Table Of Content

Fruit TREES IN SMALL SPACES Abundant Harvests from your own Backyard Colby Eierman with photos by Erin Kunkel and recipes by Mike Emanuel Copyright © 2012 by Colby Eierman. All rights reserved. Photo and illustration credits appear on page 250. Hand-lettering by Joel Holland. Book design by Mark Searcy. Published in 2012 by Timber Press, Inc. The Haseltine Building 133 S.W. Second Avenue, Suite 450 Portland, Oregon 97204-3527 timberpress.com 2 The Quadrant 135 Salusbury Road London NW6 6RJ timberpress.co.uk Printed in China Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Eierman, Colby. Fruit trees in small spaces: abundant harvests from your own backyard/Colby Eierman; with photos by Erin Kunkel.—1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-60469-190-0 1. Fruit trees. 2. Fruit. 3. Backyard gardens. 4. Orchards. I. Title. II. Title: Abundant harvests from your own backyard. SB355.E42 2012 634—dc23 2011042489 Catalog records for this book are available from the British Library. Contents Foreword by Rosalind Creasy Acknowledgments Preface Introduction Part One Home Orchard Primer: Designing the Orchard Life A Year in the Orchard Designing Your Small Orchard Part Two Fruit Tree Guide: The Family Album Choosing Plants for Your Orchard Stone Fruits Pome Fruits Citrus Part Three Practicalities: Long Live Your Orchard Orchard Planting and Care Pruning and Training Part Four Fruit in the Kitchen A Bounty of Seasonal Fruit Recipes by Mike Emanuel Resources Conversion Tables Further Reading Photo and Illustration Credits Index Foreword by Rosalind Creasy I first met Colby in the magnificent garden at COPIA, which was known for its dedication to understanding and celebrating American food, wine, and arts. It was 2004 and I was there to photograph fruit trees. The gardens were beautiful, the fruit trees were in a unique landscaped setting, and I needed photographs to offer inspiration for home gardeners for my book Edible Landscaping. Everything was so well grown and there were so many unusual things that I sought out the gardener to learn more. Most of the trees were small, with many of them in containers—so appropriate for the home gardener. There was an espaliered quince, something I’d never seen before. Apples, plums, cherries, and peaches along with different citrus were planted in stop-you-in-your-tracks rusted containers. There were 3-in-1 plantings, a fabulous way to grow a variety of fruits in a small space. It was a luxury to see so many fruits in one place at one time, and to see so many ideas for growing these fruits in a small space. After 30 years of experience as a landscape designer, I knew that most people want smaller fruit trees for any number of reasons: size of yards, limited time, and the desire to have a wide variety of fruits rather than one single fruit tree that dominates the yard and overwhelms the gardener with a surplus of fruit. Unfortunately, for decades now, most of the information on growing fruit trees, both in books and online, has been aimed at people who are maintaining single- crop orchards. This book, on the other hand, focuses on growing multiple orchard fruits as part of the landscape in today’s smaller gardens. Home gardeners will find they can grow the fruit they love, and plenty of it, even if their yards are small. Growing instructions include selected information for different climates and conditions. Colby’s experience with the trees themselves and the techniques required to grow them in a smaller space means that he is also a master pruner. He understands how to grow and prune trees for the best looks and highest fruit production. With this book, he brings this knowledge and expertise to help home gardeners get the best from their trees. To round out the book, there are the recipes. Cookbooks generally overlook homegrown fruits, and yet that’s where the treasure is. Sadly, most home gardeners, even when they grow some of their own fruit, don’t know how to harvest at the peak of perfection. Colby guides us through this critical step, and then takes it a giant step further by giving us both time-honored recipes, such as poached pears and fruit jams and leathers, and going way beyond with new approaches. Even with my years of experience, I discovered new techniques. When the apple tree is in full harvest, I no longer have to rely on applesauce to take care of the overflow. With the recipes in this imaginative collection, I now can branch out from applesauce to make apple chips or get past apple pie with just solo apples and add other fruits on a crunchy galette base. Who knew that peach leaves could be used to flavor wine or that gardeners in cold climates, whose container-grown lemon might not produce much in the way of fruit, can take full advantage of their plants by harvesting their leaves to make an incredible syrup to be used as part of a spritzer or brushed between the layers of a lemon chiffon cake? Most of all, this book is a great primer, easy to use, and easy to understand. It demonstrates that growing fruit trees need not be a daunting task, with reliable information based on experience and with an emphasis on organic growing. Soon you’ll be showing off your heirloom apples or latest variety of pluot, introducing friends to the unique taste of the kumquat, taking the plunge and learning to make a true fruit jam, or harvesting peach leaves to see just what they add to wine.