FAB FRUIT TREES FOR KIDS’ LUNCHBOXES
Kate Marshall works for Nelson’s Waimea Nurseries, the country’s biggest producer of fruit and nut trees for home gardens. Even in small gardens, you can grow a range of fruit useful for kids’ school lunches, she says.
21 MANDARIN ‘SILVERHILL’
This variety of Satsuma mandarin has thick skin, is easy peel and is seedless. Like all citrus, it needs regular feeding with citrus fertiliser through the summer – Kate says aim for three to four times a year depending on the product used – as well as protection from frosts. ‘Silverhill’ ripens early in winter, so to extend the season, plant the original ‘Satsuma’ variety for the latter part of the season, she suggests.
23 FEIJOA ‘KAITERI’'
‘Kaiteri’ trees produce big feijoas - often weighing in at over 200g each. The fruit is sweet and juicy, with that classic feijoa flavour. “The skin can be quite thin, which means the flesh can be scooped right to the edge,” Kate explains.
This variety is self-fertile, so can be planted on its own, but if you have space, try planting it with a different variety such as ‘Opal Star’ and ‘Wiki Tu” which ripen later – “a great way to spread out the harvest,” Kate says.
24 FLATTO PEACH ‘SWEET BONNET’
Start the school year with yummy flat peaches in the lunchbox – perfect for closing the lid without squashing the fruit! These peaches are sweet and tasty with yellow flesh. “Also, it’s a very pretty tree in spring with prolific pink blossoms,” says Kate.
Another positive, especially in smaller gardens: peaches are self fertile, so even if you only have room for one tree, this will produce good crops of fruit without a pollinating partner.
22 THUMBELINA APPLE ‘CANDY CRUNCH’
These cute mini apples are perfect for little hands and tummies – you’ll never have a half-eaten apple come home again! This variety needs to be harvested once the sugar levels have developed which can be as late as May or June. The trees grow to “normal size” (so about 3m tall), but can be trained along a fence as an espalier if space is limited, Kate says.
25 APPLE ‘INITIAL’’
Kate rates this apple variety highly for the home garden primarily because it is a disease resistant version of ‘Royal Gala’, so can be grown without the spray programme that other apple varieties may need to stop black spot. “Plus, the fruit is sweet and crisp. It ripens through February and March, and this is a highly productive home garden tree,” she adds.