I remember in m younger age all families in Europe had some nice fruit trees.
Bringing so many apples, pears, plums, cherries that may last for family whole year.
I do try to have a single tree to yield something edible already for 10 years unsuccessfully.
Obviously you could buy delicious fruits in any supermarket, but why you could not buy a plant/ tree to have your own? I did plant maybe 30 different fruit trees and none of those bought as single fruit you could eat.
If that is a common conspiracy here to forward all fruit eater to supermarkets and sell fake fruit trees only?
If anybody here on SB has a fruit tree, with the edible outcome?
banana cavendish - 5 cm long,
apple, grapes, plums, macadamia, custard tree, lemon, and orange-below sour, 20 other varieties for Queensland climate had zero outcomes....

If there is any conspiracy to restrict the delivery of real fruits trees to commercial growers a sell fakes to the public?

They probably fertilised and watered theirs. Had no problems with olives limes and grapefruit. Have apples pears mandarin avacado and limes thriving now, to early to tell but looking good. Mate has everything going off. So yes user error.

My suspicious is based on observational that driving hundreds or even thousand km across Australia I could not recall family property with single fruit tree on it.
Once in Europe tradition were fruit trees everywhere, specifically]y in rural an acreage areas.

Select to expand quote

hilly said..
They probably fertilised and watered theirs. Had no problems with olives limes and grapefruit. Have apples pears mandarin avacado and limes thriving now, to early to tell but looking good. Mate has everything going off. So yes user error.

ok, growing fruit trees is rocket science here, since in Europe was that most commonplace.
Having 300 Ha and unlimited water, can I get a single tree to bring fruits here?
I did set up a timer sprinkler system to deliver pond water to every single tree 2x a day, every weed around will grow but not fruit.I suspect that plants sold to the public are fake fruit plants, look likes, but completely sterile.

Select to expand quote

Macroscien said..
My suspicious is based on observational that driving hundreds or even thousand km across Australia I could not recall family property with single fruit tree on it.
Once in Europe tradition were fruit trees everywhere, specifically]y in rural an acreage areas.

Fruit is cheap, so a lot of people don't bother. I think a lot of farms will still have fruit trees though.

I can sympathise with your fruit tree problems. I have had lemon/lime trees for over 10 years, and there is nothing. I have a mango tree, again, nothing, but in WA I have a colleague that got a mango tree fruiting after only a few years. It seems they need hot dry summers to really start producing unlike the warmish humid summers in Sydney.

My grandfather had orange trees, plum trees, and maybe peaches. He was a gardner though, so put some time into it.

Select to expand quote

FormulaNova said..

Macroscien said..
My suspicious is based on observational that driving hundreds or even thousand km across Australia I could not recall family property with single fruit tree on it.
Once in Europe tradition were fruit trees everywhere, specifically]y in rural an acreage areas.

Fruit is cheap, so a lot of people don't bother. I think a lot of farms will still have fruit trees though.

I can sympathise with your fruit tree problems. I have had lemon/lime trees for over 10 years, and there is nothing. I have a mango tree, again, nothing, but in WA I have a colleague that got a mango tree fruiting after only a few years. It seems they need hot dry summers to really start producing unlike the warmish humid summers in Sydney.

My grandfather had orange trees, plum trees, and maybe peaches. He was a gardner though, so put some time into it.

agree, that was my greatest memory to climb onto grampa tree and eat green apples as a kid.
There is nothing like that I could offer to my grandkids anymore here ( if they would come one day ) !!!
I did saw orange trees and apple trees yielding hundreds of kg of fruits.
Why can't you buy one of those here, only a fake look like?
BTW . It reminds me of the most awful Chinese scan=m selling fakes, but here and now most fruit trees sell to the public are designer fakes.
Listen. in our ages, if we could have a solar panel to have some energy, plot of veggies, and tree with fruits why do we need to rely on supermarkets as the only source?? In the case of the pandemic, we are all dumped, supermarket closed and we could only eat each other.
My personal futuristic view is returning to basic family sustainability plan.
Each family having 1000 m2 of Earth Surface had enough power and surface to manufacture food ( algae?? ) to sustain infinitely survival, regardless or political circumstances.

