The Best Fruit Trees You Can Grow In A Small Space Instead of Grass

Alright, so I recognize that this is probably a little bit of a controversial opinion, but every single backyard should be growing fruit trees. And if you're not growing fruit trees, you're just wasting a ton of space. And this next point is even more controversial, but growing grass in your backyard is one of the worst things you can grow because it uses a ton of resources like fertilizer that creates a lot of pollution through runoff, and it uses a ton of water. So what should you grow instead? Well, fruit trees, of course, especially with the state of the economy right now, everything is getting super expensive, especially food. So why not grow fruit trees in your own backyard is super easy. And if you think, well, I can't grow fruit in my backyard, I don't have the space. I want you to get the idea right out of your head because I grow a ton of fruit trees in my small backyard garden. And it's easy. There's a ton of fruit trees you can grow either in a container or just a small space. So I'm going to give you some updates about my fruit trees, my plans, and give you some ideas of how you can grow fruit trees in a small backyard garden. And let's garden on. Hey guys, I just want to quickly pause the video to introduce myself just in case we haven't met yet. Hi, my name's Adam. I make all kinds of gardening tip videos. So if you're interested in that kind of content, please consider subscribing. And you know what? Liking and commenting in the video also helps a lot too. And there's even a new feature where you can hype this video to help push my videos out to a wider audience. So if you're finding any value in the video, either consider doing any one of those things that can help a lot, but also I show a ton of gardening products in my videos too. And if you use my affiliate links, I make a small little commission at no extra cost to you. So if you want to support my channel, liking, commenting, and subscribing can help, but also using my link helps a lot too. So let's get back into that video about growing fruit trees in a small backyard. So my first recommendation, if you want to grow fruit in a small backyard is to grow citrus. So there's a ton of citrus varieties you can actually grow in a container. And one of the best types of containers that you can grow citrus in is a Vigo rolling citrus planter. So I have two examples right here. So this one right here, this is gen two and it has a New Zealand lemonade lemon tree in it. As you can see, there's actually a lemon on it that's about to ripen up. And what's cool about this type of lemon is that it actually tastes like lemonade. So you have like the flavors of a lemon that's not so tart. That's kind of like a mix of a Mandarin, I think, but I can't wait to try that. So another month or two, I'll be harvesting that lemon and tasting that for the first time. So super excited. I've had that tree for like two years now. And then right here in gen three, by the way, too, if you want to see videos about like complete videos, I have a video putting it together, gen two, and I have a more recent video where I show you gen three, but in gen three, I have a sweet kumquat growing. So I have like, I don't like a dozen citrus trees, but these are just two examples. But what I like about the sweet kumquat is that, you know, obviously it's sweet. There's two varieties. There's the tart variety and a sweet variety. The sweet variety is a little more uncommon, but with kumquats, you can eat the whole fruit, the skin, seed and fruit and everything all in one. So these are about to ripen up too, as you see, they're starting to turn like orange. Couple fell off right here, but yeah, so this is rolling. So if there's any kind of freezes, you can roll it right into a garage greenhouse or any place that's a little warmer, but yeah. So citrus, number one fruit that you can grow in a container, especially a rolling planter from VigoGarden. So one of the things I mentioned in the intro was I'm going to talk about my plans for the near future for my fruit trees. So this is a fruit salad tree right here. Right now it's growing in a 15 gallon container, but I'm going to plant it in one of my circular raised beds from VigoGarden, and I'm going to show you really quick on the other side of the garden. But this has basically plums, peaches and apricots and nectarines on it. So it's a really good way to save a lot of space if you grow fruit trees that have multiple varieties on it. So instead of growing like four trees, I can just grow one tree and get all those varieties with a single tree. All right, guys. So this is that circular raised bed from VigoGarden that I just mentioned that I plan on planting my fruit salad tree in later this year when the tree becomes more dormant. So my Texas A&M, they highly recommend that the best time to plant a fruit tree is in December because that's when the tree is going to be dormant, it's going to give the tree enough time to fully adapt and get ready for next season and especially this summer. But a raised bed like this is really good for fruit trees, especially like a peach tree or something that can take the cold more than citrus. So I wouldn't grow citrus in here unless if it's like a super cold tolerant citrus like a yuzu mandarin, like which I have in another raised bed on the other side of the yard. So you can grow a yuzu mandarin here, but you still have to protect it during frost. So like yuzu mandarins can take down to like zero degrees, but that's like air temperature and not necessarily like frost on the leaves. But yeah, I think either an