Sweet Treats: How to Grow Healthy, Delicious Fruit in Your Home Garden

Succulent, sweet melons bursting with juicy goodness. Fragrant, flavorful strawberries sweetening desserts and drinks. Beautiful, bountiful blueberries adding a burst of delicious antioxidants to your morning cereal. If you crave fruity flavors packed with nutritional perks, it’s time to add homegrown fruit to your garden goals.

The Benefits of Growing Fruit in Your Home Garden

If you’ve ever snacked on blueberries straight from the farm stand or sampled strawberries plucked from the U-Pick field, you get it–no supermarket produce compares to the flavor, freshness, and fragrance of just-harvested fruit. For the best-tasting, most nutrient-rich fruit, mileage matters—fresh-from-the-field fruit tastes infinitely better than rock-hard strawberries shipped thousands of miles to your local grocery store. And while it’s wonderful to support your local farmers’ market, it’s also incredibly satisfying to plant, tend, harvest, and savor fruit grown just outside your door.

You might think you need a horticulturist’s knowledge to grow fruit. Or perhaps you believe fruit growing requires acres of land. But with a little planning and prep work, creating a garden filled with your favorite fruit can be easy, beneficial, and satisfying.

When growing fruit in your home garden, you can:

• Grow big harvests in relatively small spaces by selecting the right types of fruit and varieties.
• Improve nutrition, as fruit offers an excellent source of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, and fiber.
• Create a season-long fruit harvest by choosing a mix of fruits and cultivars that produce from spring through fall.
• Preserve abundant homegrown harvests to enjoy throughout the winter.
• Enjoy unique, interesting, delicate fruit rarely found in grocery stores.
• Savor culinary delights, from pies and tarts to cocktails and mocktails, filled with the freshest flavors.

Growing fruit may seem daunting, but with a little planning, the right site, and plants designed to grow beautifully in your region, you’ll enjoy convenient harvests of your favorite fruits right in your garden

How to Get Started with Growing Fruit

1. Assess your garden

Before you order your first blueberry bush or pick up strawberry plants at your local nursery, take some time to assess your garden.

• Do you have ample space to support large fruit trees, or will you grow dwarf varieties?
• Will sprawling watermelon vines work in your garden, or will you trellis an icebox variety?
• How sunny is your garden space?
• Is the soil rich and well-draining, or do you need to amend subpar soil?

2. Just like a vegetable garden, successfully growing fruit relies on:

• Good site selection
  • Fruit requires full sun for healthy plants and abundant harvests
  • Although a few fruits tolerate part-shade during hot summer afternoons.
• Well-prepped soil – Soil needs vary, depending on what you plan to grow.
  • Shallow-rooted strawberries, for instance, prefer sandy, loam soil that drains well with a pH of 6.0 to 6.5.
  • Blueberries, however, require well-drained, loose, acidic soil high in organic matter with a pH of 4.0 to 5.0.
  • It’s always a good idea to test your soil so that you can choose appropriate plants that will thrive in your garden—or to learn how to amend your soil, if necessary.

3. Make a growing plan 

• Start with a list of your favorite fruits that you like to eat
• Research their growing habits.
• Consider your USDA hardiness zone, and select fruit that performs well in your area.

4. Consider how much time and effort 

• Some fruit, like strawberries, are easy to grow and provide yields during the first season.
• Other fruit, like apple trees, require a commitment to pruning, pest management, a second variety for pollination, as well as patience—you’ll wait several years to reap the rewards of your work.
• Some fruit trees grow large—perfect for kids to climb when the tree is mature–while compact or dwarf varieties work beautifully for smaller home gardens.
• If you’re really committed to learning how to grow fruit trees in small spaces, you can even prune them into espaliers along a sunny fence or wall.

To help you start growing fruit in your home garden, look at the following fruit categories…

You’ll find the difficulty level, from Easy-Peasy to A Little Needy to a Great Garden Challenge, as well as basic plant needs.

You’ll also find an assortment of fruit plants available from National Garden Bureau members—cultivars that offer high yields, good disease resistance, and aesthetic charm for your garden, as well as newer space-saving compact and dwarf varieties. No matter what you crave, you’ll find your favorite fruit to grow in your garden.

Types of Fruit to Grow in Your Home Garden

If you’re new to growing fruit, there’s no better place to begin than with strawberries.

• These delicious treats grow easily in raised beds, hanging baskets, patio containers, or in-ground gardens.
• The plants thrive in well-draining, sandy loam soil.
• Plant strawberries so that the crown is flush or slightly higher than the soil line.
• Place the plants in an area with full sun—8 to 10 hours is best.
• Strawberries need bees for pollination, so avoid using pesticides near the plants—which is a good rule for all fruit growing.

