Ideas for community gardens < fast fruits

FAST FRUITS

Fast, tasty and abundant - the fast fruits are suitable for even small community gardens. (right- banana passionfruit; top and left - tree tomato).

Fast fruits are suitable for the community garden because they:

• are fast growing (that’s why they are called fast fruits)
• have a compact growth form – they don’t take much space and are suitable for smaller community and home gardens
• brings plant and food diversity to the garden
• have a place in garden landscape design
• are short lived – typically between four and seven years depending on plant; if your community garden is not guaranteed long-term tenure, you can still obtain a fruit harvest by growing the fast fruits rather than the slow growing fruits such as citrus, avocados and stone fruits.

For community gardeners, the fast fruits offer:

• a tasty source of vitamins and minerals necessary to our health
• a quick crop of tasty fruit - fast fruits set fruit within three years, depending on species
• high productivity - in the best growing conditions they produce a heavy crop
• a way to make use of the space around slower growing fruit trees; as the slower fruit trees grow, the fast fruits can be thinned out to make space for them.

Where to plant your fruit or nut trees and shrubs

Before you plant fruit or nut trees:

• think carefully about where the plants will cast shadows when they reach their mature size
• think about where the winter sun, which is lower in the sky that the summer sun, will cast longer shadows
• make sure that the shade cast by mature fruit trees will not fall on your vegetable gardens; vegetables need at least six hours of sunlight a day to grow properly
• make sure that your fruit trees are not in the path of cold, blustery winter winds that could limit growth, cause windburn to the foliage and break branches.

Plant your fruit and nut trees separately from your annual garden beds so that:

• their roots do not compete with the vegetables for soil nutrients
• they do not shade out the vegetables or the allotments of neighbouring gardeners
• the annual beds can be periodically cleared to plant a different type of crop or to establish a seedbed for crop rotation.

In community gardens where the work and the harvest is shared, perennial vegetables might be interplanted among the fruit trees in a combined orchard/ perennial area.

Design for community gardens set up as allotments

In allotment gardens, individual gardeners have their own garden bed in which they grow food and other plants for themselves.

In this type of community garden:

• separate fruit into an orchard area even if fruit trees and shrubs belong to individual allotment holders; this prevents the trees and shrubs overshadowing other allotments
• fruit trees and tall shrubs should be kept out of allotments where vegetables and herbs are grown, however low-growing shrubs like cape gooseberry, blueberry and other berry fruits and pepino can be grown in vegetable allotments.

Make productive use of space

You can use the space around your slower-growing fruit and nut trees (such as citrus, avocado and stone fruits) by planting the fast fruits (banana, pawpaw, babaco and fruiting shrubs such as blueberry) between them.

When used this way, the fast fruits are known as a 'catch crop':

• it is a way to make use of space until the slower-growing fruits mature
• the fast fruits catch nutrients and resources such as water and sunlight until the slower-growing fruits and nuts grow to take over the space.

Catch cropping is managed by:

• planting fast fruits and the slower-growing fruits and nuts at the same time
• avoiding the crowding of your slower-growing fruit trees and shrubs by planting the fast fruits far enough from them
• removing some of the fast fruits as the slower-growing fruit and nut trees and shrubs mature and need more space.

Catch crops may include:

• the fast fruits
• long-lived vegetables such as globe artichoke, jerusalum artichoke, yacon (peruvian ground apple) and sweet potato
• annual scramblers such as pumpkin and melons
• nitrogen fixing annual or perennial ground covers and shrubs - these are the legumes which provide nutrients to our fruit trees and improve soil fertility; they might include -
  • shrubs such as pigeon pea and croatalaria
  • ground covers such as clover, lablab bean, lupins and alfalfa (lucerne)
  • in temperate climates, broad beans.

Other garden design considerations

• in the southern hemisphere, locate the fruit trees to the south of your vegetable beds to avoid shading the vegetables
• protect fast fruits from strong and cold winds; in Australia, if your garden is exposed to potentially damaging winter winds, consider planting a windbreak of trees and shrubs (if you have the space) such as:
  • casuarina (common names: she oak or river oak)
  • acacia (common name: wattle)
  • grevillia
  • icecream bean (Inga edulis - this is a South American tree that produces an edible pulp in its large, yellow pod))
  • small leaf lillypilly (syzygium leuhmanii - this is an Australian bush food; you can eat the tasty fruit)
• copy the structure of the forest in your orchard area by planting:
  • ground cover plants
  • a shrub layer/ small tree layer (the fast fruits do nicely for this)
  • a canopy layer of taller fruit and nut trees - this vertical layering of plants according to shade tolerance and height is known as ‘stacking’.

Managing your fast fruits

To keep your fast fruits healthy:

• protect them from strong, cold winds
• provide plenty of water but do not over-water
• monitor them for plant diseases and insect pests
• maintain soil fertility by adding compost and mulch; keep mulch a couple centimetres away from the trunk of young fruit trees - if it is in contact with the trunk it can can result in collar rot, killing the tree.

Notes on the plant description

growth form: sizes given are for mature plants, so allow sufficient space between trees and shrubs when planting your fruits; sizes are approximate only - the size a plant will grow to depends on microclimate, watering, soil fertility, the incidence of insects pests and plant diseases, exposure to cold, strong winds

pollination: plants need to pollinate to set fruit; some plants require the presence of both female and male plants; some are self-pollinating and others might be bisexual hybrids producing fruit from a single plant while their non-hybrid form requires both male and female plants

botanic name: these are the names botanists and horticulturists use to identify plants; sometimes, a single plant will have more than one common name, leading to confusion in identifying it; there is only one botanic name, so it is a more accurate way to identify a plant.

spp: abbreviation for ‘species’ which denotes a particular plant variety

centre of diversity: the region where the plant originated and from where it spread.

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PAGE UPDATED... Sunday, 20 January 2002