Strategies for Growing Fruit on the Oregon Coast

When you live on the coast, one of the things a gardener is told is "you can't grow fruit here."  Which is bunk. Here's what you need to know about growing fruit near the ocean:

1. Pay attention to microclimates.

Most gardeners know about microclimates, little areas of your yard or neighborhood that experience radically different conditions-- like late frosts in a shady corner of the backyard, and intense heat next to a west- or south-facing wall in summer. On the coast our microclimates are intensified, especially where it concerns the effects of wind. 

Your neighbor might be able to grow a certain thing very well, but in your yard the wind comes whipping around the corner of the house and destroys the same plant. So with this in mind, a fruit grower can succeed on the coast; however microclimates must be strictly observed and can be used to advantage.

2. Carefully choose your varieties.
It's tempting to visit the big-box market an hour away from the beach and select a robust fruit tree or shrub. This can be a big mistake. Likewise, that coastal supermarket whose fruiting trees line the sidewalk for a few weeks in springtime should be avoided. I've yet to see a Bing cherry succeed here.

In both cases, you are likely to purchase a plant that is ill-suited to this specialized climate. Average winter temps are warmer than inland, and cooler in summer due to the moderating influence of the sea. Many fruit trees require cold in winter to produce a good fruit set, and long, warm summers to ripen. Choosing varieties developed for production inland may just set you up for frustration. Click here for some of the edible plants that have performed well in my Oregon coast garden.

The solution? Get to know a nursery in your community, particularly if the owner enjoys growing food. They can advise you and obtain the right plants at the right time. Locate your nearest coastal extension office-- for my location, that's in Newport. They have loads of helpful information and may even hold a seasonal plant sale with the right varieties. Finally, seek out neighbors and garden clubs in your community for advice. There's always an expert nearby if you pay attention. Read more about my choices for fruit in these articles.

3. Provide shelter from wind.
The best wind screen for your new fruiting plants is permeable rather than solid. If the wind can be diffused on its way through, the damage on the lee side will be significantly reduced. A solid barrier can actually force the wind to find its way up and over, creating increased eddies and more damage. Knitted shadecloth stretched across a frame (pictured) or existing fence can do the job nicely. I've found 30% shade cloth to be ideal, and knitted holds up in high winds better than woven cloth. Secure it with zip-ties or strong clamps. On the Oregon coast, persistent wind comes out of the north in summer and strong, gusty winds out of the southwest in winter.

A related strategy is to plant a hedge on the north side of your garden to minimize the drying winds of summer. Use coast-adapted hedge plants like these.

4. Make necessary soil amendments.
Due to heavy rainfall, our coastal soils tend to be highly acidic.  Additionally, the sandy makeup in many areas is quick to leach nutrients. Adding lime to boost pH and compost for organic matter are commonly added as topdressing, but testing your soil is a good place to start. If you can't locate a place to send samples, or the wait time is too long, get a high-quality home kit like this one for basic measurements of pH (acidity/alkalinity), nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Correcting these major nutrients-- and choosing the right plants-- will go a long way toward growing a successful garden.

What's Become of My Edible Landscape - Part 1

It's been nearly four years since my last post, and there continues to be interest in this blog. An update on the edibles in my coastal landscape seems timely, given that spring is the time for planting and planning. I'll start with some of the hits in this post, then move on to misses in part 2.

As I wrote before, planting raspberries here (and most places in the Northwest) is a no-brainer. Given their high cost at the market and ease of planting-care-harvest, they are great bang for the buck. My 'Saanich' red raspberries continue to produce mightily from one little row, filling the freezer and our bellies in early summer.

We took a big risk in cutting down the long hedge of arborvitae that provided privacy from our very-close neighbor's house, and replacing it with a row of Asian pears 'Kosui' and 'Chojuro.'  I'm happy to report they are thriving. We created a support structure of cedar posts and stainless wire on which to train our pears in a style known as "pleaching." For a great guide on this and other pruning methods, check out my favorite book on the topic.

The 'Frost' peach that was planted on the south side of our garage, trained similarly, continues producing boxes of peaches every summer. I don't weigh the harvest, instead counting the fruits, and it's usually 300+ on this single tree. The 3-way espaliered apple on my garden fence produces lots of Liberty apples, and a smaller number of Akane and Melrose. Enough for daily lunches and some processing over a few months in the fall.

