Is there a youtube video about this tiny fruit tree idea? That would be so helpful!.
There is a book.
There are videos, none in particular selected as an example:
YouTube video
You can now have an entire tiny orchard in your backyard if you don’t have a large rural property.
Edit: Since this group is now interacting with David the Good, he has a book on what he calls Grocery Row Gardens that he is developing. The first draft is available now. The idea is to create a row system of tiny fruit trees, small berry bushes and then annuals and vegetables all together in rows combining row systems with permaculture edge-forest systems.
Turns out his latest video is about that style system.
David the Good implements another Grocery Row Garden
Edit: the book link
Great to read about your work. Your conditions and soil sound really similar to mine in subtropical Australia. I also do zero irrigation gardening, though I also don’t import any mulch either (only cut a little of my own biomass plants that surround my experimental area).
If you can track them down I would recommend trying Janosik watermelons. They were by far the most resilient strain in my variety trials, supposedly derived from soviet breeding programs in the semiarid regions around the Black Sea.
Instead of collards you might want to try Brassica carinata as a replacement. I have pretty much given up on all B. oleracea types. B. carinata grows for about 6 months through my cooler season and produces leaves that are nicer than asian pak choy type greens, growing about 1 m tall, then producing vast amounts of seed.
I will keep B. carinata in mind for something new to try.
Vast amounts of seed sounds about right as B. carinata has been investigated and cultivated here mostly in a search for an alternative oil seed crop [Canada (Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta) and the United States (Montana, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida)].
It seems to be a hybrid of two species (The B genome is from Brassica nigra and the C genome is from Brassica oleracea). Ironically the crossing breeding done showed only 50% success when crossing with B. oleracea but other species showed near 100%. The work appears to be done to try and transfer blackleg resistance to the other species.
Edit: re Janosik watermelons they do have that variety here. A yellow polish. I just started my watermelon mix project so I have planned on getting the yellows and oranges in with the reds so I’ll note it.
I actually bought Grocery Row Gardening yesterday
Woot! I suspect you’ll love it.
Dave Wilson Nursery - YouTube. These are the best videos i’ve seen for doing the little fruit trees pruning. They’re not perfectly organized, but you can look at how he prunes everything and he has tons of videos on how he prunes them in the winter and in the summer for multiple different types of trees
Here’s 2 example videos:
Summer Pruning Fruit Trees - YouTube - summer pruning
and Winter Pruning January 2018 - YouTube - winter pruning
but he has more examples where he shows planting 3 tree trees in 1 spot (18 inches apart in a triangle) for better pollination, etc.
I did the triangle thing this spring. One big tree (sugar maple or chestnut) one small fruit tree (apricot or peach) and one large fruit tree (apple or pear). The trees were 5 feet apart, since my main focus for this is the big trees. This will be my hedgerow to block the winter winds.
Sandy, and others interested in the Grocery Row Gardening topic.
David the Good released a new blog post on this topic
Blog: The only thing that could make a grocery row garden better
Hottest day in Texas, are we breaking old records? Probably not, matching what was set already in 1980.
How are those never watered Kajari melons doing in the middle of the day of intense heat.
I am amazed, compared to all the places I’ve gardened differently, normally in this level of heat everything is burnt crisp paper crunchy stuff.
Now for something today. It looks like the watermelons are starting to grow crazy. Here is a few melons in one planting beating up the blackberries against the fence. Grow or die plants!
The very tips of the left side of the watermelons has reach the Kajari melons.
It looks like the fight is about to begin, in one corner the India Kajari already dominating its groupings of blackberries. In the other corner Africa’s watermelons dominating their groupings of blackberries. Now there is about to be a fight for light and for control of the space.
And a preview from the year-long bean accession grow out post, I planted today three accessions. Collected 1951, 1965 and 1966 respectively. I planted these somewhat distant from the three watermelon patches, though it is a small back yard so it will be interesting to see how everything grows together this season.
If you want to see the same gardening system I am using but in the desert in Phoenix Arizona.
YouTube: INCREDIBLE 200+ FRUIT TREE & URBAN GARDEN IN PHOENIX ARIZONA
Looking strong
Time for an update on the India Kajari melons. Unfortunately I need to do some insurance photos of the side of the house for the new coverage so I had to clear all the vines and plants from the side of the house. So the very edge of my kajari melon patch is looking a bit sorry having been moved and/or stepped on.
But right in the deep heart of the patch something caught my eye. A melon went overnight from green to orange.
My very first Kajari melon from this patch is going near ripe enough to harvest!
The optimal ripeness stage will now be to watch those thin green lines carefully. Once they fade and / or go yellow-ish is the sign I look for personally.
Of course I will be saving the seeds as this is my Kajari I am selecting for the gardening system I use.
Those melons sound interesting. I like the small size and select for that in my melons. Are they as good as the Baker Creek website claims they are? They look similar to some that showed up in the early years of my landrace melons from mixed up seed I got from Josheph Lofthouse. I loved that small size and multiple fruits per vine, flavor not spectacular but acceptable. I selected them out though because if it happened to rain at the wrong time, they had a tendency to blow up. I thought at first some critter was doing it but noting was missing, they just completely cracked open as if under pressure from the inside.
I have never read the baker creek description so I had a look. They really sell it in the description. But it will all depend on getting a ripe melon. If you don’t get them ripe there is of course no sweetness, if you do then it’s like a green honeydew melon. They are very prone to cracking if over watered. I had a late unexpected rain storm just a week or two before they were ripe so I had a lot of cracked melons. To be fair I also had cracked watermelons from that same rain event. I would say compared to baker creeks sales copy that you would get variable melons until getting some seasons under your belt, getting a handle on the watering and selection of only the sweet ripe ones to save seed from.