Gardening – Succession planning

Succession is an important concept in life, as we move through the various stages from infancy to old age. Recently, Ang and I have been working through succession planning in our business as we move closer to retirement. The Covid lockdown sped this process up as we enjoyed a rare period of tranquility and realised that, in fact, this was how we preferred to be living.

In gardening, succession planning is just as important. In the vegetable garden, winter veggies are currently being harvested and replaced with spring vegetables. With such a mild winter, we’ll also be planting a succession of spuds to be harvested from November on. By the end of this month I’ll be sowing summer crops, such as tomatoes, capsicum, melons, beans and eggplant. While these are best left until at least Labour Weekend to plant outside, I can grow them to relatively large plants in pots inside my greenhouse, giving us a good head start on the season.

In the orchard, succession planning takes a couple of different routes. Winter is a good time to replace underperforming trees. As sad as it is to cut out a mature tree, sometimes this is for the best. An example is our pear tree; although the 17th century adage is to “plant a pear for your heirs”, in our case our 10-year-old tree was a very poor cropper and the few fruit it produced were rock-hard and gritty. It’s successor is a Blackboy peach, a favourite that almost ranks as high as Golden Queen in my estimation.

The other form of fruit tree succession is seasonal. I’ve just finished the last of my persimmons. The ancient Greeks called them the “fruit of the gods” and I wholeheartedly agree. Cherimoya is also coming to an end, a fruit that was called by Mark Twain “the most delicious fruit known to men”. Next up are the citrus; essential fruit in any garden.

First are the mandarins, with the early one ripening from June, followed by navel orange, lime, grapefruit and, finally, tangelo.

This succession takes us through to November, when the first of the plums ripen, followed quickly by peaches and various berryfruit. By the end of January, as the peaches and plums taper off, the apples, grapes and passionfruit (if I can keep the damn things alive!) start to come on, followed by feijoas and figs. Which brings us around full circle.

Underlying these seasonal crops are a few that produce nearly year-round, such as the avocado (once it gets larger), banana and lemons. The net result is more fruit than our family could ever eat all year round, from an area of approximately 250sqm. In fact, so much fruit that I took up winemaking and distilling partly to get through the excess.  

So this is the key takeout from what became a very long-winded introduction. If you are planning on being self-sufficient in fruit, unless you have a very large family or are a budding winemaker, plant no more than one of any variety. Plant varieties that come into season in succession. Keep the trees on the small side with regular pruning. Plant dwarf varieties or plant in pots if space is limited, and be prepared to replace any that are not doing the job.

Andrew Steens