Know your strawberry varieties…

• June-bearing – Select this variety if you’re looking for a large harvest that’s good for processing. These strawberry plants produce a big, concentrated crop typically in mid-June through early July, depending on your growing area.
• Ever-bearing – These plants produce two crops: one in early summer, and a second harvest in early fall.
• Day-neutral – Varieties produce berries throughout the growing season.

You might hesitate to grow watermelon, honeydew, and cantaloupe in your garden due to their sprawling, space-hogging vines. Fortunately, you’ll find many new varieties available that offer space-saving compact vines, good disease tolerance, and even small fruit for single servings.

• Melons grow easily from seed, making them an economical choice for home growing.
• Plant seeds after the last spring frost.
• Melons do best in fertile, organically-rich, consistently moist but well-draining sandy loam with a pH of 6.0 to 7.5.
• Place the plants in an area with full sun—8 to 10 hours is best.
• Watermelon, honeydew, and cantaloupe are monoecious—the vines sport both male and female flowers, so the fruit doesn’t need a second plant for pollination.
• Consider adding flowers near the vines to help attract bees, which pollinate the female melon flowers that produce fruit.

A few varieties to try include:

• Cal Sweet Bush Watermelon, with compact, bushy vines.
• Mini Love Watermelon has shorter vines and can be grown in smaller spaces
• JuiceBox, an “icebox” type watermelon
• Sugar Cube, personal-size melon

If you’re looking to grow fruit that tastes delicious but also adds ornamental value to the landscape, you’ll love growing blueberries. Not only do the shrubs produce prolifically, but the pretty plants look great throughout the seasons, adding vibrant fall color when the temperatures cool. While you’ll initially enjoy small harvests from your new shrubs, harvest buckets will overflow once the plants become established, producing plenty of fruit for your favorite recipes, as well as an ample supply to process or freeze for later use.

• Acidic soil is the key ingredient for blueberry-growing success.
• Plant the shrub in loose, well-drained soil rich with organic matter, and test the soil to ensure the pH falls in the 4.0 and 5.5 range.
• Blueberries grow best in full sun, but particularly in hot climates, they tolerate part-shade.

Choose a shrub appropriate for your hardiness zone:

• Lowbush, for USDA zones 2 to 6
• Northern highbush, for zones 4 to 7
• Southern highbush, for zones 6 to 10
• Rabbiteye, for zones 6 to 9. Rabbiteye is especially good for long, hot summers and mild winters.

Plant at least two different varieties of blueberry shrubs that bloom at the same time for cross-pollination. While some blueberries are self-fertile, cross-pollination helps produce a good harvest of bigger, sweeter berries.

Compact blueberry varieties grow well in large patio pots, which is a good option if your soil is not acidic, as it’s easy to create the perfect soil mix in a container.

A few blueberry varieties to try:

• BerryBux®, with the look of a boxwood–but filled with edible fruit
• Bountiful™ Delight, an excellent blueberry for warm climates that performs well even in extreme heat
• Bountiful™ Baby, an extremely compact variety with an impressive crop of small berries packed with flavor. The glossy green leaves develop a deep red fall color that persists through winter.
• Midnight Cascade, the first hanging basket blueberry on the market.

Thorny canes that snag your skin as you search for sweet treats—if you love blackberries and raspberries, you’ve probably endured the war wounds that come with hunting for these delicacies. With the berries’ big burst of flavor–they’re worth it. Fortunately, breeders took pity on us, developing new cultivars that forgo the thorns and focus on the delicious treats instead. And, along with the rambling brambles of traditional blackberry and raspberry plants, new compact varieties make growing backyard berries a breeze. You’ll even find varieties appropriate for patio containers.

Along with their delicious flavor, blackberries and raspberries are high in fiber, low in calories, rich in vitamins C and K, and contain antioxidants and phytochemicals. You’ll love snacking on these healthy treats in your garden or using the bountiful harvests for jams, jellies, sauces, or baked treats.

What is a Bramble?

Brambles are a composite between a perennial herb and shrub: the stems of both blackberries and raspberries are woody, but instead of living year-to-year and bearing fruit indefinitely, the stems live about 1-1/2 years, then die back to the ground after the fruit matures. In the spring, new shoots appear. Crowns and roots are perennial, while the canes are biennial.

Two types of shrubs to consider 

• Primocane fruiting varieties bear fruit on first-year shoots in late summer, and then again on the second-year canes the following summer after winter chilling and appropriate pruning. These are considered “everbearing” types.
• Floricane fruiting varieties bear fruit only on second-year canes—and then those canes die.