The local brats got smart enough this year to steal the mandarins from the front yard tree. A couple of winters ago they ignored them and stripped the grapefruit tree instead. I wonder if they ate them or just used them as balls.
When I was in primary school we used to get our afternoon snack by climbing a fence for figs in season and scratching ourselves on the blackberry vines along the railway line.

this thread is getting weird

Select to expand quote

greenleader said..
this thread is getting weird

not necessary, have you got any fruit tree that brings you something you could eat?
Ok I could walk to Bunning and buy 50 vegies of the shelf and plant in my garden.
Prepare the best soil you could buy, set up time water sprinklers, and after all this afford nothing will grow you could eat.
You could blame everything, soil, temperature, rain, temperature, climate, etc , but why on hell nothing grown in your garden these days you could eat?

Ok Lets wait for some positive feedback for SB growers that enjoy their own veggie and fruits.

Actually a very valid point
Do not bother buying fruit trees from Bunnings and large nurseries, citrus lives to be up to 3-400 years old
If your based in Perth there is a nursery called blooming nursery it's run by a really lovely Vietnamese family, they have citrus and apples etc with a lot of the older varieties from when we were all kids that fruit properly and are less susceptible to disease.

I bought a dozen blueberries from Bunnings over two three years and they died every other year must of got a dozen blueberries at most from each plant once a year. Than they would die

I bought two from blooming nursery and 4 years in one produces about 200 grams a season and the other is shoulder height and gives me about a kilo of berries every season, the kids absolutely love it.

Try and find a nursery a proper one to buy your fruit from, you know they are legit if they have full size trees of each variety that actually fruit or have fruit on them in season, buying a four year old apple or citrus from Bunnings in an 8 litre pot is a waste of time no roots no fruit
the bigger the roots the bigger the fruit.

there is also another website they operate in Victoria called heirloom vegetables and they have every veggie you may want with heaps of old varieties, I grew spinach from there one year and it went for over 6 months and I'd make a salad every couple days and it would just keep cranking
again tried it with seedlings from a chain nursery and got two to three weeks of spinach and than they died

There is definitely "commercial" strains of our fruit trees that you will never be able to buy in bunnings

mate has a couple of apple trees he bought off a farm in donnybrook between three trees it gives him over a tonne of apples a year.

Select to expand quote

Razzonater said..
Actually a very valid point
Do not bother buying fruit trees from Bunnings and large nurseries, citrus lives to be up to 3-400 years old
If your based in Perth there is a nursery called blooming nursery it's run by a really lovely Vietnamese family, they have citrus and apples etc with a lot of the older varieties from when we were all kids that fruit properly and are less susceptible to disease.

I bought a dozen blueberries from Bunnings over two three years and they died every other year must of got a dozen blueberries at most from each plant once a year. Than they would die

I bought two from blooming nursery and 4 years in one produces about 200 grams a season and the other is shoulder height and gives me about a kilo of berries every season, the kids absolutely love it.

Try and find a nursery a proper one to buy your fruit from, you know they are legit if they have full size trees of each variety that actually fruit or have fruit on them in season, buying a four year old apple or citrus from Bunnings in an 8 litre pot is a waste of time no roots no fruit
the bigger the roots the bigger the fruit.

there is also another website they operate in Victoria called heirloom vegetables and they have every veggie you may want with heaps of old varieties, I grew spinach from there one year and it went for over 6 months and I'd make a salad every couple days and it would just keep cranking
again tried it with seedlings from a chain nursery and got two to three weeks of spinach and than they died

There is definitely "commercial" strains of our fruit trees that you will never be able to buy in bunnings

mate has a couple of apple trees he bought off a farm in donnybrook between three trees it gives him over a tonne of apples a year.

H

absolutely agree. Somehow I remember families in Europe annoying veggie garden where everything was just growing without any effort at all . Anything I bought from Bunnigs failed. Only exemption is cucumber.
What on hell cause that every veggie planted in QLD (besides cucumbers ) is going to fail ????

