I have some room in my backyard for some small fruit plants. What do you recommend?
It does not take a lot of room to grow some berries. You could even plant a few in containers on your patio or deck.
Strawberry plants take the least amount of room. There is even a special strawberry pot designed to hold about a dozen plants. Strawberry plants make a nice ground cover. They are most productive when they are spaced about 6 inches apart. They should be thinned when they get thicker by removing the oldest plants. The youngest plants produce the most fruit.
There are three types of strawberry varieties. The varieties produced commercially in Western Washington and Oregon are the June-bearing type, which produce a heavy crop for about a month from mid-June to mid-July. This is a good type if you want to freeze fruit or make jam. The older everbearing strawberries produce two crops, one in June and again in the fall. The newest type, called day neutral, are sometimes also called everbearing. They produce fewer berries continuously from May through October. There are several varieties but Seascape seems to be the best adapted.
