FRUITS, NUTS, AND BERRIES

One of the best ways of increasing the biodiversity and productivity of any home garden is to incorporate selected fruits, nuts and berries to supplement the more traditional annual garden crops. Aside from vastly expanding the bounty of your harvests, fruits, nuts and berries are excellent for the overall health of your garden, and provide an enormous return on energy input. Once established, they will continue to grow and produce with little or no input from the gardener beyond seasonal pruning and harvest. There is a vast array of fruit trees, nut trees and berry bushes well suited to Long Island’s temperate climate. 

Beyond the many, many varieties of apple, we can also very successfully grow: fig, pear, plum, peach, cherry, apricot, nectarine, hawthorn, grapes, some pomegranate varieties, and others.

Nuts trees are extremely beneficial not only for their food bounty, but also for aesthetics, for soil quality, and for providing shelter and forage for many birds. In Long Island we can grow many nut trees including: black walnut, butternut, english walnut, japanese walnut, heart nut, hickory, pecan, chestnut, hazelnut and hardy almond.

The list of berries is even more significant, and includes many varieties known not only for their wonderful flavor, but also for their nutritional and healthful properties. Some of these include: blackberry, raspberry, huckleberry, mulberry, barberry, gooseberry, blueberry, wineberry, cloudberry, bilberry, nannyberry, and strawberry.

Do not underestimate the importance of fruits, nuts and berries to the overall design of your garden or home landscape. HOGS will help you to select and locate appropriate varieties for your specific needs and resources.

Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.  

-Wendell Berry