January 2012. It doesn’t exist, but here are some pretty good ones.

January is here, which will be followed by February and very cold weather. But spring will be coming soon and you will begin wandering through the garden centers, wondering what kinds of plants you might want to grow. Far be it from us to tell you what you should be growing, but we can share some thoughts and experiences. This month we want to offer some ideas about growing fruit trees. Over the past ten years, we Lawn Chair Gardeners have discussed backyard fruit trees several times and we also have a pretty good chapter on the subject in our book, Gardening in the Humid South. It is now available in paperback and not very expensive. Copies of it are also in the libraries, so you might want to look at it for more detail. Today we are offering a few ideas that might be useful as observations, encouragement and occasional warnings.

Most gardeners who contemplate planting fruit of some kind in their home gardens would like to be able to pick fruit at the peak of ripeness rather than at a nearly-ripe stage that can stand being shipped long distances and going through the distribution ordeals needed to get it to the local market. There will always be newer varieties that we don’t know about, but remember that there will always be hazards from the various critters that compete with you for the fruit. But you are probably willing to accept a few blemishes in order to get really ripe fruit.

One reason that our home-grown fruit may not be as pretty as what you see in the produce section of the supermarket is that almost all of the fruit in commerce requires treatment for disease and insect control that we are not prepared to provide. Few home gardeners have sprayers or dusters to apply control materials on plants larger than bushes. In addition, our rainfall patterns (which we have been used to over the years, but which could be changing) make it difficult to maintain what are called “cover sprays,” which aim to cover developing leaves and fruits with protective materials. As the young leaves and fruits grow, they require more cover for the new areas, and rain will remove much of what is already there—so, if it rains, even off and on, for about ten hours, more cover material will be needed, since the rain also can spread the infectious spores and bacteria.

You are not going to go out in the rain to spray, but commercial growers have to. Commercial crops of peaches and plums get at least eleven sprays during development; apples get cover sprays every ten to fourteen days from bloom to harvest; blueberries get nine sprays, pecans eight, and citrus five. Fortunately there are some low-maintenance fruits that usually produce good crops without all of these sprays—including figs, persimmons, loquats, pears, mayhaws and citrus.

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