Fruits at the Farm
I have so many delicious fruits growing here at my Bedford, New York farm.
Fresh fruit is one of nature's most delicious products. In midsummer, we pick boxes and boxes of raspberries, blueberries, gooseberries, and currants. In late August, we pick delicious peaches and apricots fresh off my trees. This week, we harvested some juicy Asian pears. And soon, all the apples will be ready. Here at Cantitoe Corners, I have an orchard around my pool filled with a variety of more than 200 different fruit trees. I also have fruits growing on espaliers and in groves - on trees I've planted and on trees that are original to the farm. I also grow tropical fruits in my greenhouses. I can't wait to harvest the next bounty of sweet and organic fruits.
Enjoy these photos.
-
- This orchard surrounds three sides of my pool. I wanted it filled with a variety of apple trees, plum trees, cherry trees, peach, pear, and quince trees. Many were bare-root cuttings when they arrived and now they’re beautiful mature specimens.
-
- I planted several types of Asian pear, Pyrus pyrifolia, which is native to East Asia. My trees include Hosui, Niitaka, Shinko, and Shinseiko. Asian pears have a high water content and a crisp, grainy texture, which is very different from the European varieties. They are most commonly served raw and peeled. Some of these are ready for picking.
-
- The other pears in this orchard are ‘Bartlett’, ‘Columbia’, ‘D’Amalis’, ‘Ginnybrook’, ‘McLaughlin’, ‘Nova’, ‘Patten’, ‘Seckel’, ‘Stacyville’, and ‘Washington State’.
-
- These are the fruits of the medlar, Mespilus germanica – a small deciduous tree and member of the rose family. These fruits are not ready yet – we’ll pick them in late October or early November.
-
- The fruit is about one to two inches in diameter, and ranges in color from rosy rust to dusty brown. Medlars are native to Southwestern Asia and Southeastern Europe. The fruits have to be eaten when almost rotten in a process called “bletting”. And, because of this, they either have to be eaten right off the tree or picked early and put aside for a few weeks to blet. The medlar is very pulpy and very sweet. Its taste is similar to an overripe date with a flavor similar to toffee apples or apple butter.
-
- And of course, I have a large section of apples. I already grow hundreds of apple trees here at the farm – some that were here when I acquired the property and others I planted soon after moving here. These newer apple trees include ‘Baldwin’, ‘Black Oxford’, ‘Cortland’, ‘Cox’s Orange Pippin’, ‘Esopus Spitzenburg’, ‘Fuji’, ‘Golden Russet’, ‘Grimes Golden’, ‘Honeycrisp’, ‘Liberty’, ‘Redfield’, ‘Roxbury Russet’, and ‘Windham Russet’.
-
- Apple trees need well-drained soil – nothing too wet. The soil also needs to be moderately rich and retain moisture as well as air. And the best exposure for apples is a north- or east-facing slope.
-
- Just outside the old corn crib are quince trees – three of the many I have here at the farm.
-
- Are you familiar with quince? Quince is a fall fruit that grows like apples and pears, but with an unusually irregular shape and often gray fuzz. These fruits turn a golden yellow when ready to pick in fall.
-
- Behind the main greenhouse, I have a grove of pawpaw trees. Asimina triloba, the American papaw, pawpaw, paw paw, or paw-paw, among many regional names, is a small deciduous tree native to the eastern United States and Canada.
-
- These are the developing pawpaws – greenish-blackish fruit, usually three to six inches long.
-
- The taste of a pawpaw is a mix of mango-banana-citrus all in one. It’s a big favorite for some here at the farm.
-
- Near the pawpaw trees are two trifoliate orange trees, Citrus trifoliata or Poncirus trifoliata – a member of the family Rutaceae. Also known as the “hardy orange” or “flying dragon,”it is the most cold hardy of all citrus. It is a large, deciduous shrub that produces an unusually sour, downy fruit considered to be nearly inedible when raw but medicinally beneficial and delicious when cooked. The fruit is commonly juiced, made into marmalades, jams, jellies, or candied. Trifoliate oranges are slightly smaller than conventional oranges and taste like a blend of lemon and grapefruit. But watch out when picking – the thorns are long, thick, and very sharp.
-
- Star fruit, also known as carambola, is the fruit of the Averrhoa carambola tree. Ripe star fruit is fleshy, crunchy, and juicy and has a sweet and slightly tart taste. When sliced horizontally, the fruit resembles a star, which is why it is named “star fruit”. This tree is planted in my vegetable greenhouse and doing so excellently.
-
- These figs are still green, but they are growing nicely. Figs, Ficus carica, are members of the mulberry family and are indigenous to Asiatic Turkey, northern India, and warm Mediterranean climates, where they thrive in full sun. We planted five fig trees in my vegetable greenhouse earlier this summer.
-
- The fig tree has been sought out and cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world, both for its fruit and as an ornamental plant. Most fig tree leaves are bright green, large, singular, and well-lobed.
-
- Outside my stable in front of the peafowl and pigeon pens, I have this espalier of pear trees. Espalier refers to an ancient technique, resulting in trees that grow flat, either against a wall, or along a wire-strung framework. Many kinds of trees respond beautifully to the espalier treatment, but fruit trees, like apple and pear, were some of the earliest examples. And, because necessary sunlight reaches every piece of fruit that these trees bear, espalier pruning remains standard procedure at commercial orchards in France.
-
- Last year, we planted six ‘Shinseiki’ and four ‘Nijisseiki’ pear trees. ‘Shinseiki’ Asian pear means “new century” and was developed from two of the best Asian pears of the 1940s. The ‘Shinseiki’ Asian pear is round, medium to large, yellow smooth-skinned fruit with little or no russet. It has crisp, creamy white flesh, and a mild, sweet flavor. The ‘Nijisseiki’ pear, or the 20th Century Asian pear as it is often called, is incredibly delicious, easy to grow, and smells just like a pear, but, like an apple, the outside of the fruit is crisp, firm, and round.
-
- And look at all the apples in the dwarf espalier behind my long carport – so many apples. I will be making lots of fresh apple cider this year.
-
- More apples hang from the branches of the Malus ‘Gravenstein’ espalier apple trees. I love this crisp and juicy apple, an antique variety, which is wonderful to eat and great for cooking and baking.
-
- There is always something growing here at my working farm. I am so very proud of how it has developed over the years.
Martha Pins
Martha Tweets
