Scott's Fruit Links

Here are a few links to help you get started with growing your own fruit.

Slides for my talk Easy to Grow Fruits (powerpoint) (PDF)
My Guide to Easy Tree Fruits in Baltimore - briefly covers the no-spray fruits and gives further resources to read up on them.
Growing Fruit - a forum I set up for discussions of growing fruit. Post your questions here and search the older posts for good tips.
Alexis Zeigler's online book, Perennial Food, Easy and Reliable Methods for Growing and Propagating Fruits and Nuts - a good general guide for the easier to grow fruits.
The Just Fruits and Exotics Just the Facts Guides - covers all sorts of fruits from a southern perspective
Penn State's Fruit Production for the Home Gardener Cornell's Guide to Growing Fruit at Home, and The Maryland Co-op's Getting Started with Tree Fruits - good general guides for the harder to grow fruits
The Baltimore Orchard Project - network with your local orchardists
Michael Phillips' book The Holistic Orchard - for growing the more challenging fruits organically

Sources for Fruit Trees

There are many good mail-order outlets, and a few not-so-good.

Avoid: TyTy, Aarons, Nature Hills, Willis Orchards
Great for easy to grow trees (figs, persimmons, pawpaws, etc): Just Fruits and Exotics, Edible Landscaping, Hidden Springs
Good for easy to grow trees (these nurseries are out west): Burnt Ridge, Raintree, Rolling River, One Green World
Great for harder to grow fruits: Adams County Nursery, Johnson Nursery
Great for apples: Big Horse Creek Farm, Vintage Virginia Apples, Cummins
Excellent prices on harder to grow fruits: fruittreefarm.com, Vaughn Nursery

For some less-common fruits it can be best to go to a nursery specializing in that fruit: there will be more variety and the nursery will know more about how to best grow and ship the plants.

Figs: Just Fruits and Exotics, Edible Landscaping, Figtrees.net
Persimmons: Just Fruits and Exotics, Burnt Ridge, Raintree
Hardy pomegranates: Rolling River, Edible Landscaping
Mulberries: Whitman Farms, Burnt Ridge
Jujube: Edible Landscaping, Just Fruits and Exotics, Burnt Ridge
Pawpaws: Forrest Keeling Nursery, Rolling River, One Green World
Blight-immune Filberts: Edible Landscaping, Raintree
Bush cherries: Gurney's has an exclusive license on the best varieties, e.g. Carmine Jewel; they are not a great nursery but are worth ordering these trees from. Honeyberry USA gets the same varieties from Canadian sources.
Currants: Whitman Farms, Raintree
Berries: Indiana Berry, Nourse Farms, Berries Unlimited
Muscadines: Isons is the place

Locally the selection is much less, but Sun Nurseries and Valley View Farms are two places which carry some fruit trees. Sun Nurseries is now carrying a good line of easy to grow fruits including persimmons and pawpaws. Valley View has persimmons, figs, and chestnuts. They also carry peaches, apples, etc but not all the varieties selected are good ones (the peach, pear, and apple they have are fine, it is the plum, apricot, and cherry that are not all appropriate).

Contact me: Scott Fraser Smith, sfs - at - scottfrasersmith.com