they were released with little information about the different varieties and how to maintain them. Their popularity diminished with large scale shipment of fruits such as the Apple. The trees continued to fruit even when abandoned during the worst of the dust bowl days in Oklahoma. Many are still growing where they were planted nearly 100 years ago while we waste water trying to grow other fruits that are less adapted to Texas. Go figure.

Here are some of the requirements for Jujube.

LOTS OF SUN
I mean lots. They love sun and the hotter the better. You are not going to fry this tree no matter how hot it gets.

COLD
Not only can they take the heat, they are very cold tolerant. The trees cold hardiness range from -5 to -20F. They also have a very small chill requirement of 100 hours to fruit.

FERTILIZER
Not required. These trees will produce about the same amount of fruit with or without fertilization. They can grow in the middle of the yard covered in grass and be fine with the grass stealing all the nutrients. Fertilization will increase growth rate so you can add some if you would like after the second year in the ground but it will be fine without.

PESTICIDES
None needed. The fruit has few to no natural pests in the United States. I have had a few squirrels and birds nibble at them. I have found a worm in one every now and then but it is rare. Those little assassin bugs get on them by accident sometimes thinking they are Tomato. They dont harm the fruit.

SPACE
These trees grow vertical by nature so you can put one in a very tiny spot and it will grow straight up. If you prefer a wider tree, just keep cutting the top branches down and it will start to spread out. Here is a tree that is about 25 feet tall and only 5-6 feet wide. I personally trim mine to be wider.

SOIL
No special requirements here. They like sandy soils the best but they grow fine in my heavy clay even with water-logging. Mine have already experienced a flood in summer and water-logging in winter/spring. They can also take both acid and alkaline soils.

WATER
Once the Jujube tree is established, it will only need 7 inches of rain a year to survive. I suspect it will need at least 15 inches to fruit and anything over 25 will be heavy fruiting. If you have a very well drained soil that doesnt retain moisture this may be a little bit more but they do send down a deep taproot.

SUCKERING
This tree will sucker just like a Crepe Myrtle. Just mow them down or snip them. Whatever you would do to your Crepe to keep it in check, you would do with the Jujube. Dont let the suckers grow because they are from the rootstock and will not produce the same fruit. It will be tiny and sour.

FRUIT

This is some fruit from the Li Jujube. They will get bigger and red sploches will appear on them. You can start eating them at this point but they will not reach their full sweetness until they are totally red. I like them best about half red.

This one is about to start turning red. You can tell when it starts to turn from green, to green/yellow and finally red.

The taste is similar to Apples but only a little. It definitely has its own distinct flavor. There is a very nice aftertaste that lingers in your mouth. Some of the fruits are very plain and others extremely sweet. It is important to know what variety you are eating because the fruits are broken up into two categories. One is fresh eating and the other is for drying. You can also usually dry the fresh eating varieties. If you eat a variety that is bred for dehydration, you probably wont like it fresh off the tree.

Varieties like Lang, are bred just for drying. I leave mine on the window edge outside during the summer and they are usually dried within 10 days. The insects leave them alone. They have a very different flavor at this point and people almost always compare them to a rich sweet date. You can buy the dried fruit at every Asian market in town but they are shipped from China and really are inferior in taste due to perservatives or chemicals. If you can get the dried fruit grown in the U.S., it is usually much better and chemical free. This is funny because China has better tasting varieties. They just nuke them with something.Wash them really well and see how you like them.


HARVEST
Another good reason to grow Jujube is harvesting. You can pick them by hand or set down a blanket and shake the tree. The ripe ones will usually fall.

*****IMPORTANT*****
Jujube fruit will lose their moisture during the heat of the day. If you plan on picking some, water the day before your pick if it hasnt rained in a long time. Then pick the fruit in the morning. The earlier the better. Many people are put off of Jujube because they pick one in the afternoon. Some varieties can literally have the consistency of styrofoam if you pick them when it is hot. The same fruit the next morning will be juicy and sweet.

