What’s going on, gardeners? It’s Saturday, June 11th, and it is a scorcher here on the southeastern coast of North Carolina. Today, I’m going to show you six different types of fruit trees to grow so you are harvesting fresh, delicious fruits all year long, even throughout the winter, so you will always have a source of easy, lowmaintenance, healthy, fresh food for you and your family. At the time of filming this video, it is June of 2022, and inflation, food prices, and food shortages are out of control. Many of you have reached out to me because for the first time in many of our lifetimes, we are genuinely concerned about food shortages and prices. I am making this video for two reasons. Number one, for those concerned about current food prices and availability and are looking for a smart, affordable way to have more food security for you and your family. And two, for those of you that just want lowmaintenance sources of fresh, healthy foods all year round that taste better and are healthier and cheaper than those at grocery stores. Whether you’re watching this during the current inflation crisis or you’re watching this many years later and things are going a lot better in these fears of mostly past, this is a smart thing for all homeowners to do to have a little bit of food security in all of our lives and cut down on grocery costs. Here are the three rules of the video. Rule number one, I’m focusing on fruit trees, not vegetable gardens. Vegetable gardens require active management. Fruit trees are passively managed and are a lot lower maintenance. Fruit trees are true investments, and a single $30 fruit tree, once planted, can reward you and your family for your entire lives with annual harvests. Also, most fruits can be stored for months in proper cold storage for long-term food security. And many of these trees have varieties that you can source that have been specifically bred to store for 6 months or longer. Rule number two, I’m selecting fruit trees that grow well in hardiness zones 4 through 9 because that’s where most people in the world live. And I want to focus on providing food for those with tough winters that can lead to scarcity. If you’re in zone 10 or warmer, you probably don’t need this guide because there are plenty of tropical fruits that grow all year round and can provide you food. I want to focus on the people with tough winters where growing food is thought to be difficult if not impossible. And rule number three, this guide is a general outline that you must customize by choosing proper varieties for where you live. While you can grow, say, apples in both zone 4 and zone 9, different varieties will need to be chosen based on your growing season. Warmer zones will need more heat tolerant disease resistant selections, and colder zones need earlier maturing selections. Always remember to research varieties within a species that do best where you live. Your local county cooperative extensions website is a great place to start. Now, let’s get into it. And the first type of fruit that we are going to discuss are berries. And when I say berries, I mean strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and mulberries. We’re going to begin with strawberries. Now, strawberries can be grown anywhere from USDA hardiness zones 3 through 9 and ripen generally from April to June, depending on your location. And some varieties of strawberries also have a smaller fall crop. Now, I want to make this clear for every single plant that I list here moving forward. When I say zones 3 through 9, those border zones like your threes and your nines, not all varieties are going to work in those locations. That’s where you have to do your research because you may need a really cold hearty variety if you’re on a border zone or a really heat tolerant variety if you’re on the warmer border zone. Now, for me here in North Carolina, I grow day neutral varieties of strawberries which bear periodically throughout the year. And my first strawberries I start picking in the middle of April. So most of my berries have already been picked clean now that it’s June 11th. The heat of the summer is going to set in. They are going to stop producing and then once it cools back down in the late fall, I will get another fall crop. But there are also everbearing and Junebearing varieties that have either shoulder season harvests on the everbearing types or they are ready in June if you go for the June bearers as the name states. I love strawberries because they are one of the very first things you can pick in your garden every new season. Then we have our blackberries and our raspberries. Blackberries are generally hardy to zones 5 through 9 and raspberries are generally hardy from zones 3 through 9. Both are ready for picking roughly between May and September depending on where you live. Here you can clearly see my blackberries are looking pretty shot. That’s because I have been harvesting off of them since mid to early May. So they have been almost picked clean and the bugs are starting to get to them as is the heat. If you live in a place with cooler summers where they take a long time to grow, they can hang all the way until frost if you don’t harvest them and the pests don’t get them. here where our growing seasons are longer, sometimes we’re even fortunate to get a small fall harvest as well. Aside from the pests, if you just cover these with insect netting, they are a pretty much maintenance-free plant. Aside from annual pruning, blueberries, depending on the variety, are hardy anywhere from zones 2 through 9. And they’re ready for harvest anywhere from May to July, depending on where you live and what variety you’re growing. Now, I will link to a video above which is the most in-depth blueberry growing variet that I put together. So, please