Why don't more people plant fruit and nut trees in their yards?

Just saw an ad in the local paper asking for someone to return the 40 lbs of pears an old man grew in his yard. It bordered on the town recreation field and someone just helped themselves. One or two might be ok, but 40lbs?

Then there are the farmers who had hundreds of pumpkins and apples stolen overnight. That may be a reason. If you grow food, you have to protect it until it ripens and then harvest it before the thieves, two and four legged.

Laziness

I just don't want to attract people, birds, and small animals to my backyard.

Lots of neighborhoods are identical in a Stepford-y way, so there’s either no real lawn to plant them in or Rebecca from the Homeowner’s Association is going to do everything in her frauy power to keep you from planting those trees.

My neighbor complains about the squirrels, but he has planted plenty of them all over his property.

I don't know what the old guy in r1 was doing, but 40 lbs is a lot of fruit from more than one tree. But, there is a huge difference between a couple of fruit trees and a farm.

My parents had a lemon tree in their backyard although it looked more like a big shrub than an actual tree. It actually looked nice and the bright yellow lemons not only looked nice, but were rather tasty compared to the store bought ones.

I'm with OP. More people ought to plant a few fruit trees in their backyards for both decoration and random consumption.

Funny, r1, I was just about to post the opposite issue: no one actually wants to harvest all the fruit from those trees, or pick it up from the ground when it falls and starts rotting. You can't just now over the fruit on your lawn either.

My in-laws have this problem, as do some friends with the remnants of orchards on their land.

What ate you -- or anyone other than a farmer -- going to do with 80 lbs of apples?.

I live in a small apartment in a city and I do sometimes fantasize about having a little yard with flowers and fruit trees and berry bushes. BUT I don’t ever want to have to deal with a stupid lawn that is grown just to be mown down in an endless routine.

I’ve asked people why they don’t have fruit trees and their answers are always the same: too much work. Because a person or a family can eat only so much—but a tree will not limit its production. So fruit ends up falling to the yard and has to be picked up constantly or else it rots and attracts not only squirrels but raccoons, rats, mice, ants, etc. The lawn can’t be mown before the fruit is picked up. And so on and so on. If I had a yard it would be a little more woodland like without a lawn.

Apple sauce.

Apples store well.

Apples all winter long!

More than one apple a day usually upsets my stomach and so I wouldn’t consider an apple tree. I’d love lemons, limes, oranges.

I planted several apple trees in my little garden in London. In fact this was an orchard until 1885, when these houses were built, so they took very well and easily. I got some really good crops pretty quickly. But two of the apple trees died. The one that survived my next door neighbour has planted some sort of vine and it strangles the tree. Last year she cut it back when I asked her to, this year she didn't bother (I thought about spraying/poisoning her vine, then decided not to) - plus the squirrels discovered it. I got about 12 apples off that tree this year. They're great apples. Quite sharp.

My pear tree now produces hard pears that you can't eat (see the thread of a few years ago) - and this year it produced just one. Apparently they like to take a year off.

My cherry tree produced quite a crop this year - it's now as tall as my house (I never knew they grew so tall) the birds went crazy!! I managed to get quite a few, but they don't taste especially good.

I believe I already answered the question.

I think part of it is the time required for the trees to grow and fruit. It can easily take 10 years to get a decent crop off a citrus tree....that's a long time to wait.

Patience is a virtue, R13.

You know you can give surplus food to the homeless, right? Food for your soul.

No idea OP. The majority of people are dumbasses whose entire food consumption is from Aldi’s and Olive Garden.

I have 6 raised beds in my yard for planting vegetables. Also, I have a persimmon tree, two fig trees, a quince tree. Kiwi berry vines. Raspberry canes. Four blueberry bushes. Four rhubarb plants. And three currant bushes.

No idea OP. The majority of people are dumbasses whose entire food consumption is from Aldi’s and Olive Garden.

I have 6 raised beds in my yard for planting vegetables. Also, I have a persimmon tree, two fig trees, a quince tree. Kiwi berry vines. Raspberry canes. Four blueberry bushes. Four rhubarb plants. And three currant bushes.

R17 Are you in Europe? Many of those fruits are rather exotic in the US. You can’t find currants here except as dried fruits like raisins, and permissions and quince are rarely seen. And where can kiwi be grown?

Black currants were banned in the USA because of a fungus. They're legal again.

In a word OP: deer.