The fruit will stay good on the counter for 3-5 days. If you put them in the fridge, they will be good for weeks. If you dry them, they will be good for over a year.

VARIETIES

I am only going to go over the varieties that you might find in the spring at nurseries or online. It is rare to find them after June in a nursery as they go quick. The wholesale resource I have for them is completely sold out this year.

Li:
Fresh eating variety. Plum sized. Sweet. Most popular in U.S.

Lang:
Drying variety. Elongated pear shape. Golf ball sized or bigger.

Sugarcane:
Fresh eating variety. Ping pong ball sized. Very sweet. Good moisture content.

So or Contorted:
Fresh eating. Similar to Sugar Cane. Extremely ornamental tree.

Sherwood:
Fresh eating. Weeping attractive leaves. Medium taste. Less than average yields.

GA866:
Fresh eating. Elongated. Good taste. Higher sugar content but does not reflect that in taste.

Honey Jar:
Fresh eating. Ping Pong ball sized. Extremely sweet and rich. Always very juicy regardless of pick time.
Hard to find.

Eating new stuff all the time

I recently found out that Hackberry berries are edible. Hackberry trees are generally considered trash trees here in Texas since they are EVERYWHERE. In fact, we have to kill hundreds of seedlings all over the yard every year. After I found out that the tiny berries were edible, I tried one. Well, it is all seed. There is a thin coat around the seed that tastes like a tame cinnamon red hot but not much to eat. The seed is too hard to bite through but if you smash them up into little bits, they have a cookie dough consistency that is okay.

Well, one site said to look for a tree that has thin seed shells. I found one at the land today and it was like eating M&Ms. I am now a big fan of this tree I have cursed for years. Too bad the two 40 foot trees at my house have hard seeds.

I suspect the best way to harvest these will be by putting a blanket down and lightly tapping the branches with a pole.

Here are some of the berries that I am shipping to a guy from the Texas Rare Fruit Growers. He lives in Mississippi. Go figure.

Late night greenhouse setup

XMAS came early at my house as I now am the proud owner of a mini-greenhouse. It came in a box about 3'x3'x5" and when I opened it, the greenhouse just expanded to full size. It was pretty cool. You then install some tent poles but it only takes a second. I stuck it over some Lychee that I have growing in the yard that would freeze around 25F. The 100W lightbulb should raise the temp in there enough to keep it warm on the coldest nights here in Central Texas. I might upgrade to a 150W just in case. I will stick all my other sub-tropicals that are in pots in there this week.

This came from Lowes and is 6.5 feet tall and 5 feet wide. The cost was 84.00 bucks. That sir, is a bargain. The plastic material looks woven and appears to be very strong. It has a front and rear door, screen doors inside the main doors, a green floor if you want to use a floor, tent stakes for high winds and reinforcing tie downs for extreme winds. Remind you, this all came in a 3 foot box only 5 inches thick.

Dreaming of Serviceberries

If you live in an extremely cold environment, this plant is for you. The Serviceberry is cold hardy from -10F to -40F degrees depending on what variety you are growing. I purchased multiple varieties a few years ago on a lark since they are so cheap. Check out EBAY and you should get multiple hits.

I was totally shocked. They took 69 days over 100F in 2009 and didnt even blink. I had many northern plants completely melt but the Serviceberry took it better than some of the natives. I was deeply sceptical that it would produce any fruit. Usually cold tolerance is an indicator of a very high chill requirement. Chill requirement is the number of hours between 45F and 32F each winter. Some plants require over 1000 hours to fruit and San Marcos, TX usually gets 300-500 hours. Well, multiple plants flowered and fruited the first year. They look just like Blueberries but the taste is very different. It is smoother, less tart with a strong Almond after taste as your break apart the tiny soft seeds in the middle. It was wonderful!

The Serviceberry can be grown in shrub form to 30 foot trees. Imagine a 30 foot tall tree covered in Blueberry-ish fruit. The flowers are insane as well. They will go toe-to-toe with Crabapples in the Spring for blossoms.

