Hedge farming: Growing perennial food plants

Fig babies on three-year-old Chicago Hardy fig in pot

For many years now, I’ve been convinced of the benefits of forest farming or permaculture (notice: no capital P–I am not caving to any of that proprietary bullshit about this practice, sorry). One problem with it, though, is that a number of fruit plants are pretty high maintenance. Most of the very domesticated critters require a lot of work, such as regular sprays, lots of which are poisonous even if they are organic. Knowledgeable and regular pruning is usually involved. The idea that you could put these plants in the ground, wait a few years, and harvest buckets is false. And if you had to rely on these plants in a dire situation where there might be various shortages or where the last thing on your mind might be getting out there to thin those apples to two to a spur, how likely would they produce something you could actually eat? Being a bit clumsy, I tend to avoid poisonous sprays and ladders.  So I started out with relatively low-maintenance traditional fruiting plants: raspberries and strawberries.

Black cap raspberries

I put in the raspberries the first year I lived in this house. Johnny’s was having a clearance on them, and I like raspberries, and they are hellishly expensive, esp. when organic, so what the heck. They also don’t require much in terms of maintenance–no spraying or ladders, anyhow. They did nothing the first year. Second year, mostly nothing. Third year, a few berries that were harvested at the peak of ripeness by the squirrels. Or perhaps by the neighbor’s spawn (who has now moved to another state, thank the gods). This year those raspberries are actually producing some berries, which is nice, but I think it will take another few years before they produce enough to do anything with besides eat a couple right off the bush. I admit that I put them in a marginal place for raspberries, on a fence in an opening between some trees. They get early morning and late afternoon sunlight. Not the best location, but in my yard, you can’t be too picky.

Not to be daunted, a year or so later I ordered a bunch of strawberry crowns from a couple of places. Strawberries are supposed to like growing in shade. They’re originally a woodland plant, after all. I planted them around part of the silver maple, an area only good for allowing squash to run over in their relentless quest for sun. Well, this year the strawberries are actually making strawberries, and their leaves are massive, but the majority of the plants appear to have some kind of virus, because their berries are small and very misshapen. About 1/3 of them, which I got from Johnny’s, are healthy and are making berries that are not only good, reminding me of the wild woodland strawberries I picked in my youth, but beautiful to look at–almost perfectly conical fruit, not the swollen, tumorous things you see in the store. Thing is I only got a few of those plants, and I am finding I am not much for weeding.:) So this looks like for me it is strictly a snack-in-the-garden type thing, just like the raspberries.

I thought about more berry bushes, but I reminded myself of the meager raspberry harvests, using that word loosely. I got the idea of experimenting with annuals (or really, tender perennials) that would produce fruit–ground cherries and fruity tomatoes.  I tried growing the fruity type of tomatoes last year, but late blight made that a bust (thank you, Wal-Mart, for trashing thousands of gardens last year with your cheap, crap plants). I also grew some named varieties of ground cherries, and they were delicious, tasting like pina colada. Forgot to grow those this year, and as for the fruity tomatoes, I didn’t even bother to start any, since I knew, I just knew, that late blight would return. And what do you know, it’s already in PA.

Since I don’t own this property, anything perennial that I can’t dig up and take with me when I eventually move is a kind of foolish and wasteful. I have had the experience of planting nice roses at a rental, for instance, having to leave them behind, and seeing them subsequently hacked down to nothing because it was too much trouble to mow around them. Ditto the drifts of foxgloves, etc. Lesson learned.  But in the optimism that is winter, I ordered some wildish berry plants from Raintree Nursery. One thing that attracted me to these particular plants is that since they are not that far from being wild, they are a little less persnickety than your traditional fruiting plant. And their nature is to allow vegetative propagation fairly easily, so if I have to leave them in the ground when/if I move, I can take cuttings. Lots and lots of cuttings. The plants arrived this spring, and I have to say they are mostly doing pretty well.

In the ground near the fence, where I hope they will form a loose, diverse hedge, are:

Gooseberry and American highbush cranberry with waterers

Sambucus caerulea – blue elderberry. I was gratified to read in Nature’s Garden last night that the author considers these blue elderberries, which are from a native of western North America, to be much tastier than the black elderberry, which is a European native. I love the bloom on the berries (that I have seen only in pictures–this variety doesn’t grow around here, only the red ones grow wild here, and they are edible but not desirable, having no taste and requiring a lot of processing just to get to the no-taste point). Although I simply “heeled in” the plant when I got it, it has proceeded to make leaves, and today I gave it its own spot. A handy doohicky I read about in Gardening When It Counts is a waterer made from a plastic jug with a hole poked in the bottom. I have these in spades from buying cat litter and use them for this purpose as well as for making plant labels. They work great, putting the water slowly just where you want it and keeping it from running all over the top of the soil.

Black Velvet Gooseberry – I have only tasted green gooseberries, and that only a few times. But these black gooseberries looked very delicious. They’re a gooseberry x Worcesterberry hybrid. “Sort of blueberry flavor,” according to one seller, which I think means they don’t taste exactly like gooseberries. You can see from the pic that this plant is very vigorous.

American Highbush Cranberry – supposedly a variety developed for good taste. This plant is pretty variable. If it doesn’t have good taste, I am sure the birds will find a use for them. And the squirrels.

In pots until they can fend for themselves a little better:

Serviceberry and Black Currant

Titania Black Currant – A fairly recent variety that gets 3-4ft high and is resistant to mildew and disease. Seems like I remember this variety was developed in Scotland.

Smokey Serviceberry – usually a tree, but this one is a 6-10ft tall shrub and will go in the front yard. It is supposed to have especially sweet and large fruit for a serviceberry. I have to retill the sections I haven’t planted yet out there, and then I can pop it in the end closer to the house so it won’t block anyone’s view from their driveway. It will get plenty of water and sun out there.

I do have two trees, both of them in pots. One is an English plum tree that I bought this spring. It’s the variety Victoria and is on a dwarf stock. I bought it after reading that you could indeed get fruit trees to fruit in pots. I thought this was only for little coddled citrus trees you grow in your conservatory. I had been considering getting a Stanley plum, but there was nowhere to put it. This I can put in a great spot because it has its own dirt. It seems pretty happy so far, despite getting a bit noshed on by Japanes beetles.

The other tree I have is my Chicago Hardy fig, which I got from Logee’s and which I also grow in a pot.  It’s doing pretty darn well this year, as you can see from the first photo in this post. Last year I had three figs from it, lol! This year, its third, looks like there will be many more. I keep it in the basement during the winter, where I let it go dormant. There is just something so satisfying about picking a fig off your own little tree. Yeah, I know you folks who live where figs just grow by the side of the road will laugh. Is there such a place? I need to move there, because I love fresh figs. Must be those Mediterranean genes.

I can’t really say I’m forest farming with these guys. But I’m definitely hedge farming.:)