It’s important to know what type of shrub you have in order to properly prune for healthy plants and bountiful harvests.

Brambles prefer well-draining, sandy loam soil with a pH of 6.0 to 6.5, amended with organic matter. Depending on the plants’ habits, you may want to trellis the shrubs for healthy plants and easy harvest.

Look for varieties such as

• Baby Cakes® Blackberry, a dwarf, thornless blackberry ideal for containers
• Superlicious™ Blackberry, a thornless, compact shrub that fruits twice in a season in most regions
• Marion Blackberry, a popular blackberry-raspberry hybrid valued for its juicy edible fruits
• Heritage Raspberry, an everbearing variety that produces the first crop in mid-July and the second in September
• Fall Gold Raspberry, an everbearing golden variety that bears both a spring crop and a later summer crop
• Williamette Raspberry, a classic, self-fertile, floricane variety that reliably yields firm, medium-sized, dark red fruit that ripens in midsummer

Have you heard of honeyberries? While not as well-known as blueberries, honeyberries are a sweet, tangy fruit similar in taste to blueberries. High in antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals, they make a healthy and tasty snack, but they’re also delicious in desserts, topping ice cream, and processed for preserves. Cold-hardy honeyberries are ideal for northern climates where other berries don’t grow as well.

• Plant the shrub in full to part sun in fertile, well-draining soil with a pH of 5.5 to 7.5.
• Honeyberries need a second variety for cross-pollination and fruit production, so be sure to select plants that bloom at the same time.
• Honeyberry plants may live and produce fruit for up to 50 years with proper care, so they’re an excellent long-term investment for your fruit garden.
• Fruit is produced on new wood, making pruning easy—just snip dead or damaged branches.

Varieties to consider include:

• Berry Blue™ Honeyberry, which ripens in late May to early June
• Blue Palm Honeyberry, which produces big harvests of large, 1-inch berries
• Boreal Beast Honeyberry, a mildew-resistant variety.

Perhaps elderberry syrup is the elixir that’s saved you during cold and flu season. Or maybe you’re sentimental about your grandmother’s delicious elderberry jam. Packed with antioxidants, elderberries are terrific for tea, making syrup, or preserved as jam. Plus, this edible ornamental produces beautiful flowers in spring, followed by deep, nearly black berries in late summer, making a lovely addition to the garden.

• Plant elderberries in a sunny location in rich, moist, well-draining soil with a pH of 5.5 to 6.5.
• Don’t fertilize these shallow-rooted plants during the first year, but keep them well-watered.
• You’ll need a second variety for cross-pollination to produce fruit.
• Avoid pruning during the first three years, except for broken or dead branches.
• As the plant matures, prune out three-year-old branches, which produce less fruit.

Varieties to consider include for this Edible Ornamental:

• Ranch Elderberry, a disease-resistant variety
• Lemony Lace® Elderberry, a new cultivar with bright green, deeply-cut foliage
• Black Lace® Elderberry, with rich, dark-purple foliage and soft pink flowers

An early summer fruit, gooseberries add a tart zing to both sweet and savory dishes, drinks, and desserts. They make interesting jams, chutneys, and sauces—perfect for culinary creations that provide garden-to-table interest.

• The plant grows easily, preferring rich, well-draining soil with a pH of 6.0 to 6.5.
• Place gooseberries in an area of your garden that warms early in spring or that provides some shelter from late frosts, as the plant blooms in early—and a late frost may damage the blooms and potential harvest.
• Prune 3-year-old branches in spring, as the berries produce best on 1-year-old branches.
• Gooseberries need at least two varieties for pollination.

Varieties to try:

• Hinnonmaki Red, a cold-hardy, mildew-resistant variety
• Invicta Gooseberry, highly productive
• Pixwell Gooseberry, which turns blush-pink when ready to eat

Currants, grapes, hardy kiwi, passionfruit…not to mention all of the tree fruit, like peaches, apples, nectarines, plums, apricots, cherries, persimmons, figs, and more…how can a gardener choose?

Most importantly—grow what you love to eat. Start small, and add fruit as your knowledge and confidence grows. If you’re ready to level up your fruit garden to include trees—which can be a Great Garden Challenge due to the many varieties and their pruning, pest control, fertilizing, and pollination needs—take a look here for more information.

Are you ready to create a garden filled with fabulous fresh fruit? You’ll love the satisfaction of planting, tending, harvesting, and savoring delicious, healthy fruit to enjoy in all your culinary creations.