For the past few years, we have been showering love on existing and newly planted fruit trees throughout ViVerde’s fifteen acres. It is showing! Look at all those mangoes. Below are some things you can do to make your fruit trees and shrubs more productive.
- Make sure they get enough sun. Fruit needs light to grow and ripen. We opened up the canopy by taking off unruly limbs and reducing the height of neighboring trees to let the sun in.
- Catch and sink rainwater and gray water. We dug small trenches around the lower side of each tree to catch water and to prevent the good topsoil and rich humus from running down the hill. The gray water from our sinks goes to water banana plants that can handle the soap and detergent. A number of plants thrive on gray water.
- Mulch heavily with leaves and other organic material. You can pile your fallen leaves around the base of your trees or make a compost pile with them instead of putting them at the curb. They protect the tree roots from cold winters and help retain moisture during dry summer months. We are blessed with lots of leaves, bark and small sticks with which to mulch.
- Fertilize with manure. We buy cow manure from neighbors who bag it and bring it in horse carts. We make piles of it layered with leaves and let it age before applying around our fruit trees. You can buy manure and organic mulch at your local nursery or garden supply store. We will soon put our dry compost toilet into action, turning human waste into “black gold” for the benefit of our trees and bushes.
- Bless your fruit trees with diluted urine. Citrus trees and others love it, it’s full of natural nitrogen. We have been collecting urine, diluting it one part to three of water and pouring it into those small trenches on top of the leaves and manure. This past year lime trees previously barren were suddenly filled with fruit, and our one reliable producer from when we moved here had fruit twice the size of previous crops.
Don’t just take it from me. Listen to an inspirational TED talk by fellow Portlander, Molly Winter, talking about the superpowers of poop and pee entitled “The Taboo Secret to Healthier Plants.” It will be an enjoyable twelve minutes, well spent.
All this love is paying off. See below what is fruiting at ViVerde right now.
And by the way, we had our first big rain on May 5th (the day after our last blog) and within a week, everything was green again.
Pitangas or Surinam Cherries
We planted these seeds from fruit we ate four years ago at a friend’s farm and many bushes now sparkle with delicious red fruits.
Guavas
These guavas trees were sprawling out of control. With some hard pruning two years ago, they are now covered in young fruits.
Mystery berries
Don’t know what these are but they are beautiful and the chickens love them. Kind of slimy.
Immature custard apple fruits
Weird looking, right? The fruits grow out of the tree trunk.
Bananas
Do you see that red thing hanging down from the bunch? That is the flower, under each petal (like the one lifting) are tiny undeveloped bananas.
Pineapples
We grew this from another pineapple top.
Starfruit
Starfruit are a little sour for eating out of hand but make delicious jams, chutneys, and pickles.
Custard apples ready to harvest
The texture of this fruit is unique but the taste is delicious. Excellent for flavoring ice cream.