check that out to know varying different types of varieties for blueberries. These are my southern high bush blueberries. They’ve already been picked clean. I have harvested them because they were ready for me to eat in early May. Then over here, we have my rabbit eye variety of blueberries. These are much later than the southern high bush varieties and they are still loaded with fruit and I’m in the process of picking ripe berries. These still have about 50% of the fruit on them and they’re not ready here until about June. So hopefully you can see how you can use variety selection to your advantage to extend your growing season. And one of the easiest, lowest maintenance varieties of berries that you can grow is the mulberry. Mulberries grow from hardiness zones 4 through 9. And depending on where you live, they can be ripe as early as March all the way through August. Now, mulberries are known for their extremely low maintenance. In fact, even if you live in the oppressive conditions of Florida, there are native varieties of mulberries to Florida that are virtually pestfree, disease-free, maintenance-free, and they are known to be one of the earliest things that you can pick in your garden, and they are the first sign of spring. The second type of fruit tree you should grow for a continuous supply of food all year round are stone fruits. And when I say stone fruits, I’m specifically talking about peaches, plums, nectarines, and apricots. Now, peaches are generally hardy from zones 4 through 9 and are ready for harvest anywhere between May and September, depending on the variety in your location. Plums are hardy from zones 3 through 9 and are generally ready for harvest May through September. Nectarines are hardy from zones 5 through 9 and are generally ready for harvest May through September. And apricots are hardy in zones 4 through 8 and are generally ready sometime between June and August. Again, depending on your location and your variety selection. Now, I will say that out of all the categories that I’m mentioning in this video, stone fruits are going to be one of the most challenging to grow, especially if you live in the United States like I do because they are generally not native to the United States. So, our climate conditions are a little bit tougher on them and they are more prone to diseases and pests. So, you may have to spray them occasionally to keep them safe. The most common pest for stone fruits is generally the plum culio. So, you need to make absolute sure that you throw away any uh any fruits that have dropped to the bottom of the tree every year and discard them because that pest over winters in them. And they’re also uh prone to fungal issues. So, treating them with a natural sulfur or copper spray every year a few times is generally advisable. You can also use things like surround kale and clay spray in order to coat everything and keep the pests off. So, this little bit of extra work is totally worth it because they are so widely adaptable to so much of the land mass that we all live. And there’s so much variety there that it would just be tragic to not have at least one of them in our garden. And the third category of fruit trees that we should all be growing for year round harvests are apples and pears. Now, at first it may seem strange that I lumped apples and pears together in the same category, but I did that for a reason, and that is because here in the United States, there are native apples and pears to where we live. We have a problem here in North America because we have the latest freezes on average for any degree latitude versus any other inhabited continent on Earth. So when we import fruit trees from Asia and Europe and Africa and Australia and South America, their frosts stop earlier in the year than ours do. So a lot of times those imported fruit trees will bloom before our frosts end per degree latitude. Well, the thing about apples and pears is because you can get varieties that are adapted to North America, they flower later in the year. So those trees are less prone to late frosts and freezes, so they aren’t as much maintenance for people in the United States to maintain. Now, apples are extremely cold hearty and they can also be quite heat tolerant. Apples can grow anywhere from hardiness zones 3 through 9 and depending on the variety can ripen as early as July or as late as November. So they are one of those plants that you really want to pair with your climate. And uh generally speaking, we all associate apples with the autumn. So, it’s usually a good idea to get an apple that will ripen when the weather starts to get a little bit cooler out. The other awesome thing about apples is because they have so many different varieties that can ripen at so many different times of the year, you can grow many different early, mid-season, and later varieties and really extend your harvest. There are also very disease resistant varieties of apples out there and I suggest you buy more disease resistant cultivars. Then we have pear trees. Pear trees are generally hardy from zones 4 through 9. And depending on your location and the variety, they can ripen as early as August or as late as October. And pears are really cool because you can choose between European pears and Asian pears. And both are very different when it comes to flavor. Here I actually have an Asian pear tree. And these Asian pears are not self-fertile. So they do require cross-pollination from other varieties. And what I’ve done is I’ve grafted two different varieties onto a single tree. So I’m going to have a 3in-1 Asian pear tree. So make sure to look out for that video. One thing worth mentioning about apples and pears, whether they are apples, Asian pears, or European pairs, you have to check and make sure if the varieties