i'm trying to figure out what to plant to fill the gap between the fig season. something for early spring and late fall.. any good fruit trees that are not too messy or will not possibly cause issues with figs? love mullberry.. but they are too messy. if they can be grown in container, that's plus.

Tripple Brook Farm Plant Nursery site has a wonderful searchable database for all kinds of plants and trees.  You can choose edible in your ZONE!  It tells you everything you need to know!  I stumbled across it the other day looking at what edibles I can grow.  Do bookmark it!!
Suzi

i decided on korean persimmons. does anyone know of good source for persimmon trees?

Pete, in our climate I too chose Persimmons.  My tree is young and I have only eaten a few but it was a good choice.  If you want reliable, easy to grow fruit go with Ouachita blackberries.  In one year I was eating many gallons of them in June.  Premier and Powderblue Blueberries are great too.  Earliglow strawberries can work in containers but I grow in ground.  Muscadine grape season is now here and they are outstanding.  All of these fruits can be eaten fresh for several weeks and frozen for later.

http://blogs.transparent.com/korean/korean-persimmons/

I don't know persimmons that well, but in this blog piece, they identify Korean persimmons as Hichaya and/or Fuyu types. Both of these I would think to be easy to find.

We had a persimmon tree growing up. It was a very productive Hichaya. I never much liked them. ...Till last year when I discovered how wonderful they are sliced and dried. This year I'm going to gather as many as I can get my hands on and dehydrate them. :):)


edit:  Edible Landscaping seems to have a variety of persimmons, including a couple from Korea.

http://ediblelandscaping.com/products/trees/PersimmonAsian/

Pete...I think permaculture would be a great read for you.  I have setup a system.  Where there is an overlap of different fruits and veggies.  Mainly fruit,  I have multiple different strawberries that are available different times, blueberries, grapes, pears, apples, raspberries, hardy kiwi, peaches, blackberries, figs.  This is all going on while the veggie garden is happening.  This is all happening in a typical suburban lot.

To expand it further I have grafted multiple varieties on my peaches, pears and apples that fruit all at different times.   I have designed my backyard to be 70% fruit that returns each year with little maintenance and 30% veg garden which require quite more work.

Like I stated before one or multiple varieties overlap as the season goes along.

when i was growing up in korea, persimmons were just so sweet. come to think of it.. all the fruits were much more sweeter. it might be due to buy everything in supermarket for me.

persimmons were either eaten fresh or dried. once they are dried flat, they are called "flower persimmon". i guess they look like flower when they are dried flat like that. the texture is almost like dried tomato, but taste is super sweet.

not sure about japanese names.. but there usually two type.. ones that are fully ripened and very soft and ones that are just hard as apple. i like the hard ones. ediblelandscaping seems to have few korean varieites. i guess i'll try them.

i love blueberries. maybe i'll give them a shot too.

thanks, guys.

Throw in some Bluberry bushes and Currants for early fruit. Oh and Nanking cherry shrubs are nice, or there is a really good dwarf cherry, Carmine Jewel which will give you cherries in June. Strawberries of course. For late fruit try hardy kiwi, Issai is self fruitful and is not quite as aggressive of a vine as the others, but if space is not an issue get a few different ones they are awesome. Pawpaw is fantastic!! Jujubes for something different. Both of those are late. Why not add a grape vine too?   

I started about seven years or eight years ago, when we moved into our house.  The bulk of the design I added in the first two years.  Once you get it started you just slowly add or quickly add. Mi new exactly how the trees would mature and to what size.  The most important thing for me was low maintenance and fruit trees/shrubs/berries certainly are.

As far as the grafting, it is easy! Makes sense if you have a small area and only room for a few trees.  I have three differen varieties on all of my trees, aslong as the species are the same family.  You can graft them, so for example,  you can graft, peaches, plums,apricots onto a cherry tree.  If you had a hawthorn...you can graft apples and pears to it. 

Think about all of these flowering pears in neighborhoods you caneasily graft edible pears.

You're kidding?  You can graft an edible onto a non-edible?  You certainly have me thinking!  We were looking for an acre or more, and maybe now a half acre would work... except for the golf putting green... JD really wants that!!

Already have about 30 grafted wine grape vines, and there should be no reason why I can't graft different wine grape scions onto existing vines.

We can't grow pears or apples or cherries because of the lack of chill hours, but since figs take up so much space in-ground, grafting different varieties that mature at different times onto a few trees, lets you expand your collection without taking up so much space.

Thanks for the info!  Going to use it big time!! 

Suzi

Not kidding at all, a flowering pear is still a pear, still in the pear family.  More than likely a mutation or a purposeful genetic cross.   In the case of the hawthorn it is related close enough to a far distant relative of the pear and apple, that is why you can graft both of them to it. 

If it is in the same family you can graft and edible to it.  Glad to help!

Blueberries
Thornless Blackberries
Muscadines
Grapes

These people have been good in my experience -  http://www.justfruitsandexotics.com/FruitHome.htm

Blueberries are great for spring. Get some dwarf Cocktail apple trees for the fall

I had good experience ordering Persimmon trees from, just fruits and exotics. Saijo and great wall are two of the best tasting ones between the other variants that I have. Just make sure they are grafted on Diospyros Virginiana.



Navid.

My wild muscadines have been getting ripe for a week or two.Small, but very sweet and flavorful.Little wild Paw Paw fruit have been getting ripe too.

My American chestnuts have started to fall early and I found a wild persimmon that had fallen today that was sweet without any bitterness. I guess the early spring has caused the fruit and nuts to ripen earlier than normal.