Forum:

forest garden

Fruits and Nuts in a Northerly Climate

Posts: 20

Location: Cesis, Latvia

posted 1 year ago

3
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Hey everyone,

I'm currently researching what should be possible to grow in our Northerly climate of Latvia. Locals here can be rather conservative over what they try growing, but actually we have a very good growing climate! Lots of sunny hours during the spring and summer, although the autumns do often come early and suddenly! Winters can get down to around -25C (-13F) and July average temperature is around 19C (66F)

In good years we can grow peaches here. So I'm wondering about some other options:

Apricots - I know of some apricot varieties that grow high up in the Himalayas where it is very cold - hunza being one of them.
Persimmons - Even D.Kaki can be grown in Northern Japan where winters are colder than here.
Figs - My friend Paul grows figs in the cold mountains of Bulgaria, so might be worth a go!
Cornus kousa chinensis - I love these custardy little fruits, quite hardy.

Almonds - growing in Sweden apparently.
Chestnuts - Japanese Chestnuts grow well in Northern Japan, which has a similar climate to here.
Walnuts - I've seen some growing, now wondering if they're viable for major production.

Other - Bamboo - I've never seen bamboo in Latvia, but I'd love to try the most hardy varieties!
Szechuan Pepper - quite cold hardy I believe!

I'd be very grateful for any feedback on these ideas - growers from Canada and other Northerly climes probably have great knowledge on this - thank you!!

Rachel Lindsay

gardener

Posts: 895

Location: Tennessee

567

I like...

posted 1 year ago

5
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

I promise, I do not work for Chelsea Green Publishing! I just really like their books, and am on their mailing list. And so when I found this new release announced in my inbox today, it made me think of your question:

Cold-Hardy Fruits and Nuts: 50 Easy-to-Grow Plants for the Organic Home Garden or Landscape by Scott Serrano and Allyson Levy

An American publishing company, they do ship internationally if you order by phone or e-mail. (I always order from the publisher so I can avoid doing business with certain companies that are...much much too big.) For more info, here is the Cold-Hardy Fruits and Nuts book page at the Chelsea Green Publishing website

“Every human activity is an opportunity to bear fruit and is a continual invitation to exercise the human freedom to create abundance...” ― Andreas Widmer

Julie Anne

Posts: 71

I like...

posted 1 year ago

1
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

All of those seem possible. Worth a try, at least, with the right variety. Apples, of course. Hazelnuts should be work. Cranberries or lingonberries? Mulberries? Blueberries? Haskaps?

What is your soil texture and pH like?

Mk Neal

pollinator

Posts: 1056

Location: Chicago

333

I like...

posted 1 year ago

1
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Welcome to permies! I used to live a bit north of you in Estonia, but have spent most of my life in the North-central U.S.

One big difference between the Baltic climate and the climate of North America (other than Pacific Coast) is that in North America we generally have much hotter summers even in areas that have very cold winter. Without the long, hot, summer you may be frustrated by fruit not ripening.

I live in Chicago now, and people do grow apricots and figs here. However, the warm season is not always quite long enough to get ripe figs outdoors every year. Some people grow figs in pots and bring them inside for the winter.

I hope some of our European friends will chime in with experience pushing fruit boundaries. I expect that in Latvia you would need to create a warm sheltered microclimate to get the fruits you mention to grow and ripen.

Weeds are just plants with enough surplus will to live to withstand normal levels of gardening!--Alexandra Petri

PEP - BB20 Badge (verified skill)
Skill verified by gir bot

gardening - air badge (verified skill)
Skill verified by Mike Haasl

Food Prep and Preservation - air badge (verified skill)
Skill verified by Mike Barkley

foraging - air badge (verified skill)
Skill verified by Mike Barkley

round wood woodworking - air badge (verified skill)
Skill verified by Mike Haasl

Kārlis Taurenis

Posts: 20

Location: Cesis, Latvia

posted 1 year ago

1
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Thank you for the suggestion on the book - I might get that!

