Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Do you ever wish you already knew everything you need to know about fruit growing?
When we started fruit growing, we made (approximately) 10 million mistakes. We still make plenty today! There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s how you learn, after all.
But it would have been so good to have been able to avoid the worst ones.
We also would have loved to speed up the process of learning, so we could figure out how to make money from our fruit trees faster.
How we started fruit growing
When we came home to the farm, we were lucky enough to have Katie’s Dad here to teach us the basics of fruit growing. It would have been much slower without him.
He’s taught us heaps about the technical aspects of fruit growing. Irrigation, grafting, and growing our own trees – amongst many other things.
He was our first mentor and teacher.
But we’ve had to forge our own way with organic growing, which involves a completely different understanding of nearly every aspect of fruit growing.
The 5 things you need to know about growing fruit
When we went organic, we also had to develop a new way of marketing using farmers’ markets and social media.
Fair to say that there’s been a lot of trial and error over the years.
With the benefit of hindsight, if we could have waved a magic wand and gotten what we needed right at the beginning, here’s our list of the top 5 things we wish we’d known when we started.
1. How important soil is
Who knew?
We’d kind of heard of soil before we started farming, but we thought it was just something that held the trees upright.
The moment we realised that our soil is a living organism (and that pretty much the whole health of our farm depends on soil biology) was a beautiful day.
It’s just a pity it came about 8 years after we’d started farming!
2. How to control pests and diseases organically
Like soil, we’d kinda heard of biodiversity, but thought it had something to do with looking after native bush.
We had no notion of our farm as being part of the landscape. We didn’t understand that biodiversity and working with nature are key to naturally controlling pests and diseases.
Since that dawned on us, we’ve also learned a whole toolbox of really useful tricks and techniques for protecting our crops from all the things that want to eat them.
That would have been pretty useful info in advance!
3. Farming is risky
We learned this the hard way, after many difficult years, crop losses, and painful lessons.
If only we’d known at the beginning how incredibly risky fruit growing can be, we would have built a more resilient business from the start.
Then all those calamities (drought, torn netting, flood, bird plagues, disease outbreaks…) would have been expected and planned for, rather than being depressing and painful body blows.
4. How to be profitable
Like many other young farmers, in the beginning, we had our heads in the clouds and were full of the warm fuzzy visions of ‘living the dream’.
Knowing what we know now, we would have put more time into planning. That would have helped us to get things right at the beginning to help ensure our profitability.
Things like the appropriate scale of the farm, alternative income streams, and how to put a value on our time.
5. The importance of having a mentor
There are many different types of mentors, including consultants, advisers, and peer mentors. We’ve worked with lots of them since about our 8th year on the farm (and always will).
It’s so incredibly useful to work with someone who can see our business from the outside. They can guide us through essential processes like business planning and tell us all the things we didn’t even know we needed to know.
Through mentoring, we’ve established our vision, values, and goals that have guided our fruit growing, our business, and our personal lives.
It made such a profound difference to our lives that it inspired us to create the Grow Great Fruit program so we could offer the same thing to other fruit growers.
It’s sort of like having a compass to guide you in the right direction—and without it, it’s very easy to get lost!
Now that we know what we need to know, we know we’ll always need to know more!
Are you looking for more information about fruit growing?
Why waste time? You might as well get on with learning how to look after your fruit trees as quickly as possible, so you start getting returns faster. We have lots of resources to get you moving as quickly as possible.
🍒 Fruit tree care: The ultimate guide in 10 steps
🍒 Why we make dodgy fruit-growing videos
🍒 Five Key Steps to Happy, Healthy Fruit Trees webinar
🍒 The 10 Key Steps to Growing Great Fruit
🍒 Create Your Fruit Tree Action Plan
🍒 Pest and Disease Prevention webinar
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How lucky I was to find the GGF program! I knew very little about fruit trees and their crops. Still learning but having you both as mentors (and friends )even through the dark day’s of our huge fire has been amazing. I’ve learned SO much and been inspired with compost making, our worm farm and how to care for fruit trees through each season. All I can say us a huge thank you for your patience , enthusiasm and expertise to you both Hugh and Katie. Have a fabulous and safe year 2022
Thank you for your wonderful work Katie and Hugh xx
Hello,
I used to plant garlic but I always get small heads and cloves.
Is there any way to get big heads and big cloves like the ones I buy?
Many thanks
Hi there,
The short answer is…it depends! Lots of variables can effect garlic growing success – variety, soil health, timing of planting, watering regime. The climate of your region will influence the kind of variety you choose, and different varieties can do better at different planting times so make sure you research the variety you’re planting and how it prefers to grow. One of the best ways to get local advice on growing something is to head to a local farmers market & find your local garlic grower. Ask them about the varieties that grow well where you live and better yet, buy some garlic to eat & plant while you’re there! Thanks, Meg – GGF team.