They can grow in full sun or partial shade. Unlike most fruit, they will still produce fruit in the shade.

What is flowering this time of the year?

We have already had three or four nights in the 20's so most of the regular stuff has shut down. There are Pecans all over the yard but only the small native trees produced this year. The large paper shells only gave us a few since the horrible drought last year. Here are some of the plants that are still chuggin along despite the weather. Sorry for all the night time pics. I had cabin fever.

Ground Cherry:
I brought it inside and it will continue to produce heavily all winter as long as it doesnt get exposed to weather below 30F. There is a berry inside all of those lanterns.

I just started seeds from the Cape Gooseberry variety of Ground Cherry. Here are the fruit I got from the store.

The Jamaican Cherry is still producing berries everyday but it is about to poop out and the fruit is lacking in flavor since it is getting less sun. It tastes like rum and watermelon.

The Kumquats have still not finished ripening some of their fruit. They have been producing all Autumn. Different varieties yield at slightly different times. I believe this is a Chang Shou.

Here are the flowers of a Silverberry. It is one of the few non-invasive plants of the Elaeagnus family. The flowers smell kinda like an obnoxious vanilla. It can carry quite a bit when the wind blows. The fruits will come around Feb to March.

Here is the bush. It is an evergreen shrub.

Here are some of the fruit from last year. They taste melon-ish but can be horribly astringent if eaten too early.

The Wilma (Brazos Belle) Avocado is getting ready to flower to my horror. I hoped it would put off until spring. This variety of Avocado should be able to take 14-16F. I am not sure about the flowers and fruit. There will even hardier varieties coming out of south Texas next year. Oh joy!!!

If you are not sure if the Avocado you are buying is cold tolerant, pick off one of the leaves and crunch it up. If it smells like licorice, it should be hardy down to 22F or lower.

This is one plant that I baby because it is soooooo delicious. It is a White Sapote. They are basically vanilla ice cream in a fruit. They can produce incredible yields and are very adaptable. However, they will freeze around 23F so you have to protect them. It just started to make baby fruit and I am desperate to get them through the winter.



Finally, the Loquats are in bloom. These are reliable producers every year. They are hardy to below 10F but they flowers can freeze around 23F. Once the fruit set, they can take temps down into the teens. We easily get 30-70 pounds a year from the big tree. The taste is like an Apricot and citrus.

Here is the tree last spring. We are getting early blooms this year so we hope to have fruit in late February to early March.



Going old school

I was at an antique store with my wife in Blanco, TX about a year ago and saw this bad boy outside. I didnt think it would plow up the soil as good as my small gas tiller but I bought it for around 40 bucks. I tried it out when I got home and it really worked well. It cut through the clay "like butter". I ended up plowing the whole yard and doing clover and some grasses. I am really fond of it and keep trying to get my wife to take a picture dressed up in 1920's clothes but she isnt going for it yet.

We also have an old stove that runs on gas or wood. The only problem is there is no vent for the wood portion. We hope to have the kitchen restored next year and maybe a vent will be added to the mix.

Tired. So Tired.

I purchased everything to start a garden in my Mother-in-Laws backyard. She purchased the house next door to us a few weeks ago. We were very happy because we bought the house a long time ago, restored it and sold it to a nice family. They moved back to Austin and my MIL decided to buy it.

Nice looking house. Here is another picture of what it looked like when we first bought it.

YIKES!!!!!
It was worse than it looks. HA!

So back to the story. I was going to start a garden but I had to go out to the land instead to dig 900 feet of trench for irrigation. It took forever with the Ditch Witch. While I was out there, I found a dead snake that had impaled itself on one of the spikes in the tree.

I filled the raised garden beds with leaves this Fall. I have mixed in some compost and soil and will be doing lasagna gardening this spring. Basically, I will mixe the leave in a little further, cover it all with newspaper, cover the newspaper with a compost/mulch mix and just cut holes where I want to plant veggies. We had a bad Bermuda infestation a few years ago and I think this is the best way to kill it all in the garden.

Chickens!!!!!!

