City of Belmont - Ruth Faulkner Public Library

Grow fruit, Alan Buckingham ; Australian consultant, Jennifer Wilkinson

Grow fruit

Alan Buckingham ; Australian consultant, Jennifer Wilkinson

Few things taste more delicious than fruit picked straight from the tree, when perfectly ripe. This is fruit the way nature intended, not fruit that has been flown in from thousands of miles away, or stored in climate-controlled warehouses before being sealed in plastic for supermarket shelves. From ripe berries bursting with juice, to apples, plums or cherries, the new, fully revised edition of Grow Fruit shows that it's easy to grow your own, no matter how little room you have. The north-south divide In southern Australia, we have what's called a temperate climate, and are able to grow a wide variety of fruit fairly successfully. That said, there are real differences from one part of the country to another. An imaginary line drawn from Brisbane to Perth more or less indicates the divide between north and south. Cool-climate tree fruits such as apples, pears, plums, and cherries; berries such as raspberries, thornless blackberries, and currants; and warm temperate or Mediterranean climate fruits can be grown in suitable microclimates south of this line. North of this line, temperatures and humidity increase due to the tropical weather pattern. Conditions best suit tropical fruits and citrus, but it's worth sourcing low-chill varieties of peaches, nectarines, apricots, apples, and grapes, which may be grown successfully north of this line. Fruit cultivars A quick look at the catalogue of a specialist plant nursery - or, indeed, at a few of the pages that follow in this book - will give you an immediate idea of just how many different varieties or cultivars there are of each major type of fruit