The Cupertino Courier

Gardening

Once common fruit, nut trees are difficult to find

By Tony Tomeo

The scarcer they get, the more I miss the apricot trees that were once so common throughout the Santa Clara Valley during my childhood. My parents, like most of the neighbors, had an apricot tree in the back yard that remained from the orchard that had previously occupied the site.

Friends and family in other areas had other fruit and nut trees from other orchards, including cherries, prunes, almonds, walnuts and even apples and pears in the Santa Cruz Mountains. What was not provided by old orchard trees grew on the many trees planted in home gardens, including figs, citrus, plums, peaches, nectarines and persimmons.

Incidentally, prunes are "freestone" European plums that have firmer flesh and a higher sugar content than Japanese plums. They are easier to cut and pit, and their higher sugar content prevents them from molding while drying. They are rarely eaten fresh, as they are almost always dried. Conversely, plums are almost always eaten fresh, since they are not so easily dried.

As if all this fruit was not enough, even more could be purchased from roadside produce markets adjacent to the orchards on Bascom Avenue, El Camino Real, Laurence Expressway or just about any main thoroughfare. These markets provided some of the same types of fruits and nuts, but different varieties that were in season at different times. There was also an abundance of fresh berries and vegetables.

Slowly though, the old urbanized orchard trees died out. The intact orchards disappeared along with their roadside markets. I still remember watching in horror as bulldozers annihilated the last remnant of apricot orchard that we children played in. (Ironically, the orchard was replaced with San Thomas Park so that we children would have a place to play.) Instead of gardening around pre-existing fruit trees, new fruit trees are being added to gardens. The few remaining local roadside produce markets import produce from other farms.

However, I have found that these few fruit stands are remarkable sources of local horticultural information. While visiting the Cornucopia Fruit Stand on Winchester Boulevard between Knowles Avenue and Highway 85, in Los Gatos, I found that this is a rather early season for cherries, apricots and plums. The unusually cool winter that accelerated the development of these fruits will likely cause peaches and nectarines to be early also. Raspberries and blackberries are excellent this year, although I think they are from Watsonville.

Cornucopia's claim to having "Santa Clara Valley's finest seasonal produce" seemed a bit redundant, since "Santa Clara Valley's" and "finest" mean about the same thing relative to "seasonal produce," but this was no deterrent. I did some shopping for old classics and a few newer introductions that I have been somewhat hesitant to try. The Marsh grapefruit and Bing cherries are as excellent now as they were in 1975, after the last winter it snowed slightly on the Valley floor.

The pluots were perhaps what I found to be most interesting, because I am not very familiar with them. Trying the different fruit and learning when each ripens would help me to select a pluot tree for my own home orchard. I even inquired about adaptability to local environmental conditions and the need for pollinators. This technique is just as useful for anyone selecting any other type of fruit, as long as it is limited to cultivars that are locally available. Supermarkets are not much help in this regard since so much of their produce is imported from other remote regions and even other continents.

Fruit of the Week: Pluot, Plumcot and Aprium

As the names imply, pluot and plumcot are hybrids of plums and apricots. Apriums are hybrids of apricots and pluots, so are approximately 75 percent apricot and 25 percent plum. All perform well locally, but were not grown in local orchards only because they were developed and popularized after the orchards were already established, and because they are often less productive than their parents are. Characteristics of flavor, texture and color are as variable as those of their parents. Most pluots, plumcots and apriums need pollinators that bloom at the same time.

Listen to Tony Tomeo's 'New Image Garden Report' Friday mornings at 8:10 a.m. on KSCO-1080 AM (or online at www.ksco.com). He can be reached at www.ttomeo@newimagelandscape.com or 408.358.2574.