In a previous thread, ohjustaguy asked for a photo or tour of my fruiting plants.

I moved to my current home in April 2013. It needed a lot of work, most of which has been completed now. Here's a photo from July 2014 showing a portion of my tree collection in 25-gallon pots. Many of them are in the ground now:

 

I really like figs, but that's not the end of it. Here's a list of the perennial fruiting plants I am cultivating. I had to narrow it down for space considerations.

Beautiful stuff Richard.365 day a year harvesting,welcome to the forum.

Paul

I recognize that yard!  Welcome aboard, Richard!

I know your yard space is spoken for, but I see an entire roof that could be covered with figs :)

Looks great Richard, very nice list. 

Welcome to the forum. 

Scott

Nice variety, welcome to the forum Richard.

Welcome!  Congratulations on your orchard!   You can still graft things so you can have lots of varieties of all the fruit you've planted.

Thanks Bob, I don't graft multiple varieties onto a tree. If I'm going to have a cultivar of something I want a harvest, not just a few samples!

Now James has suggested that I put potted plants on the roof. If it snowed here the house might have been built to take the weight but no ... On the otherhand, I'm considering the spare 1/4 acre in front of the house across the street!!

Hermitian, that is really an impressive undertaking!  

Have any started fruiting?  Did you plant dwarf apples for economy of space?  What did you add to amend the soil?  Any access to supplemental water?

I plan to get the Thai lime from a California nursery this late spring for cooking and cleaning products...  Being in zone 4 it will have to be brought into the basement in the fall...

Thanks greenbud! Yes I had harvests on most plants in 2014. The weather here has interesting effects on some fruits for example I had 3 crops of apples, 3 crops on the VdB fig, two crops on the Plum, 3 crops on the Arapaho blackberry, and the Bababerry raspberry has been fruiting continuously. :)

Many of the trees are on semi-dwarf if available. I am an aggressive pruner, keeping overall height on most varieties to 8 feet. My father owned Sanford's book when I was a kid, so I've been following it since the 60's. In addition I do a summer pruning after harvest on a tree to control height. The figs though, I follow Jon's advice for San Diego county and cut them once in January waist high and perhaps thin a few unruly canes in the summer.

Pretty awesome

Nice place and impressive collection you have, Richard. Welcome to the forum.

Yeah James, 1/4 acre with on average 12' spacing would be about 300 fruit trees. The installation cost for automated irrigation would be about $3k.

Hi Hermitian,
Nice grow list.
Citrus, orange and bananas are on my  "to grow list" for somewhere in the futur... A dream for now in Zone7 .
If you're looking for ideas, you could try to add Tayberry and gooseberry "Golden drop" to your list . I'm growing those two :)

That is a very impressive list. Welcome!

Those pots must be hot in your zone.
Maybe the 25gal are not getting hot as fast as smaller ones?

James: the real limit is what we can eat and the cost of operations. Water would be $80/mo., fertilizer about $12/mo., pesticide $60/yr., grove maintenance -- if I hired someone -- about $1600/yr. Now before you mention selling the fruit to offset costs, I'll point out that the annual cost of the licenses in CA would make that mute for this small of an operation.

Eli: I am in zone 10b but the the weather here in western Vista CA is unlike that of other 10b regions in the U.S. In comparison -- our humidity is remarkably low, our winters warm (it's currently 78F outside), our spring is cool, our summer is moderate, and our fall is warm. So no, the trees in the 25 gallon pots don't get particularly hot and neither did the smaller pots which were 15 gallon.

Here's a screen shot of yesterday's weather and humidity. Notice at 2pm some clouds came in off the ocean and dropped the temps by 10F. If they hadn't, the temperature would have been back down at 70F by 4pm.

The figs they came a one by one ...

Today I transplanted Janice-Kadota Seedless from a 25-gallon pot into the ground.

 

Nice bump, not sure how I missed the original post as I asked for it!

Nice list of varieties. I'm growing a number of the same varieties up here but you can get more tropical down there, jealous of those :)

You hand watering all those trees? Installing a drip system isn't that hard and will save you a lot of time in the long run. Also mulching the trees will conserve water and improve the soil. You can call a local tree trimmer and they will dump a load on your driveway for free.

Looking forward to the in ground pics from this growing season....

too many citruses...not enough mangos.

If you like grapes so much, it's probably a good idea to have jaboticabas.  Plural.

Cherry of the Rio Grande is inferior to Grumichamas, if you're into that sort of thing.

Jujube will sucker.  If you're going to grow it, try for one of the nice varieties.  Might want pollination company.  So does feijoa and loquat.  Will fruit, but likes company.  Loquat is easy, just graft a different variety for that task.

Imbe is troublesome in that you need a male and female, but it should be a better fruit than Kei apple.  Or the more exotic garcinias like the one from Mexico or the usual Rheedia sp. if you're ambitious.

Lastly...Cherimoya is one of the great fruits.  How come no cherimoya?

Jackfruit and sapodillas are possible, too.

You are lucky your land is flat!  Ours is 1.5 acres full of boulders sloping down to a seasonal stream and halfway up the next hill.  Part has irrigation.  Part does not, but we do have a variety of figs and other fruit and nuts.  The macadamia is my pride and joy.  It's very happy in it's spot next to an Anna Apple.  It's on the South side of a big boulder and the heat from the boulder keeps it sheltered and happy during the nights.  It even snowed here and stuck for 6 hours, but it didn't miss a beat.  Growing as it should.

Still, my figs are my favorite and I'm going to experiment on the East facing opposite hill with NO irrigation.  I'm going to use cuttings froim MY trees, dig a slant hole under a boulder which will provide moisture and shelter, and see what happens.

Good luck with all your trees and happy eating!

Suzi