Fruit & Fruit Trees

Apples. Definitely apples. They're easy and grow anywhere - or, at least we can say that the exists a varietal that grows where you live. Completely hands-off to grow, they grow and fruit relatively quickly, high yield, energy dense fruit that's simple to eat, lots of sugars. Most importantly, the fruit keeps really well, for fruit. If you can keep it even halfway cool, it'll last months. The skin is edible; heck the whole fruit is edible, although most people don't usually eat the core. It's the perfect fruit. It's not necessarily my favorite fruit, but if you're taking a staple food fruit, for survival, give me apple seeds, no question.

Blackberries come in second for sheer volume and rapid growth, but they don't survive harsh winters very well, so without knowing the conditions or in uncertain environments, I'd rather have apple seeds in my pocket.

First off, glad to see the farming cross post or I wouldn't have seen this comm so I could sub!

We don't do much fruit right now, but I'm hoping to change that next year. My favorite not-a-fruit-thats-easy would probably be carrots or lettuce.

From previous efforts, I'd probably say strawberries. We had moved, so haven't done strawberries in a few years, but hoping to get some property for us to live/farm over the next year and strawberries will definitely be on the list for us.

Edit: We do a community garden right now, the lack of fruit is due to some of the rules of the garden.

Not exactly a tree, but I'd say pepino.

It's in the same family as tomatoes and potatoes, and grows similarly. The fruits taste like in between pear and cantaloupe, and it's perennial.

I'm in Af (Köppen) or Ar (Trewartha).

I've grown quite fond of Artocarpus odoratissimus for its reliability in growing up big and strong and shading out the grass. It mulches itself with its old leaves, so it's basically zero-maintenance. Harvesting is a bit of a hassle, requiring climbing the tree and using a long pole fitted with a blade and netted basket to reach the fruits out on the ends of the branches, and someone else to help safely lower the fruit to the ground, but harvesting is only necessary for about two months of the year, and only for the first several years until the durian trees start fruiting and I can eat that instead.

Garcinia prainiana is another zero-maintenance favourite. It stays small without pruning, and it has big leaves on densely-arranged branches right down to the ground for shading out the grass. It's extremely slow-growing, so it will be a few years before it becomes zero-maintenance, but it seems pretty tolerant of both shade and damp, so it's okay if other trees grow up around it. The fruit is too acidic to eat as a meal (like any Garcinia), but it has small seeds and an extremely thin rind, so it makes for an easy and delicious snack.

Of course, I must mention the King, the supreme Durio zibethinus who produces the finest of this world's luxuries. The tree gets tall, and it can't compete with the grass when young, and its shade isn't very dense, and it tends to get fungus and die in some areas, and pruning is very difficult due to the weak branches and strong apical dominance of seedlings, but the fruit falls to the ground when ready and does not get damaged in the process. Easiest harvest ever. Motorcycle helmet can help with safety during fruiting.

My least favourites would have to be most Citrus species. They grow way too big and unruly for their food value, and every few months they need to be pruned in order to keep them manageable, which is difficult considering how hard the wood is ~~and the biting ants, and the thorns, always thorns in all the wrong places~~. Some of them (especially oranges and grapefruits!) barely even produce fruit, or the fruit is much too sour to eat. They also tend to sprout up in inconvenient locations, and if I don't find them and kill them in time, then they become extremely difficult to remove, as they'll keep sprouting up from the roots for YEARS. Meyer lemon is the lone exception. Prune it once when it's young, and touch it up every year or two, and it behaves itself, stays small, and produces too much fruit all year long.

Oh, and guava (Psidium guajava). Same problem with sprouting up wherever the birds poop, deep roots, hard wood, very difficult to remove. Fruit is full of maggots. The wood is useful for carving spoons though.

I'm probably forgetting a few things, especially trees that I don't like. Pictured below is the first fruiting of the Meyer lemon. (These fruits were a bit lower than chest height, but it has since fruited so much that many fruits touched the ground.)

Grew up in southern california amidst the orange groves before suburbia ate them. I'm still partial to growing the trees. The smell when they're in bloom is a beautiful thing. Similarly, i had a satsuma that basically took care of itself up in the bay area. Moving out to the sierra nevadas soon, so if anybody has suggestions for trees or really any native to the area stuff I should plant that'd be appreciated. great thread idea jim

Papaya grows fast and fruits fast too!

Sea-buckthorn. Because they fix nitrogen from the air, grow fast and reproduce with shoots.

However, they have thorns (good if there is a deer risk) and the berries are small. The plants aren't very long-lived (you can see signs of aging after 10 years already). And whole plants (not flowers) have a gender, you need to figure out which ones are male or female. They pollinate with wind.

If it has to be a proper tree, then cherries.

Least favourite? I've cut down one plum tree, and will likely cut down another too. Pollination problems (they don't self-pollinate), fruit spoiling on branches, apparently their good harvest depends on cutting the branches properly - I'm not competent to grow plum trees, except the small ones (Prunus domestica subsp. insititia - damascene plums?) which are foolproof, and also reproduce with shoots.