R18 I live in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Apple and pears trees are very common here, and I’ve chose fruit trees that are harder to find than at the farmers market. And I fucking love fresh figs. I could eat a pound of them every day.

Kiwi berries are not the same as the the fuzzy fruit that we are all familiar with. A kiwi berry is about the size of a grape, and their flavor is a combination of grape + kiwi + lychee.

What do you do with the quince your tree produces, R16? My mom loves quince and eats it raw. They’re pretty good.

I also make a quince dessert that’s to die for. Get raves every time people taste it. It’s a Martha recipe.

I once bought a Meyer Lemon tree that was in the container and got lots of lemons the first year. My mom insisted that it be planted on the ground and it died within a year. Still pissed about it.

My folks have orange, lemon, and grapefruit trees in their backyard in Palm Springs. Great for making fresh margaritas also, great for attracting rats!

Bears love to eat fruit in people's yards here, OP. So, no thanks.

Wasps, OP. I had a nice crabapple tree but the problem with it was the apples that grew near the top were too high to pick and they would rot before they fell to the ground even though I had it pruned regularly. When the apples fell, the rotten ones would splatter all over the lawn and attract waps. It was a beautiful tree with a gorgeous canopy and when it was in flower, it was stunning. I miss it, but not the mess it made or the wasps its fruit attracted.

my HOA forbids them, in part for the mess, in part for the wasps. i’d still plant pecan trees (nature’s litterbugs, but worth it) in a noo-yawk minute.

My neighbors bought their house at least partially because of the big spreading apple tree in the back yard. Unfortunately, they had no idea about how much time and care it takes to properly manage a fruit tree. Over a thousand small, bitter, wormy apples on their lawn later, they had a change of heart and chopped down the tree.

I had a few blueberry bushes in my back yard and found them to be much more practical and useful. I also planted a couple of slow-growing, columnar apple trees in big pots in the back yard. With careful spraying and fertilizing, as well as thinning out the herd so that the remaining fruit would grow larger and sweeter, I usually ended up with 3 to 4 dozen apples a year, which is much more manageable.

Southwest Florida. We got fruit trees. The association is happy

We feed birds, squirrels and rabbits eat the dropped fruit. Plus a few mammals

Where I live (L.A.) the birds (mainly crows and blue jays) and animals (primariiy squirrels) cause more problems with fruit trees than what it's worth. They don't just pick one piece of fruit and leave. They test things out and ruin a lot of what's on the tree by biting into one and moving on to another and another and another. What they leave on the tree is then inedible and draws flies, and what drops on the ground is messy and attracts ants. Also, the possums that come at night make the dogs bark, plus they shit in the yard. No thanks. I used to have several, but as they aged and died, I didn't replace them. It's easier to just buy what I want and I can still feed the birds and squirrels peanuts.

We have a huge property - it was once an old farm - and most of the fruit trees we have are leftovers from those days. There's an enormous old apple tree, a cherry orchard, a chestnut tree, and we've planted raspberries, blueberries and grapes. Some of the older cherry trees have blown over in storms, so we've planted replacement trees.

All of these things require time and upkeep, as well as harvesting before the birds get at them, and it's not for the faint of heart. But I'll tell you, in the spring when the cherry trees and apple tree are in bloom, the place looks like a wonderland - amazingly beautiful.

I planted a tanenashi Japanese persimmon in my backyard two years ago. Hasn't started to bear yet.

And an elderly cousin told me that when she was growing up in the '30s, her family still had farm acreage with several sharecropper families living on the place. She said her father always gave his tenants fruit or nut trees for Christmas.

I visited her before she died and she wanted to ride out to their old lands where she pointed out several of these old trees still standing -- plum, peach, pecan and apple.

R22 I would be surprised if your mom ate them raw. Quinces are totally inedible raw. A human jaw cannot exert enough force to bite through a quince. They must be stewed or roasted for a human to able to eat them.

I usually roast quinces and incorporate them into almond cakes and pies. The roasting juice is good to flavor Italian semi freddo.

R22 I would be surprised if your mom ate them raw. Quinces are totally inedible raw. A human jaw cannot exert enough force to bite through a quince. They must be stewed or roasted for a human to able to eat them.

I usually roast quinces and incorporate them into almond cakes and pies. The roasting juice is good to flavor Italian semi freddo.

She cuts them into pieces. And yes, she eats them raw. I get a few pieces and munch on them, too.

