| Rating |
Good Cultivars |
Comments |
| Excellent |
(Delicious, no-spray, easy pick fruits) |
| Red Raspberry |
Heritage, Summit, and my antique variety which I am willing to share with
you. |
Best fruit for your backyard. Easy picking(no climbing or stooping), freezes
without effort, daily production of fresh fruit for a longer period (not a one
shot deal as with other fruit). |
| Pawpaw |
Sunflower is self-fertile. Sweet Alice, Overleese |
Most beautiful tree for your front lawn and most delicious fruit size of a
potato. No work at all once established, but first year plants need a little
shading and attention. Resistant to deer and insects. |
| Hardy Kiwi |
Annanasnaja("Anna") plus male. Jumbo is a new favorite. |
Vigoruous vine, fruit much sweeter and more flavor than southern types you
buy in the store and it is fuzzless! Buy larger plants as smaller ones need
extra protection first winter. |
| Jujube |
Li - best fruit. So - most ornamental tree |
Another lovely tree for front lawn with tiny glossy leaves. Two trees for
pollination may help. Li and So are early-ripening, frost may catch
late-ripening varieties in our area. Also called Chinese Date and when fruit
starts to shrivel, tastes just like a date. |
| American Persimmons |
John Rick, Yates, Meader |
Like Pawpaw, a native tree, will pucker until fully ripe. |
| Black Raspberry |
Jewel |
Seedier and shorter harvest season than red, but my Pennsylvania Dutch
friends grow blacks because they tell me it holds flavor better than reds do
when used in preserves. |
| Blueberry |
Duke, Bluecrop, Chandler (biggest berries and delicious) |
Attractive, ornamental, native shrub, but when fruit ripening, must be
covered as birds go wild for fruit. Introduced to the world from NJ Pinebarrens.
Lowbush blueberry for space-challenged. |
| Nanking Cherry |
|
A bush, but with some plants fruit is sweet and delicious but smaller than
sweet(tree) cherry. As with blueberries and shadberries you must cover tree with
netting at harvest time or birds will devour. |
| Very Good |
|
| Currants, Gooseberry & Hybrids |
|
These are best fruits if your yard is shady. Pawpaw also tolerates part
shade. |
| Blackberry |
Navaho, Doyle, Chester, Arapaho |
Navaho and Arapaho are more upright and thornless. |
| Asian Pear |
Korean Giant plus many other cultivars |
To me, these trees are more beautiful than purely ornamental pear trees and
the fruit crisp and delicious. Less pest problems than regular pears, some get
good results without spraying. Korean Giant will keep all winter in
fridge. |
| Heartnut |
Rhodes is self-fertile |
The two most attractive nut trees for your property are Heartnut and
Filbert, both producing easy-to-crack deliciuous nuts, both usually no-spray,
no-pamper trees although squirrels can be a problem unless you have a good dog.
Heartnuts have lovely flowers and when cracking, shells fall apart into two
perfect halves releasing unbroken nuts. These very ornamental shells can be used
in crafts. Both trees are precocious, producing nuts in about three years. As
with fruit trees, it is important to get grafted cultivars instead of seedlings.
Heartnut is in the walnut family and roots may be toxic to some
plants. |
| Hazelnut, Filbert, and Hybrids |
Readleaf, Ennis, Hall's Giant and blight-resistant cultivars now being
introduced |
See comments under 'Heartnut' |
| Mulberry |
Illinois Everbearing is self-fertile |
Kids and birds like the fruit and so do I, but don't plant over sidewalks.
Some say Mulberry & Shadberry will draw birds away from some other fruits.
