If you’re a fruit lover, cultivating a beautiful garden full of amazing fruit-bearing trees and bushes is a really amazing way to give yourself constant access to some of the most delicious foods available.
What’s more, growing your own fruit is great value for money, saving you from having to head to the store and making a wonderful addition to desserts, breakfasts, and fruit juices without the need to pay for the mass-produced products most people use.
Fruits that will produce year after year are known as perennials, and there is a surprisingly wide range of options for gardeners and green thumbs who are looking to reap the delicious harvest homegrown fruit can provide.
While not every climate will be friendly to all the different types of fruit trees, be they perennial or otherwise, if you do the research, put in the time and effort you’ll be surprised just how much you’re able to grow. Quite often once people learn the joy and pleasure of eating organic, homegrown fruit, they seldom go back to eating store-bought again.
But which of these delicious and bountiful plants will continue to bear fruit for you every year, bringing joy and nutrition to you and your family for years to come?
Let’s take a look at some below.
1. Blackberries
Blackberries are one of the most delicious of all the berries, and the beauty of a blackberry plant is that it will regrow without assistance once established. This means you’ll be able to enjoy an abundance of blackberries every year after a little work getting the plant settled.
They are a very hardy plant and can spread quickly if left totally unattended, so if anything most of the work needed is to keep the plant from becoming too well established and taking over your garden.
It’s quite easy to see how far these plants can spread by just checking out most hedgerows. They create such an abundance that often a large plant will provide more than enough berries for a family giving you plenty of options for how you want to use them, be it for pie, jam, or fresh on porridge!
2. Strawberries
Strawberries are very easy to grow and are a great option for beginner gardeners who want to build their confidence and experience the thrill of eating their first homegrown fruit.
They are famous for their amazing taste and iconic red color and will regrow without you needing to do anything. They are a plant that can spread quite far if left unchecked, so give them plenty of space, ideally planting them in hanging baskets to allow the vines to drape and spread without crowding other plants out.
3. Rhubarb
Rhubarb is technically a fruit, and is fairly hardy, regrowing yearly once established. It doesn’t require any special treatment to regrow and will give you some great options in the kitchen, but be sure to keep bugs off them to keep your fruits intact.
4. Avocado
Everyone knows avocados have a stone in the middle. But did you know that this is actually the seed, and from this stone, you can grow your own Avocado plant!?
Well now you do, so you can stop getting ripped off at the store. The best way to plant these seeds is to hang the stone over a good amount of water so that it is around half-submerged in it. Keep it in a warm spot AWAY from direct sunlight for just over a month and you’ll see the roots starting to grow.
5. Apples
Apples are one of the most diverse fruits with many different variants that can grow almost anywhere.
They are also delicious and can be eaten fresh or cooked in a variety of meals and desserts making them a great addition to your garden. An established apple tree is self-sustaining and will regrow yearly without assistance or replanting, but to keep the tree healthy you will need to keep it well managed so that it doesn’t overreach and exhaust itself.
6. Raspberries
Raspberries are very much like blackberries in that once established, they will regrow without help and can spread quite quickly. It’s best to plant them in larger pots so that they have space to grow but can be easily managed.
7. Peaches
Peaches are a relatively short-lived fruit tree, only reliably producing fruit for about 12 years before needing to be replanted.
However for those years, they will bear fruit quite reliably without help, and only a little pruning will be needed to manage the tree as they can grow quite large. Typically these trees will bear fruit after around 2 years after being planted.
8. Nectarines
Nectarines tend to prefer warmer climates, and will only bear fruit 2 years after planting, and are overall very similar to peaches in their care and yields.
9. Limes
Limes are another great perennial with a range of uses, from delicious pie to use in cocktails. They do require pruning as they can grow both tall and wide, and prefer warmer climes like most citrus fruits.
10. Figs
Figs do prefer warm climates, but some variants can survive cooler regions and will reliably produce fruit for a very long time without any assistance.
They grow quite easily and can grow very tall, but will only start to produce fruit after several years, sometimes up to 4 or 5.
11. Blueberries
Blueberries thrive in acidic soil working well at the edges of water and in mulch. They can survive a range of climates and are quite hardy when it comes to pests and diseases. They also have a range of uses and can be stored well. They tend to bear fruit after 2 or 3 years past planting and will reliably produce fruit yearly beyond that.
12. Grapes
Despite what winemakers would have you believe, grapes are actually easy to grow and there are a large variety of grapes to suit various climates. They require pruning to make the harvest healthy, but 3 years after planting they will give you some of the most delicious fruit there is!