Blueberries and strawberries continue producing without much trouble, and the Seascape strawberries have yielded lots of starter plants for friends and neighbors. It was great fun when the little girls next door started their very own strawberry bed from the plants I was digging out of my paths. A female Seaberry has been producing small handfuls the last two seasons (a male plant is required too).

For the first time, my Cascade hops made their way into a batch of homebrew last fall... still a ways to go learning that craft but the plants are doing well over the backyard deck. Climbing right along side them in the deck planters are an ever-changing mix of vining tomatoes, scarlet runner beans and flowering annuals. I'll have to write a separate post on the subject of coastal grapes...

Among the less-vigorous, wait-and-see plantings are the 'Negronne' fig tree, 'Red Pearl' lingonberries, cranberries and a hardy kiwi vine 'Issai.' These have all survived and show some promise but have yet to yield any food. A potted pomegranate in my greenhouse surprised me with tiny fruits last season, though they never fully matured. And for the first time I saw tiny cranberries forming on my creeping plants in the garden. Some other creature got to enjoy them but it was fun to see them at last!

Experimental Fruit 101

Last weekend I visited (for the first time) our local Fruit Scion Exchange, held by the Home Orchard Society in Canby at the Clackamas County Fairgrounds this year.

As an avid fruit grower with just a middling knowledge on the subject, it was a thrilling sight!  Hundreds of people cramming excitedly into the building for the chance to get their hands on some rare variety of fruiting plant.  Isn't it great that food gardening has become so popular?

For the novice, this event can be overwhelming and confusing with so much to choose from and little explanation of procedure. The volunteers work really hard to make it come together, so it's not meant as a criticism... but the noise level inside made it nearly impossible to ask questions. Would have liked to watch the expert grafters at work but those lines were forever long, as was the rootstock table.  I took some grafting in horticulture school but never did enough to get really good at it-- yet.

Female Seaberry leafing out

Basically the way a "scion exchange" works is that you pay an entry fee, which entitles you to as many fruit scions as you want, for free.  Scion wood is the part on your tree/plant that produces the edible variety.  That part is grafted onto a rootstock, which determines overall height and vigor of the tree, among other characteristics.  Your free scions must now be grafted onto something... so you can either stand in the long line to buy rootstock ($5 or so) and do it yourself, or pay the experts to graft it for you (another table).  Now you have a complete fruit tree to take home and baby for a year so the graft can knit together.

The other option is to take your scions home and graft them onto existing trees in your landscape.  Perhaps you have an old vigorous cherry tree that only produces the tiny sour cherries and you want some sweet ones.  Or you have an apple tree with a single variety and you'd like several on that tree.  Some folks even graft onto related plants, like a named apple variety onto wild crabapple.

Since I was unprepared as to variety information, I picked up a few scions knowing nothing about them.  Some had been recommended to me as a coastal gardener, from folks on the HOS forum.  Everything fruit-wise on the coast is an experiment, so I'm willing to give things a shot. Here's what I brought home:

Apples - Honeycrisp (a favorite), Airlie Red Flesh (also known as Hidden Rose), King Luscious
Pear - Orcas (a Puget Sound variety), Swiss Bergamotte
Asian Pear - 20th Century
Grape - Swensen's Red

Other fruits I'm growing in my home landscape in Lincoln City OR are experimental, those already bearing fruit successfully are marked in bold.  Others are quite young so it's too soon to tell, stay tuned.

Lingonberry 'Red Pearl' (OGW)
Espalier apple, 3 way: Liberty, Akane, Melrose (BL)
Espalier pear, 3 way: Bartlett, Rescue, Anjou (BL)