Where would we be without the little cuties?

We have had chickens in the city for about 9 years. We moved them from Austin, TX to Savannah, GA and then back to San Marcos, TX. We have never had a complaint from the city or a neighbor about our feathered friends. We used to let them have the run of the yard but once we started growing lots of veggies and edibles, we had to build a run. Chickens are very destructive. They will dig up your entire yard and eat your veggies and plants down to a stump. We built an 8x10 coop with a 18 foot run in the front. I still feed bad for them even though it is lots of room.

This picture is before the run was built in front.

They start laying in the spring and will continue through the year off and on. They even hit winter spurts now and then. I found this happens more often when you have a rooster. We have had roosters for years and they are more trouble than good for the urban farm.

Roosters are loud. They start at 5am and will go until 9am. Even if you get the little tiny ones, you can still hear it. You wouldnt believe how loud this little guy used to get.

Roosters + Hens = lots of babies. If they are running around the yard, you will never find all the nests until they go broody. It can get way out of control if you are not careful.

Roosters are mean. I have had quite a few and the majority are mean and will attack your legs.

Roosters will beat up the hens. They have a tendency to rough them up quite a bit and will sometimes fixate on one hen.

EGGS!

Alright, on to the eggs. I figure that 8 chickens can make more eggs than a family of 4 can eat. If you eat them everyday, you can keep up. However, if 8 birds are making 5 eggs a day and you miss 2-3 days a week, it adds up fast. You can trade with neighbors and it is a good plan to find someone with a garden and no chickens to start a swap program. You can expand this further for farmers markets but once you exceed 8 chickens, it is more likely that the city will start to take notice. I am personally burnt out on eggs but will gladly start to ramp up my egg eating if things ever get rough.

Another thing to look at is if the chickens are paying for themselves. If you are buying more in feed for the chickens than they are producing, it may not be cost effective. That is why it is important to find other items to feed them other than store bought chicken food. If your chickens have free run of the yard, this isnt as hard. They will eat every weed in the yard and most the bugs too. Your extra waste will go to them instead of the compost bin. I pull weeds in the alley and throw them into their run. Almost anything will work as long as it is healthy for them. Also buy a bag of oyster shells for better egg production.

All in all, chickens are worth it in my mind. Some of them become real friendly too.

Are you going to eat that?

When I drive around town, I am always on the lookout for fruit trees. San Marcos has tons of Loquats, Pecans, Pomegranates, Pears, Asian Persimmons, Jujube and Mulberry trees growing downtown. If you approach the owner, I have found that they almost never eat the fruit, know of the name of the tree or that it is edible. These same people that go to the store to buy fruit twice a week, let it rot on the ground outside their house. Do not rule this out as being a legit urban farming technique!! Once you establish a relationship with these home owners, they will even pick the fruit for you. They get excited about contributing. If you play your cards right, you could literally not grow anything yourself. You arent a bum. You are eco-friendly.

MULBERRY:
Here we are shaking down a Mulberry tree in a field near our house. The owners didnt even know it was there. We had full permission to take what we wanted.

It literally fell down in gallons. We wait every spring to get as much as we can eat. They taste very similar to Blackberries.

LOQUATS:
Our Loquat trees came with the house and we have seedlings coming up every Fall. If you have a Loquat near your house, you will have seedlings coming up soon. They are evergreen well below 10F but the flowers can freeze around 23F. They taste like a cross of an Apricot and Citrus. One tree gives us about 70 pounds of fruit. I would say that about 70 percent of all the fruit goes to waste around town. People dont even know they can eat it.



POMEGRANATES:

If I go to the local grocery store, the Pomegranates cost 2.99 each. However, they just rot on the side of the road about 2 blocks away. I think local kids use them for fights. When will the madness end??

FIGS:

Everyone has a Fig tree here in town. It is almost a requirement. I think people hoard these a bit more than the other fruits.