They’re not that hard.

Even weirder is that sometimes she rubs a little baking soda on them.

I’m gonna try that cake recipe, thanks for the link.

I've lived in NYC apartments my entire life but I have always wanted a lemon tree, a fig tree would be nice too. Fresh figs are never good anymore and the season to find them is so short. BTW, speaking of lemons I wonder why I never see lemons in the stores with Sunkist written on them anymore. When I was a kid that was the only lemons they had.

R34 are you sure you’re thinking quinces, and not persimmons?

[quote] Quince is nearly inedible raw but becomes sweet and luscious when cooked. It's native to Western Asia and Turkey and has become especially popular in Spain, France, and Portugal where it is enjoyed in jelly and jam form

My assistant at work eats quince raw. She also eats some kind of green plum that's quite hard.

Many HOAs restrict the trees and plants you put in, first to control potentially noxious critters you’d attract. Second, many homeowners are complete idiots and have no clue how to manage these type of plants. They usually fall back to pesticides and fertilizers that are inappropriate for residential areas.

This discussion keeps pinging Victory Garden to me.

R35, do you have a window with good sun? Maybe southern or western exposure? I’ve grown a small lemon tree indoors (in Minnesota).

Are there good fruit trees or plants you can grow indoors?

I don't think so, R41, they need the sun.

I've had lemon and orange trees in Arizona, and then peach and apple trees in Colorado. As several people have mentioned, animals are an issue. Squirrels, deer, birds, roof rats, etc.

Also, the sheer volume was often an issue for me. Apple and pear slices freeze fine for pies, but not a lot you can do with citrus. My orange tree had thorns that could slice you in half as well.

My depression-era grandparents had fruit trees and grew strawberries. Everything was picked and canned and eaten year-round. I think it's a great way to live.

We need more cellars full of rows of canned fruits. It's so orderly.

[quote]Is there some secret reason?

We could tell you, but then we’d have to kill you.

Shhh. You swore the Blood Oath R46

My parents have a pomegranate tree in their yard, and the fruits are always eaten by birds and various critters before they ripen.

My sister planted mango trees in her yard, which are visable from the street since she lives on a corner lot. People have scaled the fence to pick the fruits or they ring the bell to ask for some. I was at her house for a couple of hours on a Saturday, and that bell must've rang a dozen times with various people asking for mangoes.

So, as to OP's question, sometimes it's too much of a hassle.

I moved into an older house with a big black walnut tree in the yard and an old hickory tree. They fruit every year and the neighbors come over and take what the squirrels don't and that's cool.

This year, I planted two cherry trees, two crabapples, a dogwood and two hawthorns. Most of this is for the birds and the bees. However, I've had to spend an entire weekend fencing these trees off due to the motherfucking goddamned deer! Those fucking vermin eat everything.

I have begged people to come hunting. You can literally sit on the back porch with a beer and shoot them, they get so close. I might buy a pellet gun just to take potshots at them and hope the coyotes get them later. Fucking pests!

People don't plant this stuff because it's a pain to tend and protect.

I have a grapefruit tree in a huge pot (size of a big bathtub) on my rooftop. It was a gift over 20 years ago. Absolutely love it - the fruits are incredibly sweet and fragrant. The most fruits it bore was 42 three years ago. This year there’s 22 but bigger in size. Had 2 cuttings done a couple of years ago in case the tree dies.

If you have a surfeit of fruit, why not harvest them and put them out nicely displayed for any passersby to help themselves? I've seen that in smaller towns and villages.

R51 >

Someday I plan to have apple and pear trees. I'll just keep what I can eat or freeze, then donate the rest to a food bank.

We've had such a surplus of fruit off two trees (Santa Rosa plums, lemons) we can't give it a way. Neighbors were the same with their nectarine and avocado trees. One year I collected over 40 bags of rotting plums. It all went in a dumpster. What a mess. Oh, and that persimmon tree that the previous owner planted? It STINKS, literally! Such a foul odor from this tree. I don't even like 'em.

The time (and expense) to maintain these trees ain't worth it. I'd rather just go to the Farmers Market and buy what I need for the week.

My house had a peach tree in front and blackberry bushes in the back. I tore them all out. The squirrels got every peach before it ripened and I had to pick up their leavings (over 1,000 peaches) from my lawn and sidewalk before someone tripped on one and sued me. The blackberries were bitter.

OP poster after my own heart.

