I think the key is balance. Yes, watching sugar load is important, but also manageable by selecting varieties with season extension in mind.
We've been converting our 1/2 acre zone 8a system over the past two years. Where we once had only apples, pears, peach and a small shady area for annuals, we now have a much more diverse perennial garden. Our fruits start with honeyberry in spring, making way incrementally through the season with strawberry, currant, huckleberry, blueberries, blackberries, cherry, fig, goumi, aronia, grapes, nashi pear, apple, plum, jujube, and kiwi. In spring, we're adding European pear, persimmon, quince, mulberry, cranberry, saskatoon, gooseberry, jostaberry, autumn olive, pawpaw, cornus mas, cornus kousa, and figoa. These all ripen at different times, so we have small amounts of fresh fruit from April through December, and can share some and preserve the rest for winter.
But fruit is only part of a system. We grow a wide variety of annual vegetables from leafy greens and brassicas to corn, corcubits, root crops and night shades. For perennials, we have asparagus, artichoke, olive trees, pepper trees and rhubarb. We're adding a bay tree, tea tree, sasssfras, hazelnut, heartnut, and Siberian pea shrubs. We'll be adding in chickens in 2017 too, so surpluses will be well taken care of and converted into protein.
The trick is to use your design to stretch production with season extenders, and use you edges and sun budget thoughtfully. Martin Crawford's Creating a Forest Garden is a great resource.