PEARS:
Two houses down we have an older lady that has a 70+ year old Pear tree. They are hard as a rock but could be used for cooking. She doesnt want anything to do with them.
The local coffee shop has a Bartlett Pear tree that probably had 150 pounds of fruit on it this year. I think that the majority of it fell and rotted. I couldnt understand that one. I guess that if it fruits again next year, I am going to show up with a ladder and a bucket.

Persimmons:
This is a interesting fruit. Many people arent familiar with the Asian Persimmon. You have two kinds of fruit. Some are astringent and some are non-astringent. The astringent fruits can only be eaten when soft. If you eat them early, it tastes like someone sprayed cotton in your mouth and teeth. It is not good. If you wait until they are soft and ripe, they taste so rich and wonderful that you are caught in a moment of bliss.
The non-astringent fruits allow you to eat them when they are still hard. They have a crunch to them still but that superior rich aftertaste is incredible. They are truly one of the best tasting fruits in the world. The American Persimmon is smaller and not as good in taste. The Texas Persimmon even more so.

We have multiple Tamopan Persimmons at the Catholic church and in other varieties in area yards. I talked to one of the owners and he never eats any of it. In addition, they want you to take it so they dont have to clean up afterwards. What a deal!!!!

PECANS:
San Marcos has a lot of pecans. I mean ALOT. They are everywhere. Once they start to fall, you will see people walking the streets with bags. Strangers are lurking in your driveway grabbing fast. If so inclined, you could easily gather a few hundred pounds over the course of a month or two. That goes a long way in the winter.

JUJUBE:
I had never heard of this fruit a few years ago and now I have over 200 trees at my land. It is incredible. It is tolerant of cold, heat, drought, neglect, bad soil and whatever you throw at it. It wasnt until later that I found that they were growing nearby. The first one I found was at a house for sale about 6 blocks away. They had about 5 large trees. I dug up some of the smaller trees before the house sold and they cut them all down and poisoned the stump. Here is a picture of the long gone tree. It was producing fruit in the second worst drought in history in Central Texas even though no one had lived at the house in a long time.

My friend Karen said she had a fruit tree in her yard she couldnt identify. It turned out to be another Jujube. It turns out that the U.S. government released these fruit trees all over the South during the 1930's so people would start producing the fruit. Well, large scale delivery of the Apple squashed that but the trees are still around. In fact, they were completely sold out of them at the wholesale distributors this year.

The fruit is different from variety to variety. Some are dry, sweet, good for drying, fresh eating and so on. New varieties started hitting the market last year. You will probably see them popping up in stores in the next few years. The newer varieties are juicy and sweet as candy.

Sticking it to the man again!!!!

There is nothing I love more than breaking free from the stranglehold of modern dependency. Two of those the things that I invested in right away were a rain water collection system and solar panels. The rainwater allows me to take care of all my plants and trees without paying a cent to the city. The plants prefer rainwater instead of the treated junk we drink everyday. If you water two plants with rainwater and treated city water, you will see the difference in just a few months. We plan on buying a small 250 gallon tank just for drinking water so we can stop poisoning ourselves. Did you know that treated drinking water is one of the major causes of cancer? That isnt even controversial. The water companies and government know it and dont hide the fact either.

The rainwater system is a 2000 gallon metal cistern. I purchased it from Texas Metal Cisterns for about 1000.00 delivered. I built a stand out of old 6x6 wood that I had left over from another project to give it greater elevation and water pressure. I ran the pvc from the gutters to under the house. It was much more expensive than I thought it would be simply because of the length I had to run from 4 different sections of the house. It is a good idea to have the gutters drain as close to the cistern as possible. The pipe runs under our house since it is a pier and beam foundation. I will get about 700 gallons of rainwater for every inch it rains. I use this to irrigate the yard.

At one point, I wanted to hook the toilets up to the rainwater but the city shut that down. They did not want untreated rainwater contaminating the sewage water. SERIOUSLY!!!

Anyway, I use it to water my trees and plants and there is a huge difference. Plants really dont like treated water.

