Along with raising animals and growing vegetables, we began experimenting with fruit trees, initially thinking we would grow the dwarf varieties (max height of 6 ft) in the greenhouse. This would not allow room for vegetables, but Dad and I thought we had too many irons in the fire to establish a vegetable garden that year. Meanwhile, K was germinating seeds indoors for his garden and brought over some potted pepper plants. It became clear we wouldn’t have room in the greenhouse for vegetables and trees. A quandary.
In the end we decided to plant the trees outside, with mixed results. We experimented with some peach, plum, crabapple, and apple trees. So far, we’ve lost two: munched on by cows, goats, and gophers/ rabbits/ pack rats. Drought and heat have taken the peaches and crabapples. We’ve had terrible luck with raspberries and blueberries, also munched on by goats and gophers/ rabbits/ pack rats. The strawberries in the greenhouse spread nicely but didn’t produce fruit. The small blueberry bushes in the greenhouse didn’t make it even with pH amendment (blueberries like acidic soil). Luckily, the plum trees are doing well. We might just end up planting more of these in the next few years; or we might try something new like pears, oranges, grapes, figs, and/or rhubarb.
Really though, it’s difficult to grow fruit trees in the desert. Even if everything goes as planned, a tree will not produce fruit for a few years as it gets established. With the changing climate, though, even drought-tolerant and heat-tolerant varieties will face unprecedented challenges. We’ve noticed that freak frost events are killing the flowers before they can be pollinated. Wind storms knock off the fruit before it can mature. Given these uncertainties, we have to weigh the water demands against the possible fruit harvests. That’s why we’re staying away from water-intensive nut trees, and trying to focus on the types of fruit that don’t require as much vegetative growth (leaves, branches, etc.) to produce fruit. However, our attempts at growing raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries have thus far failed.
Oh well, no one said this was going to be easy!