apple tree, a peach tree or some other kind of stone fruit tree would do really well in a raised bed like this, which can help you really take advantage of a small space. And speaking of taking advantage of a small space, another great way that you can grow fruit trees in a small backyard is to grow them in whiskey barrels. So I have a couple of fruit trees growing in whiskey barrels and one of them is this multi grafted plum tree. So one thing to note about growing fruit trees in a whiskey barrel is that after a period of time, the bottom is going to rot away because after all it's wood. And what that's going to allow is the roots to go deeper into the soil. So when that happens, don't try to move the whiskey barrel because it's going to fall apart. So it's kind of going to act more like a raised bed, but it's going to give you the best of both worlds of a raised bed and growing in a container. So yeah, so growing in a whiskey barrel is good, but don't try to move it once it gets established. So make sure you pick that spot you really want to have it in because after that you shouldn't move it. So the next kind of fruit that I want to recommend for small gardeners is actually dragon fruit. So dragon fruit should be grown in containers anyways, especially if you live in any kind of place that gets any kind of freezing weather. Because if you leave dragon fruit out during a freeze, it's going to die. So you need to grow them in containers. At least most people need to grow them in containers. But I have a few different varieties of dragon fruit growing in my garden. This is a pink flesh dragon fruit, super sweet, but I have this one growing in one of those rolling citrus planters from Vigo Garden that I showed you earlier. But Vigo also has a more specialized dragon fruit planter too, but the dragon fruit planter one actually goes out of stock a lot. But the main difference is it's pretty much the same exact planter, but the dragon fruit planter has the built-in trellis, where this one doesn't. So that's why the nursery I bought this dragon fruit from actually built this trellis with fence posts. So yeah, grow dragon fruit. But the thing about dragon fruit is that some varieties are self-sterile, so you'll have to get a self-pollinating variety to make sure you get fruit, or at least time it right so you can cross-pollinate. But there's a ton of videos on my channel about growing dragon fruit. And I mentioned this tree earlier, the yuzu mandarin. I have this planted in one of my raised beds. This is one of the only citrus, other than I have a Republic of Texas orange tree that's planted directly in the ground that I leave out year round. Most of my citrus, like 95% of my citrus trees are actually growing in containers so I can protect them from frost. But like I said earlier, this tree right here, the yuzu mandarin, can take temperatures down to zero degrees, but that doesn't mean that it can take frost. So if there's any kind of snow or ice, which Houston still gets every once in a while, it still has to be covered. But if it's just like below freezing, just like dry air, this tree would be okay without being covered. And I'm also experimenting with growing some tropical trees in containers. This is a chocolate pudding tree, otherwise called a black sapote tree. The fruit actually tastes like chocolate pudding. But you know, I was away a couple of weeks in August and we're in the middle of El Nido and I think, you know, things are just a little warmer and it didn't get enough water because I was away. And so a lot of the leaves fell off on the chocolate pudding tree. But as you can see, it's starting to grow back. So hopefully it bounces back, but it's in a 25 gallon plastic container. It's just a black plastic container I got from my local nursery. I'll try to include a link to something similar online, but then right next to it, I have a starfruit tree. So the thing about this tree, it got fried when I was away. As you see, the top part of the tree looks almost dead, but it's starting to bounce back. So it's not dead, but it's definitely struggling. That's because, you know, like I said, I was away, it didn't get enough water and it was super hot because of that El Nido. So this is a second year I'm growing the starfruit tree and the first year I'm growing the chocolate pudding tree. So we'll see next spring if these trees are still alive, I'll give you an update when that time comes. All right. So another type of fruit tree that you can grow in a container are fig trees. So like I mentioned earlier, I have a couple fruit trees growing in whiskey barrels and this is my oldest fruit tree I have growing in a whiskey barrel. This is a Celeste fig tree. The whiskey barrel is starting to break apart, but like I mentioned earlier, after a period of time, the roots go into the ground. So this is more like a raised bed, but the tree is still going to be okay. It's a little close to my house, but I'm going to prune this tree really hard this fall, late this fall, probably around November, maybe beginning of December, more closer to winter time. But yeah, you can grow fig trees in containers too, especially in a whiskey barrel. All right, guys. So just a quick video about growing fruit trees in a small space, but hey, I want to hear from you. What's your favorite fruit tree you're growing in your garden right now? Or if you have any questions and need help with a fruit tree you want to grow in your garden. But hey, if you found any value in this video today, don't forget to leave that like, comment and subscribe. Till next time, I'll catch you on the flip side of the garden. Thanks for watching.