Mulberries and Honeyberries are said to grow well here - I've planted some so let's see!

Cranberries and Lingonberries, as well as European Blueberries (Bilberries) are all over the forests and swamps here - not much need to plant them really!

An issue for nut production can be pollination in cold spring weather, I've not yet seen abundant crops of hazels but I have lots of cobnut seedlings growing to get a diverse genetic selection - maybe some of them will do well!

Like I say, peaches can grow here, and where peaches grow, plenty of other exotic things can follow! Maybe even Northern Pawpaws?

That would be something....

Nancy Reading

master gardener

Posts: 4526

Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year

2056

I like...

posted 1 year ago

1
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Hi Karlis

Have you seen this nut thread? There's several ideas for nuts... I've just ordered my first walnuts, even if they don't ripen, you can make pickles and liqueurs from the immature fruit.

In terms of fruit. I think you are a tiny bit warmer and quite a bit colder than I am here. I am finding honeyberries do really well here, but they are just trying to open their flower buds for me at start of March, so you may want to choose your varieties carefully if you get late frosts. I also find that chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) is doing well. Don't let the name put you off - I find it refreshingly tasty, like a sweeter cranberry and the autumn leaf colouration is lovely. Being Canadian it should take more cold, and if it ripens for me, then you should have no problem. Most of mine I grew from seed - I got far more seedlings than I needed (it obviously is easy to grow!) but there are better fruiting named cultivars and I just bought 'Viking' last year, although it didn't fruit yet. Both honeyberries and chokeberries ripen over a period, and with honeyberries it can be difficult to tell when they are actually properly ripe

One thing to bear in mind is to space the trees fairly widely if you want to grow much in the understories. The sunlight is much less intense in northerly climes, I find many warm climate plants that "grow in shade" prefer a bit of sunshine for me.

Don't dream it - be it!
How Permies works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads

steve bossie

Posts: 669

Location: Northern Maine, USA (zone 3b-4a)

posted 1 year ago

4
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

im in z4 northern Maine, USA. very cold here. we saw some -40c here this winter. i grow 60+ different kinds of fruit here on 1 acre. don't know if they are available in Europe but the university of Saskatchewan Romance series of sour cherry are quick growing and very hardy. i also grow mulberries, aronia, many types of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, black raspberries, salmonberries, arctic raspberries, blueberries, lingonberries, goumi, autumn olive, red, black, and white currants. gooseberries, honeyberries, serviceberries, rhubarb, hybrid hazelnuts, Marquette grape, Montmorency sour cherry, lutowaka rose polish sour cherry, hardy arctic kiwi, elderberry, several apples and 6 pear cultivars grafted on my 6ft. mountain ash. there's quite a few more i don't remember off the top of my head. if you have access to Russian cultivars i guess they are superior to most of what we can get here. good luck in you quest.

Kārlis Taurenis

Posts: 20

Location: Cesis, Latvia

posted 1 year ago

Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Thanks everyone for increasing the input! All very useful...

So much so that I'm thinking of collecting data to map what is possible to grow, where, with climate data for each location.

Steve, can you tell exactly where in Maine you are? I'm interested you can grow both Elaeagnus species in such a cold location!

I planted some Elaeagnus umbellata here last year. Aronia and Amelanchier are 'invaders' from Canada, but seem to like it here, even naturalising in the understorey.

I've found that here things actually ripen much better in the understorey here than in the UK due to the increased hours of sunshine - here we get an average of around 11 hours per day in June, compared to just 7 or so in much of the UK.

If others would like to chime in with what they can grow in their notherly-ish locality, it would all contribute to wealth of data for us all to learn from.

Thanks again ! :)

steve bossie

Posts: 669

Location: Northern Maine, USA (zone 3b-4a)

posted 1 year ago

Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Kārlis Taurenis wrote:Thanks everyone for increasing the input! All very useful...

So much so that I'm thinking of collecting data to map what is possible to grow, where, with climate data for each location.

Steve, can you tell exactly where in Maine you are? I'm interested you can grow both Elaeagnus species in such a cold location!

