Fresh Fruit All Year Round

Our goal at HHF when we first arrived was to have fresh fruit available all year round. We chose the Orchard trees based on their documented fruit maturity month. For example we have lots of Citrus trees which grow well in our area. The first Mandarin is ready for eating in May and the last Mandarin in October with a few Oranges holding on until November. Mulberry comes on after the Mandarin followed by Peaches and Nectarines, then Plums. Grapes and melons are followed by Apples and Pears. Dragon Fruit fills any gaps about this time. Occasionally we get some Bananas and the occasional Pineapple. All a welcome diversity.

The transition period of April/May is covered by our Cherry Guava (Botanical Name: Psidium cattleianum Plant Family: Myrtaceae). This provides a high vitamin C fruit for our nightly yogurt from April through to July.

Our tree is planted beside the chicken run and benefits from the proximity to lots of fresh nutrient while provide some shade for the chickens and a they return the compliment by cleaning up the fruit fall.

There is this steady progression of fresh vitamins and minerals in our diet. We don't juice our fruit except to make wine from excess fruit. The fibre is just as important as the  juice. Juicing just increase the amount of sugar consumed without making the gut work.

An attraction of Cherry Guava is that the fruit matures gradually not all at once

The sugar content of Cherry Guava is quite low and it would be unsuitable for wine making without adding sugar. Like lots of small fruits it probably would freeze although we haven't tried this. By having such a variety of fruiting plants we are able to save energy by not having to freeze or preserve fruits. The only short coming of our plan would be if we have a bad harvest and a gap opens in our plan. Backup plan is homemade ported prunes.