Planning Your Fruit Garden

For a truly delightful gardening experience, look to fruit. Fruit adds beautiful color and variety to your garden -- not to mention delicious taste and flavor to your kitchen. The following tips will help you plan your fruit garden.

apple on branch
Traditional orchard trees, including apple trees,
require extra attention.

  • So many different kinds of fruit are available -- how do you begin to decide which to grow? Start with quality. When soft berries are homegrown, they can be harvested when fully ripe, plump, and sweet, without concern for shipping and perishability. The flavor is outstanding!

Disease-Resistant Apple Cultivars

These cultivars of apple trees minimize spraying for disease.
  • Liberty
  • Macfree
  • Freedom
  • Pristine
  • GoldRush
  • Enterprise
  • Jonafree

  • Traditional orchard trees such as apples, peaches, and pears require some knowledge and attention to pollination, pruning, spraying, fertilizing, and other kinds of care. To minimize or eliminate spraying for disease, look for new disease-resistant cultivars of apple trees.
  • The amount of yard space available will be another deciding factor. Choose between growing small fruits -- berries that grow on small plants, vines, or bushes -- or larger tree fruits. Start with easily raised, space-efficient small fruits such as strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries. But if you have a place in your landscape for a fruit tree or two, don't pass up the opportunity. Look for easy-care fruit trees, or even nontraditional trees such as mulberries or crabapples.
In the next section, we'll share tips on growing berries.

Want more gardening tips? Try:
  • Gardening Tips: Learn great helpful hints for all of your gardening needs.
  • Annuals: Plant these beauties in your garden.
  • Perennials: Choose great plants that will return year after year.
  • Gardening: Discover how to garden.