|
| Good |
|
| European Pear (the common pear) |
Warren, Seckel, Honey Sweet |
Unlike Asian Pear, fruit of most varieties should be picked before fully
ripe. Seckel small and sweet and can be allowed to ripen on tree. |
| Strawberry |
|
Keeps your back in shape (or strains it). |
| Cornelian Cherry |
Redstone |
Dogwood family. Nice bush or cut off bottom branches and becomes lovely
little tree. It is completely covered with yellow blossoms in early March. Fruit
has been described as a cranberry with a stone. |
| Shadberry |
Various species of Amelanchier |
Grows wild in N.J. Pines encirling the cranberry bogs. Fuit looks like a
blueberry and birds love it. Also called Juneberry, Shadblow, Serviceberry,
Saskatoon. |
| Pie Cherry |
Montmorency |
Smaller tree and more compact than Sweet Cherry and less problems. Lot of
work picking and pitting, but I love the pie. |
| Shagbark Hickory/Shellbark Hicory |
Yoder #1, Seas, Grainger. Keystone, Henry |
Like Black Walnuts, Hickories are well adapted to this area. No spraying, no
pampering required. Grainger considered the standout. Yoder #1 reported to be
self-fertile, but less precocious. |
| Chinese Chestnut |
Orrin, Henry VIII |
Great tree for kids to climb on. Tough for squirrels to get nuts until husks
open and tough for you too without sturdy gloves. Much lower in calories than
other nuts - a low cal nut! Put husks under Hostas to deter slugs. |
| American Chestnut |
To be announced |
American Chestnut wiped out by blight, but disease resistant cultivars will
be available in 5 years. Takes six generations of back-crossing to develop
resistance and there are two generations to go. Nuts similar to Chinese but tree
form different. |
| Average |
|
| Grapes |
For eating: Alden, Canadice For wine: Edelweiss, Marchel Foch, Joannes-Seyve
23-416 |
Subject to fruit rot and many pests. Alden big and solid, most like
California grapes, Canadice sweet and seedless. Friends say non-spray growers
may do well with the listed wine grapes |
| Apple |
Choose disease-resistant varieties. Liberty resistant to all four major
apple diseases. Enterprise and William's Pride are resistant. |
Subject to insect damage but no-spray growers can make cider (containing
possibly more protein). Semi-dwarfs (like M-7) usually do not have to be staked
& more tolerant of drought & other adverse conditions than full dwarfs,
but full dwarfs easier to reach and handle. My favorites are Gala and Yataka but
neither is disease resistant. Amos Fisher says old russet varieties like Rusty
Coat & Golden Russet are somewhat resistant. |
| Black Walnut |
Thomas, Emma K. |
Beautiful, no-spray, trouble-free tree but not for most backyards as gets
big and roots toxic to some plants. Lot of work husking and cracking, but these
two excellent cultivars much easier to crack. Most beautiful tree is cut-leaf
walnut, people think it is a Japanese maple and never guess that it is a
walnut. |
| Beach Plum |
To be announced |
Nice bush, grows wild in Pinelands, tastes good but only tiny amount of meat
between stone & skin. However, Rutgers Fruit R&D in Cream Ridge, NJ may
develop improved cultivars. |
| WORST FRUITS |
(Spraying required unless in lucky location) |
| Plums |
Stanley, Methley, S. Dakota, Purple Heart |
Plums get black knot growths on branches, Asian plums rot easily in wet
weather. Only plum not beset with problems is perhaps Damson, but this is only
good for preserves. |
| Peaches |
Erli-Redfre, Redhaven |
Borers and other problems, but early-ripening peaches have less problems.
Little genetic-dwarfs grow to perhaps five feet and quite ornamental, "Bonfire"
is my favorite. |
| Sweet Cherry |
|
Bird predation and diseases galore. My Stark Gold cherry is of poor quality,
but birds do not hit on it as fast as reds. Others recommmend Emperor Napoleon
for this reason which is a better quality cherry. |
| Nectarines |
|
This is a sport of peach. After ripening, the fruit rots much faster than
peach which is why I prefer peach. |
| Apricots |
|
No fruit produced most years in most locations because early Spring frosts
kill blossoms. |
| HYBRIDS Plum-Cherry Plum-Apricot Pear-Mountain Ash Plum-Peach Fall
Cherries |
|
None of these hybrids have done well for me. |
| FRUITS DIFFICULT FOR ME TO CLASSIFY |
|
| Alpine Strawberries, Butternut, Cranberry, Cudrania on Osage Orange
rootstock, Chokeberry, Elderberry, Eleagnus, English Walnut, Fig, Highbush
cranberry, Japanese Raisin tree, Kiwi:Kolomikta, Kiwi: Deliciosa. Mayhaw,
Maypop, Medlar, Peanuts, Pine Nuts, Quince, Rugosa Rose, Sugar Maple,
Yellowhorn |
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