The Fruits of My Farm
So many delicious fruits are growing here at my Bedford, New York farm.
Fresh fruit is one of nature's most delicious products. This summer, I've already picked many boxes of berries, but all the others - the peaches, apples, and pears are developing so nicely. 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 - those I've planted, and those that are original to the farm. It's always exciting to see how they grow and then harvest them when they're ready.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
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- This orchard surrounds three sides of my pool. Many of the trees here were bare-root cuttings I nurtured in pots before planting. Now, they are much taller and so lush. When choosing to grow fruit stock, it is important to select those that are best for your area’s climate and soil.
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- The peach trees are laden with growing fruits.
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- I have beautiful peaches! Some of the peach varieties include ‘Garnet Beauty’, ‘Lars Anderson’, ‘Polly’, ‘Red Haven’, and ‘Reliance’.
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- Peach trees thrive in an area where they can soak up the sunshine throughout the whole day. It prefers deep sandy well-drained soil that ranges from a loam to a clay loam.
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- I also planted many types of Asian pear, Pyrus pyrifolia, which is native to East Asia. These 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.
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- Some of the other pears in the orchard are ‘Bosc,’ ‘Bartlett’, ‘Columbia’, ‘D’Amalis’, ‘Ginnybrook’, ‘McLaughlin’, ‘Nova’, ‘Patten’, ‘Seckel’, ‘Stacyville’, and ‘Washington State’.
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- Do you know what these are? Medlars, Mespilus germanica – a small deciduous tree and member of the rose family. The fruit is small, about one to two inches in diameter, and ranging in color from rosy rust to dusty brown. Medlars are native to Southwestern Asia and Southeastern Europe.
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- The fruits will be the last to harvest. They 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.
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- I also grow sour cherries in the orchard and elsewhere, and I’ve seen lots of them growing beautifully; however, the squirrels like them too, and often get them first.
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- And don’t forget the apples – I have an entire section of the orchard dedicated to delicious, sweet apples.
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- I grow hundreds of apple trees – some that were here when I acquired the property and others I planted soon after moving here. These orchard apple trees include: ‘Baldwin’, ‘Black Oxford’, ‘Cortland’, ‘Cox’s Orange Pippin’, ‘Esopus Spitzenburg’, ‘Fuji’, ‘Golden Russet’, ‘Grimes Golden’, ‘Honeycrisp’, ‘Liberty’, ‘Redfield’, ‘Roxbury Russet’ ‘Windham Russet’, and more.
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- Many ask what I do with all the apples. It’s become a family tradition to have my granddaughter, Jude, come up with friends for a weekend in autumn to manually press as many apples as possible, making quarts and quarts of cider. It’s so delicious.
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- My dwarf espalier apples near my Winter House are also developing so wonderfully. It will be a great apple season.
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- Outside my stable in front of the peafowl and goose 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.
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- I planted six ‘Shinseiki’ and four ‘Nijisseiki’ pear trees.
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- This sour cherry tree is down by the chicken coops. Look closely and see how full it is with fruits.
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- I always have many, many blueberries. I’ve picked a couple of boxes already, but I still have lots more to get as soon as they’re ready.
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- Plump, juicy, and sweet, with vibrant colors from red to the deepest purple-black. I love to use blueberries for jams, jellies, and pies, but they’re also wonderful with cereal, in pancakes and cobblers, and of course, in handfuls on their own. I grow many blueberry varieties, including ‘Bluegold’, ‘Chandler’, ‘Darrow’, ‘Jersey’, and ‘Patriot’.
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- In my berry patch behind the main greenhouse, I have lots of raspberry bushes. We start picking the black raspberries in early July.
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- Nearby, I have gooseberries…
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- … and currants, in translucent white, dark purple, and bright ruby red.
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- And just outside my main greenhouse, a collection of potted fig trees that are growing an abundance of fruits. Figs, Ficus carica, are actually clusters of flowers growing inside a pod, known as a syconium. They’re bulb-shaped, about the size of a thumb, and can have a purple or green skin with a sweet, pink flesh filled with tiny seeds. No plants give sweeter returns than fruiting trees and shrubs. Aside from all the vegetables I grow, I’m so pleased with all the fruits here at my farm.
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