Cold-Hardy Fruits and Nuts: 50 Easy-to-Grow Plants for the Organic Home Garden or Landscape

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In the mid-summer, the berries start to turn deep red. They have a sweet and slightly acidic flavor that tastes great, whether eating raw or cooking. Sometimes, magnolia vines are called the five flavor fruit because they have everything! The shells as sweet, but the meat is sour. The seeds taste bitter, and the extract is salty – unique, right? These trees can grow up to 30 meters (100 feet) tall and 9 meters (30 feet) wide, and produce small, yellowish-brown nuts that are enclosed in fleshy, plum-like fruit. The fruit has a strong, unpleasant odor that is often compared to the smell of rancid butter or vomit. Watch out for volunteer mulberry trees. When birds drop the seeds, mulberry trees pop up everywhere. Mulberry trees aren’t small trees; some varieties can reach up to 50 feet tall. So, don’t plant the tree near a sidewalk, other trees, or your house. The easy-to-use resource for growing healthy, resilient, low-maintenance trees, shrubs, vines, and other fruiting plants from around the world—perfect for farmers, gardeners, and landscapers at every scale.

Homegrown cherry trees give you delicious fruit without too much work. Cherries are broken down into two categories: sweet cherries and sour cherries. Yes, the fruit itself is edible if you can get over the scent. Most people prefer to eat the nuts inside of the fruit, which are considered a delicacy. Ginkgo nuts look similar to pistachio with a soft, dense texture, but they’re mildly toxic, so eat small amounts at a time. In Japan, Korea, and China, Ginkgo nuts are sold as a seed as the “silver apricot nut.” Though the trees are hardy to zone 3, late frosts can damage the buds and prevent fruiting in the coldest regions. Plant in a micro-climate that melts out late or protects the trees during late frosts.Our permaculture homestead is in a cold zone 4, with temps that occasionally dip as low as -27 F in the winter. While we won’t be harvesting mangoes anytime soon, there are still plenty of options for temperature climate permaculture food forest plantings. Though not often thought of as a food source these days, beechnuts were a historically significant source of calories. The nuts are very high in protein and part of Native Americans and early settlers’ diet. Growing hardy fruits doesn’t come without its challenges. If you’re serious about starting a hardy fruit orchard on your property, you’ll want to get a copy of Growing Fruit in Northern Gardens. I own this book and turn to it again and again to make sure I’m setting up my fruit to be as successful as possible.

The American chestnut (Castanea dentata) once dominated eastern US forests but is now nearly extinct due to chestnut blight fungus. It produced very large, sweet nuts. Efforts are underway to restore the species. The European Chestnut (Castanea sativa) During the fall, do not irrigate your walnut trees. When the terminal vegetative bud has grown, another irrigation can be attempted if there has been no rain. Nitrogen fertilizer applications should be stopped on the first of September to prevent new growth. Watering should be stopped in mid-September until the terminal vegetative buds appear. If there has not been any rain during the last few weeks of September or October, another irrigation may be required if the terminal vegetative bud has not yet developed. Plant your seeds in a timely manner and apply fertilizer to increase their growth. When your walnuts are young, you can fertilize them with nitrogen-only fertilizer in the early spring and late summer to keep them from fruiting. When nitrogen is depleted in excess, it promotes plant foliage growth while also reducing flowering. You should refrain from watering your walnut tree in the fall. Can Walnuts Grow In Winter? It's native to western North America where it is drought tolerant and grows at high elevations, producing small pine nuts eaten by Native Americans and wildlife. It provides food and habitat in arid regions. The Mexican Pinyon (Pinus cembroides) Cold climate gardening can seem limiting, and you just can’t grow many common supermarket fruits. That just means you have to get creative because there are literally dozens of delicious cold hard fruits you’ve probably never tried. Highbush cranberries aren’t actually cranberries despite the name, but they have similarities. Both grow their fruits in “drupes,” and the berries look like cranberries in size, color, and taste. Also, both highbush cranberries and cranberries mature in the fall.The plants listed below are well suited to grow in zone 3, 4, and 5, providing good yields with minimal effort for a well-planned diverse permaculture homestead. Aronia Berries (Aronia melanocarpa) Gardeners often skip over adding grapes because they seem like they’d be hard to grow, but once established, grapes can grow for decades, making them an excellent addition to your perennial garden.

Cooked haskaps make delicious jams and tarts. Try my tart recipe here. Related: Haskaps: The Perfect Prairie Berry for Early Harvest 16. KIWI

After tasting rhubarb, you wouldn’t believe it’s technically a vegetable, but no one eats them like a veggie. Rhubarb is a perennial plant that produces tall, red-pink stalks with a unique sour taste. It looks like pink-red celery, but the plants can reach large sizes and produce for 15-20 years each spring. The nuts are thin-shelled and easy to open, maturing 1-4 weeks before the hull opens. Expect yields of nuts starting in the middle of fall. The nuts are oval and measure up to two inches in diameter. It takes between 4-8 years for the tree to produce any nuts.