Select to expand quote

greenleader said..
this thread is getting weird

Yep. Simple things like radish.
Give me example of one person that bought seeds at Bunnings and family enjoyed the crop.
Why on hell we could not replicate anything similar to market size crop but only weedy, small hard inedible crust

Select to expand quote

Razzonater said..
Actually a very valid point
Do not bother buying fruit trees from Bunnings and large nurseries, citrus lives to be up to 3-400 years old
If your based in Perth there is a nursery called blooming nursery it's run by a really lovely Vietnamese family, they have citrus and apples etc with a lot of the older varieties from when we were all kids that fruit properly and are less susceptible to disease.

I bought a dozen blueberries from Bunnings over two three years and they died every other year must of got a dozen blueberries at most from each plant once a year. Than they would die

I bought two from blooming nursery and 4 years in one produces about 200 grams a season and the other is shoulder height and gives me about a kilo of berries every season, the kids absolutely love it.

Try and find a nursery a proper one to buy your fruit from, you know they are legit if they have full size trees of each variety that actually fruit or have fruit on them in season, buying a four year old apple or citrus from Bunnings in an 8 litre pot is a waste of time no roots no fruit
the bigger the roots the bigger the fruit.

there is also another website they operate in Victoria called heirloom vegetables and they have every veggie you may want with heaps of old varieties, I grew spinach from there one year and it went for over 6 months and I'd make a salad every couple days and it would just keep cranking
again tried it with seedlings from a chain nursery and got two to three weeks of spinach and than they died

There is definitely "commercial" strains of our fruit trees that you will never be able to buy in bunnings

mate has a couple of apple trees he bought off a farm in donnybrook between three trees it gives him over a tonne of apples a year.

that is what I suspect. All proper seed and trees are sold to commercial and the fakes to domestic users; Just to disc orange from any attempts of self sustainability.

Get a couple hundred cumquats from a tree that we've done nothing to, and it just keeps growing....maybe 4 or 5 meters high. Gotta get a lemon tree going though...nothing like having fresh lemons available for cooking all the time.

Thanks for the reminder, I'm going to get the lemon tree planted this weekend. They say you just need to pee on your citrus...guess I'll need to do it after sunset since both neighbours can see the spot from their top floor.

Don't get me started on conspiracies!!!! Got a brother in law who believes in all sorts of stuff. In a good season down here in Tassie, I get more fruit than you can eat. Peaches and nectarines the size of apples and you won't taste better. Apples, plums, mulberrys, strawberry's and rsspberry's. All bought from the local Mitre 10. Can I suggest user error? Did you get a variety suited to your area? Some fruit trees need to cross pollinate with another variety to produce. Not enough or the wrong type of fertilizer as in too much nitrogen. Could be many reasons. I did a horticultural course at TAFE and it was a great help. I wouldn't blame the supplier.

Select to expand quote

Harrow said..
Get a couple hundred cumquats from a tree that we've done nothing to, and it just keeps growing....maybe 4 or 5 meters high. Gotta get a lemon tree going though...nothing like having fresh lemons available for cooking all the time.

Thanks for the reminder, I'm going to get the lemon tree planted this weekend. They say you just need to pee on your citrus...guess I'll need to do it after sunset since both neighbours can see the spot from their top floor.

Try thai lemon tree. That is the only one, small but very efficient fruit bearing tree in my garden. Fruit is delicious , delivery regular, almost whole year round. Don't need even pee on it.

Select to expand quote

RumChaser said..
Don't get me started on conspiracies!!!! Got a brother in law who believes in all sorts of stuff. In a good season down here in Tassie, I get more fruit than you can eat. Peaches and nectarines the size of apples and you won't taste better. Apples, plums, mulberrys, strawberry's and rsspberry's. All bought from the local Mitre 10. Can I suggest user error? Did you get a variety suited to your area? Some fruit trees need to cross pollinate with another variety to produce. Not enough or the wrong type of fertilizer as in too much nitrogen. Could be many reasons. I did a horticultural course at TAFE and it was a great help. I wouldn't blame the supplier.

I have maybe 10 peach and nectarine trees. The biggest fruit they grow is size of golf balls...
20 raspberries and mulberries and zero fruit over 10 years. Oranges are so hard and sour that even fruit bats or possums don't like to eat. Bananas tree, 6 different varieties but the crop is the size of the cigar the most, but the plant itself is a tremendous size.

