To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Pears, peaches, and other fruits for Central Indiana.
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 11:27:27 -0400
I am only about 20 minutes from Dan and it's my
understanding from reading that the native hazelnuts do carry a blight that
affects most hazenut varieties. I've not experienced the blight myself (in
my not so extensive 2 years of growing hazelnuts), but if you're going to grow
those it might be worth looking at blight
resitant varieties.
From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of ethan
roland Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 10:57 AM To:
nafex@lists.ibiblio.org Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Pears, peaches, and other
fruits for Central Indiana.
Dan -
I'd also recommend stepping a bit outside the
conventional bounds of 'orchard' and planting some hardy kiwi vines, chestnuts,
and hazelnuts. There's a good chance these will grow with little pest or disease
pressure -- though I am admittedly inexperienced with your specific climatic
conditions + pest/disease complex.
Asian pears and american persimmons
sound like a great bet -- some of the hardier mulberries (e.g. 'Illinois
Everbearing') might also be worth a try. And Pawpaws! you could plant seedlings
of the hardier varieties and aim for some Indiana-adapted trees.
And how
about berries?!? Currant, gooseberry, jostaberry would be great for a
partial-shade understory, and silverberry (Hippophae spp.) or goumi (Eleagnus
multiflora) would be soil-improving nitrogen-fixing berry producers as well. Lee
Reich's "Uncommon Fruits for every garden" would be a good place to check out
some varieties and basic growing info for these plants. I did some design work
for a client last year that was creating a fruit, berry, and nut CSA -- they had
chosen all these fruits/nuts, and more!