Fruits and Nuts

Fruit and nut trees take some years to produce. We began planting the orchard in 2002, and we are just beginning to produce some fruit.

Information on Growing Fruiting Plants

North American Fruit Explorers (NAFEX) is an organization dedicated to fruits. In addition to their publication, they have a very interesting email list that is not restricted to members.

The Home Orchard Society (HOS) is an organization of home-scale fruit growers in the Portland, Oregon area. Among other things, they host the fall fruit tasting and spring scionwood exchange.

There's no one perfect website on growing the all various kinds of fruit and nuts, although there are serveral wonderful places out there. To simplify references, I've compiling these links into a table organized by fruit. The catagorization by common name is my own arbitrary organization, which is most useful to me. This table is fairly complete for the tree and shrub fruits, currently the later sections are sparse. I welcome further input and corrections: Fruit Information Links

Fruit Tree Sources

I have a better survival rate for bareroot fruit stock ordered online, than on locally purchased trees.

One of my favorite online fruit and tree nurseries is Burnt Ridge Nursery. They have great prices, great selection, and the trees and shrubs I ordered from them while inconsistent in quality (size/branching/aesthetics of graft union), they in general look good and are a great value. With my 5th or 6th order I did have a few trees not survive (a pawpaw and a jujube; the jujube rootstock is okay but above the graft union is dead), and while a little awkward they did duly replace the plants in 2005, and the replacements are doing well. They are located in Washington State.

Since the more local the better when it comes to buying plants and trees, I really like Sandy Bar Nursery, located in the Klamath Valley of Northern California - probably the most similar climate zone to us here. The order arrived quickly and the plants look great, and Mark DuPont who runs it is very knowledgeable and helpful. Unfortunately, their selections isn't as broad as some other places (although they have a huge selection of figs).

Raintree nursery has a very tempting catalog and beautiful online site, with lots of information and a great selection. Unfortunately they are expensive. The plants I got from them were fine, large and healthy and thriving, except a gooseberry which caught borers and died. They sent a replacement without giving me any problem. They are located in Washington State.

Big Horse Creek Farm will custom graft just about any type of apple you want at a quite reasonable price. I fulfilled my fantasy of having Swiss Gourmet Apples here! This is a type of apple I've had only three times in my life, in 1992 and again in 1993 at the Safeway in Colorado Springs; and a third time at the 2002 Apple Festival in Portland. They are located in the Southeast.

One Green World nursery is located outside of Portland, Oregon. Similar in selection and prices to Raintree. I have several plants from them that arrived fine, although I've heard some not-so-good things about their practices in some fruit circles.

Trees of Antiquity, AKA Sonoma Antique Apple Orchard, has very helpful and knowlegdeable people. They have a good selection of apples and plums, but don't go into more exotic types of fruits. I have one plum, which came with an impressive root system and is growing fast. They are in California.

Oikos Tree Crops has a great selection of oaks, and nuts and unusual native fruits. My order arrived quickly - the plants are in tubes, rather than bareroot, and looked good. They are in the midwest.

I've ordered a couple of times from Bay Laurel Nursery; most of the plants are fine, but a couple didn't do well. They are in the Bay Area.

The latest find (thanks to Andy), haven't ordered from them yet: Rolling River Nursery in Northern California.

last updated: 12/16/06