'Rescue' pear blossoms

spring peach blooms

Peach 'Frost', fan-trained on south wall  (BL)
Thornless blackberry 'Black Satin'
Cascade Berry, gift from our clients' Seattle home
Purple-leaf fruiting plum, unknown rooted variety, heirloom from client
Olives 'Arbequina' and 'Leccino' (OGW)
Seaberry (male & female) 'Garden's Gift' (OGW)
Honeyberry 'Blue Pacific' and 'Blue Velvet' (OGW)
Strawberry 'Seascape' (BL)
Raspberry 'Saanich' (RT)
Asian pears 'Kosui' and 'Chojuro', training into pleached form as screen (BL)
Alpine strawberry 'Mignonette'
Hops- 'Golden' (BL), 'Nugget' and 'Cascade'
Grapes - Sauvignon Blanc, 'Price', 'Crimson Bunch', 'Ortega'  (RT)
Black currant 'Crandall' (RT)
Evergreen huckleberry, native
Blueberry- 3 bushes, 'Duke' and 'Blue Crop' (BL)
Cranberry 'Stevens' - creeping groundcover type (RT)
Fig 'Negronne' - potted in greenhouse
Hardy kiwi 'Issai' (OGW)
Pomegranate (BL) - potted in greenhouse, outside summer
Citrus, unknown orange variety - potted in greenhouse, outside summer
Nanking Cherry (bush-type) - heirloom from my grandfather's garden

Non-fruiting food plants, perennial:
Rhubarb, 'Victoria' (BL)
Asparagus - unknown (BL), this will be the 3rd year
Artichokes - 'Green Globe' I think (BL)
Cinnamon vine (tuberous) 'Dr. Yao' (OGW)
Ginger -potted, from organic grocery
Wintergreen - leafy groundcover (OGW)
Tea shrub 'Sochi' (OGW) - man, do the deer love this one!
Saffron crocus (OGW)
Daylilies (for edible flowers) - several

Deer protection on tea

Jerusalem sage - not an herb, but leaves edible - (BL)

Legend: Plants purchased mail-order from Raintree Nursery (RT), One Green World (OGW) or in-person from Blake's Coastal Nursery in Gleneden Beach (BL).  Some were obtained from other gardeners.  Please note whether they can ship to your state before ordering fruit.


What kind of fruit are you growing in your landscape or garden?

Bringing Blooms Indoors

This early-spring weather on the central coast has brought about a flurry of pruning activity.  With buds swelling and some beginning to burst, it occurred to me it's a good time to mention forcing branches.

My peach tree is kept in a formal fan-shape on the wall of my garage, which necessitates regular and fairly extensive pruning to keep it in order.  As I was completing late-winter pruning yesterday, I realized there were some pretty long shoots just laying on the ground, covered with swollen flower buds.  My thrifty mom would never have let this opportunity go to waste-- so, inspired by her, I brought them inside to bloom.

Many other fruiting trees and plants will be ripe for indoor blooms in flower arrangements as well-- besides the obvious apple, pear, peach and cherry trees.  There are many blooming shrubs that set their flower buds in the previous year (on "old wood") rather than on new growth.  Common examples are forsythia (yellow) and quince (usually salmon-pink). If you are lucky enough to have a pussy willow, you can bring inside a few of the prolific branches sporting their fuzzy buds, for an interesting non-floral accent in your arrangements.

Don't limit yourself to the usual choices.  Simply look around your landscape and neighborhood for those swollen buds on shrubs and trees, especially plants you are planning to prune anyway.  A couple years ago I pruned an Exbury azalea (variety unknown) about this time of year, long before its scheduled bloom.  Knowing the buds were set, I thought there was a chance... but suspected the bloom was too far off.  However the branches surprised me, blooming after a few weeks and lasting a few more.  Interestingly, the normal color for this plant is a melon-orange, but these emerged as a pale yellow.  Apparently the dark room and short season must have played a role. I enjoyed the cheerful branches anyway, in spite of the color.

There's much more thorough instructions and ideas on branch-forcing here.  Learn a little about it, then head outside with your (sterilized) shears in hand, and an eye toward creativity.  Spring branches will enliven your home and inspire you for the gardening months to come!

Eating the View

Who says a landscape has to be merely beautiful? By the same token, why must edible plants be banished to the back garden, out of view? I'm here to tell coastal homeowners: yes, you can have your beautiful landscape and (like cake) eat it too.

A trend has gripped the nursery industry these past couple years, with the onset of the scary economic situation that began in late 2007. "Edible" plants are all the rage. Funny thing is, for many vegetable and fruit growers like me, edibles have always been our reason for gardening in the first place. We may have all started with a tomato plant or two, and before you know it, the winter seed catalogs have us prancing down the garden path toward exotic herbs and Asian greens, not to mention strange fruits.

By now, many of you have become familiar with attractive landscape-quality edibles like kale, Swiss chard (especially the 'Bright Lights' variety) and the striking artichoke. These dinner staples can be worked right into a varied perennial or shrub border, fitting in as comfortably in the front yard as the veggie patch.

