[Pil-pc-oceania] In praise of loquats

[Graeme George - Earthcare Permaculture]

David

I believe loquats are a much under-rated fruit. They're very hardy, 
better eating than early cherry-plum crosses and a great way to break 
the spring fresh-fruit drought. I'm on the lookout for early-ripening 
varieties that have some flavour and would appreciate a few seeds to 
grow out if any one has particularly good strains. Being evergreen I 
recommend them, along with Feijoas, as a productive multi-purpose 
screening/hedgerow plant.

 I have an unproductive seedling tree I bought from Flemings in the 
1980's. A couple of years ago I put a liberal dressing of wood ashes 
around the tree while it was flowering and believe I got a better fruit 
set that year as a result, but no longer term benefit. I'm growing out 
seedlings from various sources and have a grafted Bessel Brown to plant 
out. The unproductive one may be going.

Cheers

Graeme George
(Heritage Fruits Group, Permaculture Melbourne)
35 Deering Ave, Healesville, Vic, 3777.

David Arnold wrote:
> In a year when a unusually heavy Spring frost over Northern Victoria 
> on September 18 wiped out most of the Goulburn Valley's stone fruit 
> crop, and my stone fruit also, I am appreciating my couple of trees of 
> loquats here very much. 
>  
> Loquats flower in winter and can lose their flowers to frost at that 
> time, but they withstood the Spring frost.  So this year while I can't 
> look forward to the apricots, peaches and nectarines, european and 
> asian plums that I would usually be watching develop with interest at 
> this time, I can eat loquats.
>  
> My Japanese visitor tells me they are common in the shops there.  They 
> call them 'Biwa'.
>
> David
>