The solar panels were purchased about six years ago. The city blocked me from doing a grid-tie system so I could feed my extra solar back to the city. We installed a smaller system instead that runs my office and is independent from the grid. It is less effective than a grid-tie because you have to use batteries and once your batteries are full, you waste whatever energy you are not using.

The panels were the cheapest on the market at the time which was about 4.5 dollars per watt. Now, you can buy for 1.25 a watt. Since the city is no longer being jerks about it, I plan on buying a large system to power the entire house in the next few years. The price is so low now that solar is extremely cost effective. There are three large solar power plants opening up within 50 miles of my house. I believe all of them are foreign companies. HA! So much for American innovation.

Check out this site for cheap solar prices. They log all the prices of different companies on the web and update it on a regular basis.

http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm

They are on top of my sunroom.

Are tropicals really worth it?

I am zone 8b so I cant grow tropicals in the yard unless I protect them. That is a big hassle and do you really get enough "bang for your buck" when doing it. The answer depends on what type of plant you are growing. Lemon trees do great in pots and always produce lots of fruit. You will have to bring them inside if you are zone 8a or less. Certain trees will never produce heavily in a pot so it will be unlikely that you will ever recoop your money or efforts in fruit production.

Here is a list of tropical/sub-tropical plants you can grow that you might be able to make your money back.

Most citrus
Jamaican Cherry "two crops a day in summer"
Guava "two or three crops a year"
Fig
Kei Apple "thorny"
Chilean Guava "berry, not a real guava, heat sensitive"
Passion fruit Edulis
Lychee

If you just dont care about the price and you want to grow a tropical in the ground, plant it on the south facing portion of your house. Plant it as close as possible without effecting your foundation if the tree has large roots. You can put up a plastic tent or small greenhouse that they sell at Lowes or Home Depot for around 70 bucks. If you place a 100-150 watt bulb inside the plastic, you can usually keep a 15 degree differential from the temperature outside if not greater. It really depends on how large and air tight the enclosure is going to be. Be reminded that leaves that touch the plastic can still get cold burned.

It is important to remember that this enclosure can get very warm during the day so you should add ventilation when the temps get back in the upper 30's. During the day, the temps could get over 80 even though it is still only 40 outside. This would be if the bulb was still running and it was being hit by direct sunlight. This dramatic shift up and down can really effect the plant negatively. I just have a flap on mine that I open up during the day.

I personally dont think that tropicals are worth the work and money but I still have quite a few. They allow you to get fruit in odd times of the year if you have a greenhouse or sunroom. They fill the gap and are really fun to experiment with when you get bored with the the regular fruits and veggies. If I were just living off the food I grew, I would stop buying them altogether.

Here is a sunroom that we build out of old windows that a church took to the dump.

This is an old picture and the Candlestick trees were removed and replaced with Goji Berries and Maypop Passion Fruit vines.

Maypop Passiflora: It will freeze to the ground and come back even in zone 7a.

Here is the inside. I have Lilly Pilly, Guava, Starfruit, Tropical Passion Fruit, Pummelo, White Sapote, Jamaican Cherry, Cape Gooseberry and Tomato all squished in there.

What are you growing?

I prefer tree and bushes but I am experimenting with ground covers as well. These are just the plants that are permanently planted in the yard. I also have annuals and container plants. I included the cold tolerance of may of the plants to show we are not a tropical zone here. It will get down to the teens every year and these plants can survive in zone 8a-8b. If I didnt include the cold tolerance, it is usually going to be below zero. I will detail many of these fruits later on.

Jujubes: (cold hardy to -10F)

Pineapple Guava: (cold hardy to 10F)

Loquats: (cold hardy to 5F)

Oranges, Satsumas, Kumquats, Lemons (cold hardy from 14F - 20F)
Avocado (cold hardy to 14F Wilma and Opal)
Pineapple Quince
Peach
Capulin Cherry
Che
Asian Persimmon
Passion Fruit Maypop (hardy below zero degrees)
Serviceberry
Figs (Hardy below 10F)
Blueberries
Pomegranates (hardy to 10F)
Blackberries
Pecans