I live in high desert in Utah, 6B but warming, just outside the mouth of a canyon on a suburban lot that's abutted by the local irrigation canal and wilderness beyond. I'm the edge of development.
I'm on irrigation water and I water with 4 oscillating sprinklers which cover the majority of my planting space.
My lot's about 1/3 of an acre, much on steep slope.
I got started planting around 4 years ago, and I planted around 300 edibles, including strawberries, honey berries, nanking cherries, a bunch of rubus varieties, and 6 fruit trees (2 apples, 2 pears, 2 cherries).
Around 50% perished within the first two years. The climate is harsh, and we have a two month (at least) rainless season with average temps in the mid-90s & 100+ heat waves, and my land was dead and neglected when I bought the house.
However, the land has become rich and bountiful in the years since, and I just planted around 200 more edibles (in addition to the occasional additions in the time between major plantings including a mulberry, more cherry trees, some nectarines, etc and some of this stuff perished as well). These include a ton more rubus varieties including blackberries; raspberries; black raspberries; and some interesting hybrids and specimen species, a bunch of ribes varieties, ≈ 5 dozen fruit trees and bushes including mulberry; peach; Shipova; some more varieties of nanking to improve fruit set; bush cherries; more varieties of strawberries; serviceberry; pawpaw; quince; jujube, a couple more honeyberry varieties (they've released better cultivars in the years since and I'll be adding a few more next year), the most cold-hardy varieties of Chilean guavas I could source set up in an extra warm microclimate with a solar capturing stone wall so I can zone creep 'em, and a couple dozen vines including hardy kiwi & around 6 species of grapes across ≈ 15 vines. Some more stuff too, but you get the picture.
So far, I've had a few apples and pears, a decent amount of cherries, a scattering of nanking cherries (they're vigorous, but need better pollination, hence the new varieties), a shit-ton of strawberries, a few bowlfuls of raspberries and blackberries, a lot of honey berries, and that's about it.
However, this year we had a freaky warm winter and a freaky late snowstorm and I lost, literally, every single blossom on all my fruit trees. 0 fruit this year when I was expecting my first actual harvest on a number of my trees.
Double however, that's okay. The trees are devoting the energy to growth this year and everything is looking vital and happy.
I'll have, assuming no freaky fruit-ruining weather, a good harvest of apples, pears, cherries, mulberries, and all the bush berries next year.
Within 5 years I'll be able to supply all my fruit for the year with sharing of certain fruits with the neighbors aplenty.
Within 10 years, it'll be too much and neighbors will be locking doors when they see me coming down the road with a wagon full of fruit.
I've planted super-densely, obviously, and this does impact production. However, It's my existence that you'll get more fruit than you think per plant in a crowded system, and then you can have the crazy variety and novelty that most of us end up pursuing.
Medlars, cornelian cherry, goumi, maypop, and a few others are still on my list and I'll be bringing in one more blackberry variety next year, Thunderhead, after reading about reports coming out from some breeding forums about it.
But, in answer to the actual question -
The following, when mature, would provide a long season and enough fruit to satisfy the family of 4 and have some left over for the neighbors:
- 1 multi-graft cherry
- 1 multi-graft pear
- 1 multi-graft plum
- 1 multi-graft peach
- 1 multi-graft apple
(all on dwarf or semi-dwarf)
- 2 dwarf mulberries
- 6-12 honey berries
- 3-6 each of raspberries and blackberries (or other rubus varieties/hybrids)
- around a dozen each of 5-6 varieties of strawberries
- 4 grape vines
- 4 hardy kiwi vines (1 male)
- 2 each of 4 nanking cherry varieties
I've attached a few random photos that don't really convey all that much of what I've just been talking about, but you'll get some of the picture and I'm feeling to lazy to go take better pictures right now. Heh.
