What fruit trees to plant?

[oliveview01]

We have 14 orange trees, far to many for us to work our way through. We have decided to dig up some of the trees and plant other fruit trees. We have already: plum (golden, red and another that only produced manky fruit) pear trees, lemon and date.
We do not want a Khaki- we dug one up last year!
Anyone here grow advocados? I quite fancy an advocado tree. Cant have fruit shrubs cos the hens would have a feast on the fruit
Have only seen apple trees that have the soft type of apple (UGH) I like a nice crunchy apple. Any suggestions on fruit trees?

[Grouser]

Peach and Apricot.

[chrissiehope]

I've grown avocados from the stones in UK and have a 4ft high sapling in my kitchen ! Tried taking some to Spain, but as we're not there all the time, they died of dehydration...

Last trip we planted a stone in the shadiest spot in the 'garden', inside a sawn off 5 l water bottle to try & retain water. We shall see in Dec if anything has happened.......!!!!

[La Raya]

Loquat or nispero as it is called here. Fruits in March, is drought resistant, makes excellent jam and is nice to eat when fully ripe. Our chickens love the fallen fruit. Same applies to Pomegranate.

[country boy]

Avacados seem to need copious quantities of water by Andalucian standards, I think drip-feed irrigation is the answer from what I have seen in our valley. Custard Apples seem to do well also.

[oliveview01]

We had a nispero tree here when we moved in, but it had to go as it was where the pool was going, also, I was the only person who liked it, so it seemed a waste. Our red plum tree for 2 years now has been really bad with bugs, so it has been drastically pruned, the yellow plum trees have been great and make wonderful jam.
I quite fancy having a go at a custard apple, will have to start looking about for a tree

[flan_taster]

Have just planted a Membrillo tree. Known locally as a Mem Brijo !
It is similar to Quince and used for jam or jelly and other uses. Apparently the Portugese name for the fruit of this tree is "marmelo" and the origin of our English name Marmalade comes from this.
At this time of year in my locality you can see the yellow fruit - a bit like a pear/apple.
The jelly made from the fruit is apparently excellent with Manchego cheese. Anybody had this ?

[silver]

You could get one of the orange trees grafted to grapefruit or manderine..advocados/custard apples..dont do well everywhere so look around you to see if they grow in your area.. Figs are easy..others could be cherry, pomigranet, strawberry tree (madroño) apricots, lyches, pears.

[Martin Page]

Avocado trees do well in spain - IF - you can give them an acid soil. Most soil in Andalucia is chalk - You will have to prepare a deep bed with plenty of Turfa (peat) and horse or cow muck. Add lots of Ferous sulphate and a handfull of sluphur before planting.
Then water with sequestered Iron 2-4 times a year - to keep the acidity up !
Mine is doing nicely !

Other good trees as mentioned already Peach/Apricot/Almond are good. consider also Cherry, Apple/Pear, Pomegranite, other citrus like Limes, lemons, grapefruite, mandarines. How about kiwi fruit (must have two-M/F), Mangos, Pasion fruit, if you want something more exotic - all grow hapily in my garden ... and I dont like fruit !

My philosophy out here is, if its in the (earthier) garden centers - it will grow - if you water it !

Ask them what the type of apple it is (if you can) - Most are the softer types they you tend to get in the supermarkets. I think the harder apples need the cooler temperatures we cant give them . Most garden centers will give advice though.

[geegee]

Out of interest Olive, what altitude are you? The more coastal/tropical fruits like avocado, mango etc., would certainly not grow where I am, we have trouble enough growing citrus!

[anis]

We have oranges ( navel and juicers ), lemons, mandarins, nisporo, clementines and I tried to grow a pink grapefruit but it failed.
I quite fancy a lime tree - you rarely see limes for sale.
The mandarins are by far my favourites and I make a special drink with them at Xmas called Ratafia which is the juice steeped in any cheap alcohol with nutmeg and cinnamon and left for 4 weeks, a bit like a Rumtoff- yum! We do eat them too at Xmas
There is nothing like a cold, juicy mandarin picked straight off the tree - the smell is fabulous and our hens used to love them if we peeled them for them and gave them the segments to eat.

We also have plums, apricots, custard apples and two avocados and we water them all in summer. The amount of crop varies each year for no apparent reason that I can see.
The avocado is quite easy to look after and grows fast. One tree is plenty enough though, for a family, they produce a lot of fruits and you cannot store or freeze them in any way - I tried - yuk

[Genie]

I have two avocado trees in Tenerife but to be honest we just cannot eat that many - here, if we have surplus produce we just put it at the end of the drive for people to collect for free.
It’s the same with the big yellow plums. - we have two of those as well and do the sáname.
Am not sure though whether you have tp plant two for cross fertilisation ? Our are very very old trees, not what we planted.
Good luck though

[ashtondav]

Surplus of avocados? Make Guacamole - freezes to perfection, but maybe leave out the chopped tomatoes if in the recipe. And yes you can have a surplus. We picked over 200 from our one mature specimen!

[Lavanda]

We grew an avocado from a stone. Lovely tree. It died in the severe ground frosts last winter aged four years. If you get ground frosts the tree will need protection.