Gardening has become an activity for many people during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Whether it be for reasons of food security, or simply because it was a relaxing hobby, growth in gardening supplies (seeds, equipment) and communities (sharing forums on expertise, space, and even crops) has been hailed as a positive coming out of the pandemic.
Imagine, one tree that will give you both lemons and limes, or even peaches, plums and nectarines! Wouldn’t that be wonderful for these tiny gardens? Well, that “new idea” exists: the fruit salad tree.
Image from The Fruit Salad Tree
This horticultural innovation from Australia was developed in 1990 by the West family in NSW.[1] They had a farm, but it was remote, so they needed a way to supply the family’s need for fresh fruit without having to build a huge orchard. With a bit of grafting ingenuity, they created fruit salad trees which can bear up to 6 different fruits from one family of fruits on the one tree.[2]
Image from The Land
What started out as something to supply a family’s need for as much fruit as they could produce in an isolated farm, became something available to home gardeners, and can now be an option to for small urban gardens that flourished during a time of crisis.
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[1] Source: A Fruit Salad all on one tree, The Land, Aug 2019
[2] Source: A Fruit Salad all on one tree, The Land, Aug 2019
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