Forester here. Most people are dumb as a bag of bricks. Sheeple when it comes to gardens.

R41 & R42, i have a small lemon tree and a pineapple plant growing in my living room, which gets both southern and western exposure.

People often grow these plants indoors during the cold months and then send them out to a patio or porch for the summer.

"Why don't other people (ppl) do what *I* think they should?"

Why don't people grow lawns of wheat instead of grass?

many peoples thinking there are enough of fruits and nuts around as it is...russians anyway

OP, you'll find a pear, a peach, and a fig tree in my backyard. There is also a 'berry patch' with blueberries, blackberries and gooseberries. In a raised bed, you'll find asparagus, chives, and rhubarb. Parsley and cilantro reseed themselves each year, as does the nasturtium. Each fall, I plant about 50 garlic seeds. In the early fall, I will have enough garlic to last until late in the winter.

I could handle another fruit tree. They are no real work.

I have a quince tree and I make membrillo with the fruit, but there’s only so much I can cope with. A lot of the fruit goes to waste. I’m also surprised to hear about people eating raw quince - that really doesn’t appeal to me.

Another great quince recipe, thanks!!

Growing fruit isn't that easy. We've started with 3 citrus. The orange is struggling. Lemon and lime are ok. We got 4 plums from our plum tree. They were divine. Maybe 10 figs from our fig tree. Two pomegranates this year. I'm confused about the fertilizing and pruning, not to mention the right watering. (southern CA) People used to have those skills. Now we just have the internet and 50 different versions of what's right.

Many HOAs in Florida prohibit growing fruit trees.

They threatened to sue me if I didn't "remove" by pomegranate tree.

There a pain in the ass. First a fruit tree may or may not grow acceptably tasting fruit.

Second, the quality will vary from year to year.

Third all the fruit will ripen at once (for most kinds)

Forth, ii attracts animals and animals that eat those animals

Lastly, if you think taking leaves is a pain, which you'll also have to do, picking up the fallen fruit is awful. Especially when it ferments and you get drunk bees.

I had an old neighbor who made pear brandy with the fruit off his trees, and I got a couple bottles every year. It was like rocket fuel. Promise me a regular supply of that stuff and I'll plant the trees tomorrow.

I have a third of an acre to plant on. I have 3 peach trees, several pear trees (one of them an asian pear), 4 grape vines, jostaberries, gooseberries, raspberries, currants, apricots, an English walnut tree, a mulberry tree, three plum trees, hazelnut bushes, 5 clumps of rhubarb, a quince tree, and I'm experimenting with an American persimmon and some pawpaw trees. (Those last two haven't reached bearing age yet.) I also have raised beds and grow some vegetables and perennial herbs (such as sage and lovage). I just wander through and graze during the summer months as I'm doing garden chores. I give away a lot of the fruit, but I eat most of the peaches myself. I've cut down two cherry trees because I couldn't find an organic way to get rid of cherry fruit flies, which meant that nearly every ripe cherry had a little worm or two in it. Picking is a lot of work, but only because a lot of the fruit ripens in the very hottest part of the summer. Otherwise, it's just a matter of keeping things pruned, mulched and watered and mowing the grass to keep the weeds down. In the end, I'll probably stop growing vegetables, because they take a lot more intensive work (planting, weeding, watering), but I'll keep it up a few more years, if it doesn't kill me first. It's somehow very satisfying to eat right from the garden, knowing that nothing has been sprayed with chemicals. I never get a single walnut, because the squirrels eat or bury them just as they start to ripen, but I get the bulk of the rest of the fruit. Birds will peck at peaches and plums as they are ready to ripen, so I usually pick them just before they are fully ripe and ripen them off the tree as soon as I can see that the birds have started to invade them.

For citrus tree growers: Don't you find the flowers as appealing as the fruit? Orange and lemon blossoms have the most heavenly fragrance.

Duh The cow they have for meat and the goat for milk would eat them.

I'll give you a good reason. Lyme disease. Are you familiar with it, what it does to the body, how it destroys you? Life long gardener here. I gave it all up and moved into an apartment after the disease destroyed the health of loved ones, and affected me. To make matters worse, we moved to an area where the doctors admit they are just not familiar with the disease!

I'll buy my fruit from a market somewhere.