Macroscien,
I think your serious and not trying to stir up shoit, but let me educate you, Australia and especially Queensland are not the same as Europe or where you come from

Id suggest you get off your high horse and go talk with a local nursery, try and find a tree specialist. Talk to them ask questions, if you are serious they will go all out to help and advise you.
spray irrigation will NOT work on fruit trees, they require deep soaking.

I have an acre of land covered in citrus, apple, pear stone fruit trees, After 5 years I now have a regular clientele that I supply to every year.
Nothing was bought from bunnies,
I am dry part of South Aus, I use and buy large amounts of water, I am always adding compost to my soil, spraying when needed and ALL ORGANICLLY.
Dont blame the trees, look at your growing situation.

taken a positive with covid restrictions and planted out some black cockatoo trees. apricot mangoes plumbs got the cross pollination thing happening and chill factor is good and soil is goo tell you in 15 years how it goes.






kids love being out doors and helping If you got the space why not chuck in a few trees and water them rather then grass! Could be a cross pollination issue or a chill factor issue if there not fruiting I guess its finding out what grows in the area! Happy planting fellow green thumbs!

Not sure what doubts you are trying to sow Macro?

For the record, here is snap of my passionfruit and mandarin this morning, both bought from Bunglings. (Geotags removed - you never can be too careful in the Cold War.)

Crop failures are a natural part of farming , lots of growers can't handle that but those who find out why are all the better because of it.Sometimes it's easier to let nature farm for you and just poach like lots of other industries do. My neighbour grows bucket loads of berries for me just out of the councils herbicide quick spray reachNommyNoms

Welcome to Australia, growing food is harder than you think. Droughts, floods, fires, pests, disease, washed out soil... Maybe why there were just a few hunter gatherers here a couple of hundred years ago as opposed to major civilizations along the big rivers in China, Europe, Levant etc.

Select to expand quote

Tonz said..
Macroscien,
I think your serious and not trying to stir up shoit, but let me educate you, Australia and especially Queensland are not the same as Europe or where you come from

Id suggest you get off your high horse and go talk with a local nursery, try and find a tree specialist. Talk to them ask questions, if you are serious they will go all out to help and advise you.
spray irrigation will NOT work on fruit trees, they require deep soaking.

I have an acre of land covered in citrus, apple, pear stone fruit trees, After 5 years I now have a regular clientele that I supply to every year.
Nothing was bought from bunnies,
I am dry part of South Aus, I use and buy large amounts of water, I am always adding compost to my soil, spraying when needed and ALL ORGANICLLY.
Dont blame the trees, look at your growing situation.

You are right, I am trying to find out what I do wrong when attempting fruit trees. First lesson will be search for nursery with some reputation for delivering quality stock. After 10 year of trying i am happy to wait few more have one day something from my garden. I am happy to see many SB mates already enjoying own fruits, that means it is possible. But smart observer may also point to fact that fruit tree at the garden by family home I quite rare occurrence here. Everybody need to have solar panel to produce prosaic electricity, but almost none to have veggie patch and fruit tree.

Select to expand quote

Macroscien said..
If anybody here on SB has a fruit tree, with the edible outcome

I have 16 dwarf / semi dwarf fruit trees (apples, stone fruit, mangos, citrus etc) and most of my established trees have produced fruit but some are still immature so are still a year or 2 from producing. Some seasons are better than others. My lime has never produced and the root stock came through on my original orange tree but my peaches, nectarines, apricots and my pink lady apples are soIid performers.

I also grow a few berries, tomatos sometimes and tried spuds etc. It's great that my kids can pick berries or fruits straight off the tree and i figure on my small patch of earth i might as well have useful plants

Growing and maintaining them is fairly easy, keeping pests away can be very hard work.

