Luscious Guide to Growing Fruit Naturally

Lee Reich in his new book, Growing Fruits Naturally, makes it easy for a small farmer to grow fruit.

Move over vegetables. Less kale, more quince. Fewer zucchini, more kiwi. Make room for more fruit in the garden and on the farm. Whether you add fruits for your own home use or to add small crop diversity at the farm stand or farmer’s market, now is the time to explore what lies between apples and strawberries.Many folks consider fruits too difficult to grow, and certainly large-scale commercial growers are challenged to maximize yields and minimize spoilage. Yet homegrown fruits grace your dinner table and enhance your small farm operation. Naturally grown fruit emphasizes quality — flavor, nutrients, and natural pest resistance – over quantity and size. For apples, among the most difficult to grow fruits, this means selecting Macouns or Newtown Pippins for new rootstock. Or maybe you just need to identify those pretty yellow blushing heirloom apple trees in your hedge row, prune or take rootstock to yield bushels from just a few trees.

Black raspberries drive me wild. I search through patches of poison ivy, reach into thorns, and compete with bears and birds for their precious succulence. “Like the nipple on a wet nurse,” is the description given to these precious fruits by Clarissa of Two Fat Ladies (BBC cooking series). Naturally grown, without artificial fertilizers or pesticides, nothing else compares.
Elderberries, pomegranates, and currants are increasingly popular fruits with the public. Medlar, Mulberries, and Pawpaw fruits are being rediscovered. Cherries, blueberries, raspberries and strawberries remain perennial favorites.

Lee Reich, PhD turned from plant and soil research with the USDA and Cornell University to writing, lecturing, and consulting.

In his new book, Growing Fruits Naturally (Taunton Press, March 2012), Lee Reich provides all a small farmer needs to know to easily grow fruit. This luscious guidebook offers thorough information about how to grow, propagate, prune, and harvest fruits. Pollination needs, pests and diseases, sunlight requirements, climate zones, and specific plants and multiple varieties are described in detail with accompanying full color large photographs. The simple and straightforward organization of information marks this as another reference book to keep on your bookshelf from Lee Reich.