What you may not realize, or perhaps haven't considered, is that many fruiting plants are front-yard stunners as well. Why bother with barberry and cotoneaster in your foundation plantings, when you could instead plant an elderberry, evergreen huckleberry, cranberry, currant or gooseberry? Many of these plants offer more than just the fruit but also floral and changing-color leaf displays to enjoy. Those among us with an adventurous spirit, willing to pay attention to cultural plant needs, might even try the cutting-edge seaberries or honeyberry.

Working old familiar standards into a landscape can be easier than you think. In the past couple years, I have transformed a formerly sad juniper-patch into strawberries, and the south side of my garage is the perfect habitat for a 'Frost' peach tree, trained into a fan. This pink-flowered stunner provided 30 fruits in its first year. A stone retaining wall is now lined with a row of 'Saanich' raspberries instead of handrail, and the back fences of my property support a 3-way pear, 3-way apple and 3 new varieties of grape selected for the coast. The apple and pear are espaliered, to make the most of limited space.

Take a good long look at what is filling your front yard and ask some questions like, does it get full sun? Is there shelter from the strongest winds? What is that plant (in place now) doing for me-- is it flowering, providing groundcover, or just taking up space? Do I appreciate the texture, color, fall display? After you assess these questions, you can begin to think through what edibles might take their place, and provide you with more than just scenery. What you might get instead, is good eats!

My fruiting plant sources in the Northwest: Raintree Nursery (WA) and One Green World (OR). Be sure to check what can be shipped into your state-- many are prohibited to cross state lines.

Peaches, Pears and Peas

The arrival of spring on the coast is like most anywhere, heralded by the blooms of daffodils and crocuses, while deciduous trees emerge from dormancy. Spring heath (often called heather) is in full bloom, mostly of the 'Mediterranean Pink' or white varieties. A few hebes have been coaxed into bloom after an unusually sunny late winter. But the stars in my garden promise future bounty: peaches, pears and peas.

The coast is a challenging site for the would-be fruit gardener, and stone fruit in particular can be picky about climate. Typically they perform best where winters are cold to accumulate enough "chilling hours," followed by a sunny spring that encourages pollinators during bloom and ample moisture to develop the fruit. With cherries, the rain must come to an end in time that the fruit won't crack just as it's mature. Peaches and apricots normally want some more heat than we can provide on the Oregon coast, and the wind can be a challenge to branches and leaves.

My good fortune was to work for a nurseryman a few years ago who brings to our area one particular peach variety that is disease-resistant (peach-leaf curl is a problem) and grows vigorously, with lower chilling requirements. The variety is 'Frost' -- a selection discovered in western Washington state. Given my less-than-ideal setting, I am training my peach on the south-facing wall of our garage into a fan shape. If you are familiar with espalier apples, it's the same idea. Build a substantial post-and-wire trellis with space between it and the wall, plant the tree relatively young and carefully select and train the branches into place. Even if this tree never produces a fruit, its beautiful pink blossoms look fantastic against our pale-yellow wall. The south-facing aspect provides reflected heat and a barrier to north winds in summer.

The pears are also coming into bloom, and with a city lot, I am again working with an espaliered form. Like the peach, pears would prefer a warmer late-spring climate, as in the outstanding inland tree-fruit areas of central Washington and Oregon's Hood River area. But my little 3-way (3 different varieties grafted on one tree) pear receives full sun and is in a protected site, so last year it produced several fruits in its first season. Unfortunately the raccoons got them before me, so that will need to be remedied this year. The dense show of white blossoms on the north fence against the woods is a treat in itself.

Peas are among the best reasons to keep a vegetable garden-- the taste difference from what you can buy to what comes out of the garden rivals that of homegrown tomatoes. When picked fresh and immediately shelled, garden peas have the sugars intact and are frequently eaten raw -- at least in my garden. My border collie will wait for the sweet pods to hit the ground and gobble them up. Our climate could not be better for peas, with ample moisture and cool moderate temps. The sugar-snaps I started in a large pot in January have now moved outside and are climbing the trellis with abandon. An abundance of white flowers promise peas are soon to come, but even the young shoots are tasty and can be sampled on salads or stir-fried.

March on the coast is proving to be cool and rainy, but the warm January has brought many plants out of dormancy early, and we can begin to enjoy the colors of spring.

Next up: planning your coastal landscape