Growing Fruit can be a Heartbreaker

When I began to garden with the thought of using what I grew in the kitchen, I read many things. Two in particular made so much sense to me…. Don’t grow what you don’t like to eat and focus on the items that are expensive at the store.

So, with limited space and time, why put a lot of labor into onions which I can buy for $.99 a pound? Instead, I’ll invest in raspberries which are often $4.99 a half-pint.

When I look around the market, some of the most expensive items are fruit. Which are also one of the things I LOVE to eat! My logic led me to plant a dwarf sour cherry tree, a dwarf peach tree and a plum tree. I also planted strawberries under my trees and strung trellis wires in between the cherry and peach trees for multiple types of blackberries and raspberries.

The first year they were planted we didn’t get any fruit. But I didn’t expect any. The second year the peach tree produced one giant, perfect fruit that was mouthwateringly, amazingly wonderful. The cherry tree also produced a few fruit which the birds promptly ate. The berries also began producing.

Sadly, the deer ate the plum tree until I feared it would not recover. I still have hope but….

I got a few strawberries but the birds and the slugs had far more. Then two years ago, the strawberries were still there but the plants were disappearing?? Rabbits!!! They ate all my plants and left the fruit! Strawberries under the trees….done.

The raspberries and blackberries have gained hold and multiplied. I planted about seven varieties and three are still with me. They fruit two or three times a year and picking them makes me see why they are so expensive in the store. But are they good! And I can grow varieties that are too fragile to be picked and packaged.

The fruit tree saga is more difficult. The third year, the cherry and the peach were covered with flowers, buzzing with bees and brought delicious smells to my garden. The essence of spring. As early summer began, the cherry was covered with fruit. Each evening I would look and see a few more red, round balls that I was determined to pluck the next morning. Each morning I would go out, bowl in hand, only to find all my red cherries gone!

I thought the birds were getting them all, but the squirrels were having a feast too. The next year we netted the tree and had so many that I had trouble using them all. This year I put up a deer fence in May (more about that later) which limited the squirrel raids. I had all the cherries I could use and the birds had their fill as well.

Three years after planting the peach tree, like the cherry, it was also loaded with fruit. But wait! I noticed a clear gel oozing out of my fruit. Back to the books and articles on orchards and I learned I had peach tree coddling moth which is very common. It’s less common not to struggle with it.

I have tried hard to keep my garden organic and finally found something called Captain Jack’s Dead Bug Spray that is made from a naturally occurring bacteria called Spinosad. Even though it’s classed as organic, I never spray it when pollinators are around just in case! I read some more and timed my sprayings, but for two years in a row, I couldn’t get it right.

This year my timing was spot on and just three applications of Captain Jack’s did the trick. One application just before the tree leafed out, one after the flowers dropped and one when the peaches were the size of walnuts.

My joy was short lived, however, squirrels ate every single peach off the tree, except three I picked small, young and only light yellow in color.

At first, I said I was going to take out the peach tree. Although it was supposed to be a dwarf, it is not. It is a standard fruit tree and it is beginning to put too much shade into the garden but it is a pretty tree and it is fun watching the squirrels run across the yard, their jaws looking unhinged as they carry away their precious fruit.

The compromise is that I will trim back the tree so it does not throw ever larger portions of the garden into shade. I will quit spraying because the squirrels don’t mind the peach tree coddling moth worms. They probably just consider it a little extra protein. And I will enjoy the beautiful tree that provides for other animals, even if it doesn’t provide food for me — just happiness in the garden.