are self-fertile or not. Most of them require cross-pollination, so you will need in most cases two trees that are compatible with each other and flower at similar times. So, make sure you do your research and you know how many trees you need. The fourth type of fruit tree that everybody should be growing for year round harvest is the pawpaw tree. And the thing about pawpaw trees is it’s funny that most people have never seen, tasted, or even heard of a pawpaw. Yet, it is the largest native fruit tree to the United States. Pawpaws naturally grow from southern Ontario all the way down to northern Florida, making them a no-brainer to grow here in the United States because they are virtually pest and diseasefree. However, here’s the catch with growing pawpaws. The reason why you’ve almost certainly never heard of them or tasted them or seen them is because pawpaws are almost impossible to grow commercially because they have a limited shelf life of only a few days. So the only way that you can eat them really is to grow them because they store so poorly. Now paw paws are hardy from zones 4 through 9. As I said, they grow from southern Ontario all the way to northern Florida. So, they are widely adaptable and because, like I said, they’re native to the United States, they have almost no pests and disease, making them a maintenance-free tree. However, the only thing that you need to know about pawpaws is they require cross-pollination to set fruit. So, you have to have two trees that are genetically different. So, you either need two seedlings or you need two different named varieties. And they have to be planted very close to each other, six feet apart or closer because they are not bee pollinated. They actually are pollinated by flies because their flowers smell a little bit like rotting meat. So they have to be really close together in order to get adequate pollination. The fifth type of fruit tree that everybody should be growing for year round harvests is the pimmen tree. Now there are three different types of pcimmen trees. There are American pcimmens which are hardy from zones 4 through nine and are native to the United States and therefore virtually pest and diseasefree in North America. There are Asian pimmens which are hardy from zones 7 through 11. They’re much more heat tolerant, not as cold hearty. And then there are AsianAmerican hybrids where breeders have crossed Asian and American pimmens and they are generally hardy from zones five/6 on the border of a warm five cold six to zone 9. So with the hybridized version you get the larger fruit of the Asian pimmen with more cold hardiness from the American pimmen. And some hybrid uh varieties are Nikita’s gift and Rosiana if you’re interested. Now here is the interesting thing about pimmens. Pimmens ripen after they get hit by frost. So for that reason pimmen harvest season is generally between October and December depending on where you live. However, there is something that you need to know about pimmens. Pretty much all American pcimmens that I’m aware of and most Asian pimmens are what they call aringent. And that means that you can’t eat them until they’re completely soft like a bag full of jell-o. If you were to eat them, they would uh before they’re ripe, they would be so high in tanic content that they would it would be like having a cotton ball in your mouth. It would be absolutely horrible. So, you need to wait until they’re fully ripe and they get hit with that frost. So these are one of the greatest uh fruits that you can grow for season extension. And this variety right here is actually an astringent Asian variety called Giambo. Now it’s on its third year uh second full year in ground. It set fruit this year, but it dropped them. So I won’t get any Asian pimmens off this tree this year. However, this variety of pcmen right here is an Asian pcmen called Itchy Jiro. And it’s only on its second season. first few uh first full year in ground and it’s already set some fruits and it’s already gone through its dropping spell. So I think there’s a good chance it may actually hold some if not all of these fruits. Now what’s interesting about this variety is it is a nonasting pimmen. You can eat it before it’s ripe. The con uh the tannin content is very low. So you can eat them when they’re hard like an apple if you so choose which is a great way to extend your growing season. You don’t have to wait until that frost rolls in and softens your pimmens. Now there are two things about pimmens that you must know. Uh number one most varieties of American pimmens require cross-pollination. So you need two genetically unique varieties planted nearby to cross-pollinate. Most varieties of Asian pcimmens are self-fertile and don’t need a pollinator. However, some say pollination improves the fruit. Some Asian pcmen varieties do require crosspollination. So, make sure you research the varieties that you’re interested in and make sure uh that you have the proper trees to make sure that they will set and hold fruit. The second thing about pimmens is the astringent varieties of pimmens because you have to wait until they’re completely soft to eat them. They don’t store well. So generally uh when it comes to aringent pcimmens if you want to store them for food storage you need to make things like purees or or jams and jellies or you need to dry them because they won’t store in their natural form very long. However the non-asting pimmens like these because you can eat them when they’re hard like an apple you can store these for a lot longer. They will eventually ripen in storage and get a lot softer, but because uh they don’t get as soft as an astringent pimmen ever, uh they are better for a storage variety. So, you may want to mix and match various varieties if you find out that