I planted some Elaeagnus umbellata here last year. Aronia and Amelanchier are 'invaders' from Canada, but seem to like it here, even naturalising in the understorey.

I've found that here things actually ripen much better in the understorey here than in the UK due to the increased hours of sunshine - here we get an average of around 11 hours per day in June, compared to just 7 or so in much of the UK.

If others would like to chime in with what they can grow in their notherly-ish locality, it would all contribute to wealth of data for us all to learn from.

Thanks again ! :) im in the northern most tip of Maine on the Canadian border with New Brunswick. we get 18hrs of sun in location. my goumi / autumn olive has done well here except very cold winters it freezes to the snow line but it quickly sends out new branches and fruits the following year. same with mulberry which is ok as nature prunes it for me. ;) this winter we actually went to -45c which is unusually cold. we haven't seen it that cold since 08'-09' winter where it hit -50c which was a all time record for Maine. luckily we had alot of snow this winter but im expecting some damage on z4 hardy trees here. id love to visit your country. i had a work study student from Lithuania at the University. he started a restaurant in Vilnius and invited me to come visit. i used to bring him ice fishing with me. hell of a nice guy that loved Jim Beam whiskey. ;)

Stephen B. Thomas

master pollinator

Posts: 693

Location: Wheaton Labs, Montana, USA

1099

I like...

posted 1 year ago

1
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

I've become a big fan of reading the archives at Low<-Tech Magazine. One of their articles from their Vol. 2 archive is an extensive write-up regarding Fruit Walls: a way to provide the extra solar energy required for these kinds of plants, before glazing/glass was widely available.

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/12/fruit-walls-urban-farming.html

Were I to be growing fruits and nuts in a northerly clime, I'd devour what's in that book from Chelsea Green (noted above), plant what I could next to a fruit wall, and eventually add a few repurposed glass doors as a front.

"We carry a new world here, in our hearts..."

Ansis Klavins

Posts: 32

posted 1 year ago

Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Hey Kārlis,
I sent you a private message about some spare paw paw seedlings I can share

Morfydd St. Clair

pollinator

Posts: 339

Location: Hamburg, Germany

109

posted 1 year ago

Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Hi Kārlis,

I'm in Hamburg, not terribly far south of you. Our lows usually aren't below -15 degrees C, though.

How are apples for you? I have an old tree that fruits heavily every year, and a young Japanese pear that fruits every couple of years, hindered by more shade than it likes. The other side of the river from me is traditionally apple-growing country - in fact the Apple Blossom Festival is this weekend and I think we'll visit!

In my neighbors' gardens and mine, I see sweet and sour cherries, apples, and hazelnuts do well. My honeyberries are growing solidly but not bearing anything yet, ditto my Elaeagnus x ebbingei. My bladdernut bush bears well.

One plant I didn't see mentioned is Oregon grape, which I was surprised to see here in Germany. It's used a lot in parks, as it's completely no-maintenance-required. The berries are not very exciting, but they're consistent. The plant is evergreen, with nice fall color, has cheerful flowers early in the year for pollinators, and it's hardy to USDA zone 5.

John Wolfram

pollinator

Posts: 898

Location: Porter, Indiana

132

I like...

posted 1 year ago

1
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Kārlis Taurenis wrote:Hey everyone,
In good years we can grow peaches here. So I'm wondering about some other options:
...
Persimmons - Even D.Kaki can be grown in Northern Japan where winters are colder than here.

D. Kaki is usually considered to be cold hardy to about -18C, so in many/most years the trees should do fine, but then die back in a really cold winter. Its fruits are smaller and sometimes astringent, but D. Virginia handles -30C with no problems. There has been some work done on crossing D. Kaki and D. Virginia to get bigger non-astringent fruits on a tree hardy to -30C. Roseyanka and Nikkita's Gift are two of the hybrid cultivars I know about.

3D Plans - Pebble Style Rocket Mass Heater

will be released to subscribers in: soon!

click here for details