Living in a special place like coastal Northern California, with its cool summers and wet winters, the challenge for a dyed-in-the-wool fruit grower is to find every possible fruit tree that might grow successfully here. Cool summers make it especially difficult for many types of fruit to ripen fully, and wet winters make it easy for fungal diseases to take hold. Here, I will describe a few uncommon fruit tree species worth planting.
Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is a fruit tree native to the eastern U.S. that was first recognized as an important food source by Indigenous peoples. It is related to custard-apple and cherimoya, with which it shares a similar texture and flavor. The fruit has soft flesh, large seeds and a “tropical” flavor. Pawpaw trees need consistent moisture throughout their growing season, soil that is rich in organic matter and full sun for fruit production (but light shade for the first few years). With pawpaw’s increasing popularity, there are now many improved cultivars to choose from, such as Taytoo and Overleese. Pawpaw is not sold in markets because of its short shelf life but its tasty flavor makes it well worth growing.
Meyer lemon trees (Citrus x meyeri) have become a common sight in North Coast gardens. They are a hybrid of an orange and a lemon, making the fruit sweeter and less acidic than a standard lemon. The Meyer lemon has so many culinary uses that it is a must for a fruit garden, and the fruit keeps extremely well both on the tree and in storage. When salt-preserved, the lemons last even longer and provide a bright tang to savory dishes. The tree itself is a beautiful shiny-leafed evergreen with spring-blooming flowers that have a sweet, rich floral scent with a whiff of musk. Like most citrus, it is sensitive to cold. On frosty nights I place an electric warming cable under the tree and if the temperature dips into the 20s, I cover the tree with fabric.
Feijoa (Feijoa sellowiana), aka pineapple guava, is a fruit tree from South America that has gained popularity in California recently, although it has been sold in nurseries as a dazzling ornamental for many years due to its showy white flowers with long, deep red stamens. The petals are sweet and fleshy, and eagerly sought out by birds. For me, feijoa is a must-have fruit. The soft creamy flesh has a mild sweet-tart piney or pineapple flavor. For the best flavor and size of fruit, plant only named cultivars, particularly those among the new selections from New Zealand. In my experience, feijoa is relatively cold tolerant; I have never covered my tree on frosty nights and it has never had frost damage. The only downside is that the fruit ripens very late in November and not at all in some years.
Chilean guava (Ugni molinae) is a woody evergreen shrub, slow growing here on the North Coast, with glossy, dark green leaves. The fruit is brownish red with the texture and size of a blueberry. It often has the flavor and fragrance of strawberry and melon, but they vary depending on where the fruit is grown. I use Chilean guava in quick breads and muffins — it should work well in any recipe that asks for blueberries. I have successfully grown the shrub in Eureka but in Fieldbrook, it gets frost-damaged every year. Still, I highly recommend it for lower frost regions of Humboldt.
These are just a few of the more unusual plants I have tried over the years. Most of the others did not outright die but were so susceptible to diseases or mite and insect infestations that they were impractical to grow. I have not lost my appetite to grow new exotic fruits and will be on the lookout for more when the nursery catalogs come out this winter.
Pete Haggard (he/him) and Jane Monroe (she/her) are the coauthors of Rewilding: Native Gardening for the Pacific Northwest and North Coast, available now from the Press at Cal Poly Humboldt.
This article appears in Humboldt Crabs Baseball.