Table Of ContentFruit TREES IN SMALL SPACES
Abundant Harvests from your own Backyard
Colby Eierman
with photos by Erin Kunkel
and recipes by Mike Emanuel
Copyright © 2012 by Colby Eierman. All rights reserved.
Photo and illustration credits appear on page 250.
Hand-lettering by Joel Holland.
Book design by Mark Searcy.
Published in 2012 by Timber Press, Inc.
The Haseltine Building 133 S.W. Second Avenue, Suite 450
Portland, Oregon 97204-3527
timberpress.com
2 The Quadrant
135 Salusbury Road
London NW6 6RJ
timberpress.co.uk
Printed in China
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Eierman, Colby.
Fruit trees in small spaces: abundant harvests from your own backyard/Colby
Eierman; with photos by Erin Kunkel.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60469-190-0
1. Fruit trees. 2. Fruit. 3. Backyard gardens. 4. Orchards. I. Title. II. Title:
Abundant harvests from your own backyard.
SB355.E42 2012
634—dc23
2011042489
Catalog records for this book are available from the British Library.
Contents
Foreword by Rosalind Creasy
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
Part One
Home Orchard Primer: Designing the Orchard Life
A Year in the Orchard
Designing Your Small Orchard
Part Two
Fruit Tree Guide: The Family Album
Choosing Plants for Your Orchard
Stone Fruits
Pome Fruits
Citrus
Part Three
Practicalities: Long Live Your Orchard
Orchard Planting and Care
Pruning and Training
Part Four Fruit in the Kitchen
A Bounty of Seasonal Fruit Recipes by Mike Emanuel
Resources
Conversion Tables
Further Reading
Photo and Illustration Credits
Index
Foreword
by Rosalind Creasy
I first met Colby in the magnificent garden at COPIA, which was known for its
dedication to understanding and celebrating American food, wine, and arts. It
was 2004 and I was there to photograph fruit trees. The gardens were beautiful,
the fruit trees were in a unique landscaped setting, and I needed photographs to
offer inspiration for home gardeners for my book Edible Landscaping.
Everything was so well grown and there were so many unusual things that I
sought out the gardener to learn more. Most of the trees were small, with many
of them in containers—so appropriate for the home gardener. There was an
espaliered quince, something I’d never seen before. Apples, plums, cherries, and
peaches along with different citrus were planted in stop-you-in-your-tracks
rusted containers. There were 3-in-1 plantings, a fabulous way to grow a variety
of fruits in a small space. It was a luxury to see so many fruits in one place at
one time, and to see so many ideas for growing these fruits in a small space.
After 30 years of experience as a landscape designer, I knew that most people
want smaller fruit trees for any number of reasons: size of yards, limited time,
and the desire to have a wide variety of fruits rather than one single fruit tree that
dominates the yard and overwhelms the gardener with a surplus of fruit.
Unfortunately, for decades now, most of the information on growing fruit trees,
both in books and online, has been aimed at people who are maintaining single-
crop orchards.
This book, on the other hand, focuses on growing multiple orchard fruits as
part of the landscape in today’s smaller gardens. Home gardeners will find they
can grow the fruit they love, and plenty of it, even if their yards are small.
Growing instructions include selected information for different climates and
conditions. Colby’s experience with the trees themselves and the techniques
required to grow them in a smaller space means that he is also a master pruner.
He understands how to grow and prune trees for the best looks and highest fruit
production. With this book, he brings this knowledge and expertise to help home
gardeners get the best from their trees.
To round out the book, there are the recipes. Cookbooks generally overlook
homegrown fruits, and yet that’s where the treasure is. Sadly, most home
gardeners, even when they grow some of their own fruit, don’t know how to
harvest at the peak of perfection. Colby guides us through this critical step, and
then takes it a giant step further by giving us both time-honored recipes, such as
poached pears and fruit jams and leathers, and going way beyond with new
approaches.
Even with my years of experience, I discovered new techniques. When the
apple tree is in full harvest, I no longer have to rely on applesauce to take care of
the overflow. With the recipes in this imaginative collection, I now can branch
out from applesauce to make apple chips or get past apple pie with just solo
apples and add other fruits on a crunchy galette base. Who knew that peach
leaves could be used to flavor wine or that gardeners in cold climates, whose
container-grown lemon might not produce much in the way of fruit, can take full
advantage of their plants by harvesting their leaves to make an incredible syrup
to be used as part of a spritzer or brushed between the layers of a lemon chiffon
cake?
Most of all, this book is a great primer, easy to use, and easy to understand. It
demonstrates that growing fruit trees need not be a daunting task, with reliable
information based on experience and with an emphasis on organic growing.
Soon you’ll be showing off your heirloom apples or latest variety of pluot,
introducing friends to the unique taste of the kumquat, taking the plunge and
learning to make a true fruit jam, or harvesting peach leaves to see just what they
add to wine.