Perth soil is the worst, it's pretty much sand.
down south Margaret river and the likes a lot of the soil is really really rich in minerals and you don't really have to fertilise.
About 15-18 years ago I remember walking in to a surf spot mid nsw coast and there was a Passionfruit vine ( Bannana Passionfruit didn't know what it was at the time)
It was massive it may have been a few vines together it was a half hour walk in to the surf spot so talked about it with a few locals and they were yeah mate there's a few of them and there a noxious weed.
The fruit is amazing though mate.
The next day I walked in for my surf and than on the way back I filled two plastic bags up with these long yellow Passionfruit, it was a pretty warm day and some of the fruit was in the shade.
I sat down and gorged on about 20 of them whilst filling my bag. Being from west oz we don't get anything like that here as the place is a dessert, getting back to my walk with still 15 minutes to go I could feel a Rather large poo coming on , I started running back as I knew there was a dunny near where my car was, made it just in time.
The other fellas I surfed with over there were like yeah we don't really eat them , I couldn't believe it they were phenomenal absolutely phenomenal. Just don't get that here.
Did a stint in cairns and would go Barra fishing up the creek walk in and out about 3-4 km
there were mangoes and papaws and you could just stop and have a snack Whenever you wanted.

I think that every capital city should have a 50 acre proper community garden with fruit trees for the public, there is people in Perth in a couple areas that have little ones but it amazes me with all out verges and parks and council land why we don't.
Paticularly in parks that are already irrigated pumping tonnes of water into lawn, by all means keep the footy fields and sports ground but instead of councils planting pines and flowers it should be apples and oranges and the like.

I've got two different variety of passionfruit vines on a 6m x 2 metre frame. After growing them at a few different houses I now know what they like and how to get a 100mm plant from Bunnings fruiting abundantly within 6 months of planting. This season they've been fruiting for 8 months so far.

I'm now sick of passionfruit and I'm freezing the pulp for the off-season that may or may not happen

Id be inclined to disagree with the statements made about bunnings, The stuff supplied to local bunnings is virtually the best as alot of the smaller seedling tree suppliers will put there best plants forward to gain more selling supply and contracts. The trees are older well grafted and of quality at a competitive price. The graft is generally high 6 inches above the root-stock. I always plant the graft facing a ssw nnw (in western australia )direction to prevent the tree from snapping when fruiting with prevailing wind hits .

My neighbours into it does it for a living and he just plants rows and rows of trees . waits a few years grabs and excavator and rips them out the ground and supplies to councils and inner city He must laugh at what i have planted !

Every back yard needs fruit trees

[it gives the boys something to pee on]

Select to expand quote

busterwa said..
Id be inclined to disagree with the statements made about bunnings

Agreed. I have fruit trees from Dawsons, Tony's, Guilford, random nurseries etc and Bunnings quality is just as good.

I think we as gardeners have to take responsibility on what we plant, where we plant it and what we plant it in. For example I was looking at a semi (?) self pollinating dwarf cherry at Bunnings Mindarie but if someone locally bought it, they will never get fruit but will blame bunning's for a dodgy tree.

Looks like we all got those $15 passion fruits from bunnings... they grow quick.

My Blueberry bush is flowering... took me a while to understand what she wanted... spent coffee grinds + white vinegar in her water. Not sure how acidic the water becomes but my meter says LOW, so less than 1 pH, soil is ~5pH

Biggest disappointment has been my tomatoes this year, low yield, the few that did survive had larvae, but I think I now know what they need and will grow heirloom varieties in fabric grow bags in spring...really looking forward to the Brandywines to go w/ my kamado cooked ribeye's.

Back in May we planted 350 macadamia trees on our little farm. The planting went well with no major mishaps though it was quite relentless and ongoing. We don't have a tractor but do have a 4wd Iseki lawn mower which is kind of like a little tractor that goes in reverse, with the PTO, linkages and big wheels at the front, with the engine & small wheels that steer it at the back. It's a fun vehicle to drive as you sit in the seat with only the mower deck and steering wheel in front of you. We fitted a tow bar on the back and towed a small trailer carrying what was needed to plant the trees. A mini digger with an auger was used to dig the holes for the trees.

After planting I set up a solar powered camera overlooking some of the orchard. I like to look at the video feed when I'm back in the city. Here is a image capture from the camera. We also took pictures and video with better cameras than this one. We will head back in a few months to plant around 70 more trees and will plant 300 more next year.