By Urban Harvest
Urban Harvest will hold its 18th annual fruit tree sale Saturday, Jan. 13, 2018, starting at 9 a.m. and lasting until 1 p.m., if we haven't sold out before then. Past sales have provided tens of thousands of fruit trees, shrubs and vines for area homes. That's a lot of right-outside-your-backdoor, fresh, nutritious, almost-free food.
We've learned a lot about fruits for Houston since our first sale on the Old Sixth Ward Dow School playground when we sold basics such as apples, plums, peaches and muscadines. This year, in addition to temperate-climate fruits, we'll have citrus and tropicals, such as bananas, passion fruit and moringa.
Houston gardens are able to grow many fruits with little maintenance. Some require more training than others; others may require some pest management, and depending on where you live, there are different varieties that are suited to the chill hours you receive. So to be successful, it is important to know which fruits and which varieties are best suited to you and your garden.
To learn more about what fruit suits your garden, start at the Urban Harvest website. Under Gardening Advice, you will find a section dedicated to fruit. Individual fruit sheets provide basic information about each fruit as well as information on planting, maintenance, harvesting and varieties. We will be also have specific information sheets on the varieties to be offered at this upcoming fruit tree sale over the next few weeks.
Urban Harvest offers a slate of fruit tree classes beginning in early January so visit the website’s classes calendar. For more information on the fruit tree sale, go to the fruit tree sale event page and see the 2018 varieties file at the bottom of the page.
For those of you who have never been good with homework, at the sale you'll find fruit tree experts who can answer questions and offer well-seasoned advice about each type of fruit. You'll meet area gardeners who freely share information about what worked well for them.
Come on out, buy some fruit trees and visit with other friendly people in line who are on the same mission as you – to grow your own fresh fruit!
This column is produced by Urban Harvest. Learn about gardening classes, community gardens and orchards, farmers markets and more at the www.urbanharvest.org. Suzy Fischer is a registered Landscape Architect and principal of Fischer Schalles, a landscape design/build firm. Contact her at Suzy@FischerSchalles.com.