Not all homegrown fruit is created equally
This is the first year
we've been awash
in homegrown fruit, and one of the things I'm noticing is that small changes in
growing methods result in large changes in fruit flavor. For
example, we have two rows of Caroline red raspberries, one in full
sun in poor soil and one in partial sun in good soil. The
latter produced fewer berries, but their flavor was exceptionally
good, while the plants in poor soil churned out plenty of berries
with only good flavor.
Then there are the
apples. I specifically included one variety in my high-density
planting that
was also getting ready to bear in the forest garden so we could
see if the production method influenced flavor of the fruit.
The high-density Yellow
Transparent apples ripened about a week earlier than those in the forest garden
and were quite tasty. And then we sampled the forest garden
fruit --- wow! Such a rich flavor! It's still pretty
amazing to be able to eat homegrown apples in one year (and to try
out lots of different varieties in a small space), but over the
long haul, it's definitely also worth putting in larger trees with
complex soil management if you want the more intricate flavors.
My final observation came
with our peaches. Even though I
prune our trees hard and thin religiously, a few fruits still
ended up closer together or deep in the shade of the tree and
remained small. These small peaches ripened a little later
than the big, beautiful peaches, and they were only a fraction as
sweet. I'd actually be tempted to thin out the
partially-shaded peaches in later years to let the tree put all
its energy into the prime fruits in the outer canopy --- they were
that much better.
All of that said,
even the worst of our fruit this year has tasted much better than
store bought. Still, if we can produce yet more delicious
fruit with just a few management changes, why not do it?
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Hi Anna and Mark,
Korea natural farming suggests that a few foliar feedings of FFJ (fermented fruit juice) and sea water greatly enhance taste toward the end of fruit growth. Please see naturalfarminghawaii.net and the links on that site for more details of what they have found works well.
warm regards to you both, John