Plucking ripe fruit straight from the vine or tree and biting into it may be the most pleasurable eating experience imaginable. You get to enjoy the sweet flavors at their absolute peak, not weeks later. Any gardener can raise their own fruit, but it poses a few challenges that are different from growing vegetables. To help you harvest fresh fruit from your plot, we’ve put together this simple guide to solving common problems.
Melons
Cantaloupes, watermelons, and other types of melons are annual crops, so they’re planted anew every year. That makes them much less of a commitment than other types of fruit, which typically need two or more years of growth before they start producing.
- Space: Melons belong to the cucurbit family, which includes cucumbers and squash, and they all grow on long vines that can rapidly take over your garden beds. You can raise cucumbers and smaller squash like zucchini on a trellis to save room, but melons tend to become heavy as they mature and may break off if you train the vines upward. If space is limited in your garden, look for “bush” varieties of melons, such as ‘Honey Bun Hybrid’ cantaloupe and ‘Little Darling Hybrid’ watermelon. They bear smaller but still tasty fruit on less aggressive plants.
- Disease: can suffer from the same plant diseases as other cucurbits, particularly powdery mildew, fusarium wilt, and bacterial wilt. The best way to avoid these problems is to look for varieties that have natural resistance, such as ‘Sugar Cube Hybrid’ cantaloupe, which has been bred to tolerate common diseases.
-
Pests: Squash vine borers, cucumber beetles, and squash bugs can prey on melon plants as well as other cucurbits. Striped and spotted cucumber beetles are especially troublesome because they can infect the plants with bacterial wilt as well as feeding on the leaves. Prevent all these pests from feeding and reproducing in your melon patch by covering young plants with row covers—light, woven agricultural fabric that allows in sunshine, air, and rainfall but blocks out insects. Be sure to remove tall weeds around your garden because they can be hosts for adult beetles. After the growing season ends, remove debris and leaf litter in your beds to reduce the available sites for adult beetles to spend the winter.
Berries
Raspberries, blackberries, and boysenberries grow on canes, typically with thorns, and they come back every year. Blueberries are produced on attractive bushes that have white flowers in spring and brilliant fall foliage. Currants and gooseberries are not as well-known as they once were, but they bear juicy, tart little fruits on bushes that reach about 4 feet high. They’re largely problem-free, which may be one reason why gardeners are planting them once again.
- Pests: Birds and other wildlife tend to be the most troublesome pests of berry plants. Loosely covering the bushes with bird netting is an effective protection tool for home gardeners. Cane borers damage raspberry, blackberry, and boysenberry plants by tunneling into the stems, causing them to wilt or to form swellings known as galls. When you see the damage, remove the affected canes and destroy them. This prevents the larvae from burrowing down the cane to the base and boring into the crown the next summer. When you see blueberry leaves webbed together into tubes, you have an infestation of leafrollers. Neem, an extract from a tree native to India, is an effective organic pest control for many pests that doesn’t harm people, pets, or wildlife.
- Diseases: The most common problem affecting berry plants is root rot, especially those growing in heavy clay soil. Prevent root rot by planting your berries in a well-drained spot and taking the time to loosen and amend the soil before putting them in so the roots are not sitting in water. Raspberries can be susceptible to diseases such as anthracnose, botrytis, verticillium wilt, and powdery mildew. To help prevent them, ensure healthy airflow by pruning out spent canes. Remove infected plants to prevent diseases from spreading.
Grapes
You can grow grapes to eat fresh, to make jams and jellies, or even to press into juice to make your own wine. Whether you go with purple, red, or green varieties, all of them need a support system, like an arbor or trellis, to keep the vines off the ground and healthy.
- Pests: Like with berries, birds and other wildlife often eat your grape harvest before you can. Netting can protect grape vines, too. Japanese beetles skeletonize grape leaves, chewing up all the green matter until only the stems remain. Their larvae, called grubs, live in lawns, and that is the best place to treat them with milky spore disease (Bacillus papillae), an organic liquid that is toxic to grubs but nothing else. Scale is a tiny, almost immobile pest that looks like just a light-gray bump on grape vines. To control them, spray the vines with light horticultural oil in spring, which smothers the scale.
-
Diseases: Downy and powdery mildews and other fungal diseases cause gray moldy patches to form on grape leaves. Spacing the plants to allow open air circulation around them helps prevent the problem as does watering the plants directly at their roots rather than wetting the leaves. The best way to avoid these ailments is to plant resistant varieties, such as ‘Concord’. If you need a treatment for fungal diseases, contact your county extension service for a recommendation suited to your area.
Fruit Gardening Tips to Get Started
Don't let common challenges deter you from growing fruit. If you follow these simple fruit gardening tips when you get started, you can avoid many of these problems.
Understand Your Garden Growing Zone
Before you plant anything, it's vital to understand your climate and frost dates. Determine your garden growing zone and ensure the plants you select can thrive in your region.
Make a Planting Plan
Make sure you have a plan for your garden and what you intend to grow around it. Ensure that there isn't any competition from other large trees but that there are plenty of pollinator-attracting flowers.
Check Your Soil
Before planting, take a soil sample to the County Extension Service and make any necessary amendments, including compost and fertilizers, to ensure your plant will receive nutrients and have proper drainage.
It might take some extra work, but growing fruit is extremely rewarding with some planning and care.
Ready to grow? Browse Burpee's selection of fruit plants and seeds for your garden.