you’re a big pcimmen fan. And the sixth variety of fruit tree that you must grow to have year round fresh fruit is citrus trees. Now, bear with me on this one. There is a very good reason why I need to include citrus trees in this video and that is because they are one of the few fruit trees that are fairly cold hearty and can take frost and freezes that also give you fresh ripe fruit all throughout late fall and the winter. It’s the winter time that is the citrus ripening season. So that is how you can get fresh year round fruit. Now, what type of citrus you grow is going to dictate when it ripens. Things like Satsumas, like my Oari Satsuma tree here, depending on the variety of Satsuma mandarins, they can ripen anywhere from October to December. Most orange trees like your navl oranges and your blood oranges like this carakara red navl orange right here and other larger fruited citruses like your grapefruits generally ripen between January and March. and that will take you all throughout the winter. However, you also have everbearing citrus trees like these uh kumquat trees down here that have the ability to flower and fruit periodically throughout the year and are not really based on a hard seasonal flower pattern like some of the larger citrus trees are. The same thing goes with lemons and limes. Lemons and limes are capable of flowering and fruing irregularly all throughout the year. This meer lemon tree right here, as you can see, is loaded up with fruit. And the fruits will hang and hold on the tree for a very long time. So, if you can’t eat them all at once, never fear. Just let them sit on the tree until you want to eat them. Of course, one of the problems with citrus trees is the overwhelming majority of good quality edible citrus is only able to be planted in ground between hardiness zones 8 through 11. So for people like me in the Carolina South, it is totally doable. But I know many of you watching this video cannot plant good quality citrus in ground. However, the reason why I am including citrus in this video is because citrus do fantastic in container culture. If you buy yourself dwarf citrus like I am here, this right here is a blood orange. I have showed you videos on this blood orange in the past and how this little tree, which only weighs maybe 30 pounds or so in this container, just loves it in here. And I overwinter it because it’s a little too cold where I live for it to be planted in ground without a lot of protection. And it does just fantastic. But it doesn’t just stop at my blood orange tree. I have purely tropical key limes and variegated pink lemons here. These are zone 10 plants. They can barely tolerate a light frost. They are purely tropical. But I’m growing them in these little containers and they fruit profusely. They do great in these containers. And I’ve showed you videos on these in the past. They make absolutely wonderful fruit. So, I’m growing my own citrus in containers as well to get what I need throughout the year because let me tell you, there is nothing better than having delicious fresh fruit picked right off of a tree during the doldrums of January. Now, I know what some of you are thinking, especially those of you that have been a part of my channel for a long time. How could I have not included fig trees in this video? Uh well, that’s because fig trees just aren’t widely adaptable. And I’m trying to make a video uh where it’s very easy for almost everybody in temperate regions to grow fruit trees in ground. And the fact of the matter is figs are really hardy to zones 8 through 10. And if you live in colder zones than that, you’re going to have to overwinter them in containers or you’re going to have to deal with dieback to the ground every single year. Yes, there are growers that are growing them in ground in zone 6, maybe even some 5B growers out there with protection. It can be done, but I’m trying to make this video as easy as possible. Uh, the citrus is pretty much mandatory because that uniquely fruits in the winter and that’s how we get our fresh winter fruits, but figs have a lot of overlap. They generally ripen August and September into early October. So, there are a lot of easier fruits to grow out there if you just want a food source that won’t be nearly as high of maintenance that will also uh store a lot better because figs don’t store well at all unless you dehydrate them. However, for those of you that are able to grow figs in ground or if you don’t mind figs in containers, I absolutely wish that every single person out there capable would grow at least one fig tree. They are my favorite fruit. And that right there are six different types of fruits that you can grow to have yearround food security. And you can sneak those trees into your backyard, place strategically along the fence line like I do, and people won’t be the wiser that you have your own source of sustainable, great quality, healthy food all year round. And for those of you in colder climates that are willing to grow citrus in containers, you really can have fresh fruit right off the tree 365 days a year. Now, these things are very smart things that we should all be thinking about regardless of our personal economic situations and and uh I truly believe that it’s in all of our best interest to have a little bit of food security around the yard because what happens if uh if if our grocery stores really do run low on food? I mean, it’s something that should always be in the back of our minds, and if we never need to use it, we never have anything to lose because worst case, you’re only going to save a bunch of money and get better quality food than what you get at the grocery store. So, it’s a win-win no matter what you do. And you’ll get a lot more sunshine and exercise planting and tending to those trees as