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  • From: "Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>
  • To: NAFEX <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Lee Reich's Article
  • Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 09:04:07 -0800

Title: Lee Reich's Article
After Sam Brungardt posted the URL of the story by Lee Reich, I sought and got permission to have the article posted.  Also, Lee sends the following announcement:

My new book UNCOMMON FRUITS FOR EVERY GARDEN (Timber Press) will be out in a couple of weeks. It's a sequel to my first book, with new fruits, color photos, new information, and updated nursery sources. Signed copies are available from me at 387 Springtown Rd., New Paltz, NY 12561 for $27, which includes shipping.


March 28, 2004
CUTTINGS
The Fruit Is Uncommon, but the Care Is Not
By LEE REICH

ARELY can store-bought fruit match the lusciousness of backyard fruit grown to perfection and picked at peak flavor. "Grown to perfection," there's the rub. Apples, peaches and many other common fruits demand exacting spraying and pruning. But, curiously enough, a number of uncommon fruits require no special care and have unique and delectable flavors you cannot find at the grocery store.

Consider, for example, an obscure fruit called the shipova (X Sorbopyrus auricularis). This hybrid of pear and mountain ash can be traced to a plant growing on the grounds of the Museum of Natural History in Paris in 1834. Why the tree has remained so uncommon I do not know.

Each spring it is covered with fat, downy buds, much like a magnolia, that open to large clusters of white blossoms. Come September, the leaves turn a comely mix of pale salmon pink and yellow, and I get to pick baskets of fruit from the tree in my backyard. Shipova, the fruit, is similarly attractive. Picture a small golden yellow pear two inches across with a red blush on the sunny side. The meaty flesh is creamy white, with a lively taste reminiscent of pear.

The shipova's only flaw is that it takes about seven years to begin bearing. Otherwise, my tree has been totally undemanding, never requiring pruning or pest control.

The medlar (Mespilus germanica) is another tree I've planted as part of research for a book about uncommon fruits. I waited only a couple of years to pick my first crop. Although uncommon today, this small tree was popular in the past. Charlemagne had medlars planted at his royal estates, and the fruit was common in European markets as late as the 19th century.

Medlars resemble small russet apples, tinged a dull yellow or red, with a flared base. After they ripen in the fall, medlars are placed in a cool room for a few weeks, during which time the flesh softens to a brown mush. The flavor is superb, refreshingly brisk like old-fashioned applesauce with winy overtones and a dash of spice.

Although the medlar's fruit may be ugly, the tree is not. Each large white or pinkish blossom is framed by a whorl of dark green leaves, which change to rich shades of yellow, orange, and russet in the fall. Like the shipova, the medlar is carefree.

Many people have tasted a beach plum - mostly in the form of jelly - but few have planted one. In fact, beach plums (Prunus maritima) are not just for jelly or for beach gardens. The bushes thrive in my yard in New Paltz, N.Y., far from the coast.

The beach plum straddles the fence between being a landscape plant and an edible plant, generating enthusiasm on both sides but never coming into general cultivation. Each spring, the sprawling stems are smothered in fleecy white petals so profuse that in 1932 two scientists were able to plot the distribution of wild stands by observing them from an airplane at bloom time.

Fruit quality, size, ripening period and color vary from plant to plant. The best bushes bear fruits with a sweet plum flavor.

Another uncommon fruit worth growing is the maypop (Passiflora incarnata), which looks and tastes like tropical passion fruit, the dominant flavor in Hawaiian Punch. But the maypop vine is a cold-hardy species whose stems die back each winter to perennial roots.

The maypop's white, lavender or blue flowers, two inches across with bowl-shaped outer petals and a fringed inner crown, could easily steal the show from its tasty fruits.

Maypop roots spread vigorously underground, so plant the vine where it can be contained. My plants share a bed with a lilac bush, which they climb, flowering through the summer.

The tiny, glossy evergreen leaves of the lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), a very low-growing shrub, blanket the ground, with urn-shaped, pinkish blossoms in spring and again in summer. The pea-sized, bright red berries that follow hang on the plants for a long time, well into winter, bright spots in a gray season.

The lingonberry outshines its close relative, the Thanksgiving cranberry, in a number of respects. Unlike sour cranberries, lingonberries have just enough sweetness to be delicious right from the plant or mixed with morning cereal.

Copyright 2004 <http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html> The New York Times Company <http://www.nytco.com/>



  • [NAFEX] Lee Reich's Article, Lon J. Rombough, 03/30/2004

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