I grew up in a house with a couple of huge apple and a pear trees, while it was great to have a ready supply of fruit, the trees bore so much fruit you couldn't possibly eat or give away that much fruit. Much of it ended up on the ground rotting which attracted flies and bees. They were such large trees that most of the fruit was not pickable because it was so high up. The amount of time there was actually fruit available was small compared to the amount of time there was rotten fruit on the ground. If you have some acreage it make sense, but on a city size lot not so much.

The first thing my grandmother did after my grandfather died was to cut down all of their fruit trees. Literally, the day after his funeral, she had them cut down. She hated all the work that was involved, especially the canning or freezing. "I'm not going to cut up another goddammed wormy apple just so I can freeze it." She also dolled herself up and went out and found another husband within a month.

Your grandmother was a slut, R73.

R71 wtf does Lyme disease have to do with fruit trees?

The fruit on the ground attracing animals carrying ticks.

r74 No - she was "popular." All five of her deceased husbands would agree.

I have most of the fruit trees mentioned here in North Carolina. The apples, pears, and peaches don’t do so well and because I don’t spray, the fruit tends to be wormy.

The real winners are figs, scuppernong grapes, and blueberries. I don’t have to spray or fertilize them and they happily take care of themselves. We have wild persimmon trees and blackberry patches growing along the edge of the property and they provide way more than even the birds and squirrels can eat.

The gist of all of this is that it’s best to go with what works best in your area.

Uh, not everyone has a yard, and others in big cities have to put up with stray cats.

[quote] The gist of all of this is that it’s best to go with what works best in your area.

I've done the fruit tree and vegetable garden routine in the past. I was actually pretty good at it, but really don't need the hassle of the time, the mess, the birds/animals, and dealing with an overabundance of a handful of crops (i.e. waste). One can only eat so many plums and avocados. Plus, it does come with a degree of expense.

I find the excellent farmers' markets that are available in my area work best.

LR79 how do stray cats conflict with fruit trees?

We have several citrus trees, guava and a plum tree. We do get a lot of squirrels and citrus rats. Several beetles like the citrus trees as well. But, it's still nice to have your own oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruits. We have those year round. The plums are only ripe in the late spring/early summer.

What are citrus rats?

The bunnies in my yard love apples.

R83 ...

Dems needs to grow a pear and remove those of the Repugs until all there is left is a Stump the size of a Toadstool.

I have a Meyer lemon in a big pot, that I bring indoors every fall. Outdoors, I have pawpaw trees, a small native persimmon tree, black walnuts and a jujube tree. The black walnuts are a pain in the ass: the squirrels planted those, and they secret a poison that prevents other plants from growing near them.

R86, how do your pawpaw trees do? I grew up finding them in the wild but see them at nurseries around town. I started buying them at the farmer’s market and they are fantastic, much better than the wild ones I used to find.

Be careful when you have lemon trees. They'll attract lemon whores. They'll steal your lemons.

[quote] Fruit trees provide food for people, birds, and small animals.

I would love to feed birds and small animals in my neighborhood. The squirrels really aren't enough for me, I'd like to attract rats and other vermin.

[quote] Your grandmother was a slut

It takes one to know one

You all with the paw paws know they are the host plant for zebra swallowtail butterflies right?

So don't spray or be mad when you see them being eaten by caterpillars, ok?

R87, They're actually very easy to grow. I originally grew them from seed back when I was a teenager. My parents had had a large spruce tree taken down a long time ago that grew next to my wildflower garden, and they had all the pawpaw trees taken down at the sametime. With the lack of shade, my wildflower garden ended up being take over by weeds, but pawpaws returned from the roots (since they sucker) and it's returning to the way it used to looks.

R91, Yes, I never spray anything in my yard. My office looks out on my back yard, and I see the zebra swallowtails coming to lay their eggs on the pawpaws.

Here's a company that specializes in edible plants, and he hybridizes various species of nuts to increase disease resistant and hardiness.

[quote] I'll give you a good reason. Lyme disease. Are you familiar with it, what it does to the body, how it destroys you?

I’m a gardener and I had Lyme disease in 2008. I took the antibiotics and I’m fine.

Most the time you have spray them, who wants the poison? Apples are the worst.

You don't eat the poison, r94

AppleTinis!

Does anyone use their fruit to make brandy for the holidays and such? I bought a lot of peaches at a farmer's market once with the intent of turning them into peach schnapps, but they went moldy in three days and I had to throw them out 😥

In a word, rats. This was in rat-ridden Western Malibu, to be fair.

R71 = Yolanda Hadid