Frank wrote:

Hello,

I just bought a condo and I only have a balcony. That means I can only
work on container gardening. The fruit trees in HD and costco are very
attractive. I'd love to grow some fruit and enjoy the reward. I have
planted the tomato and strawberry in pots.

Could you please recommend any fruit trees that I can plant in
containers? The navel orange and dwarf cuits trees look and smell
nice. Can I grow them in containers?

I'm in SF bay area.

Thanks a lot!!!

I have three dwarf citrus in 18" cylindrical (not tapered) redwood
tubs.

I have had my Eureka lemon for about 35 years. Twice I thought it
died -- once because I burned the roots by feeding when the soil
was dry and once from a severe frost. About three years after the
second near-death experience, it produced about 60 full-size
lemons in a single year! It's getting ready for a rush of
blooming right now. The current tub is the third container for
this particular tree; the first container was the large pot that I
then used for my kumquat.

My kumquat is just a few years younger than the lemon. Last
summer, while my wife and I were traveling for almost four weeks,
we had a hot spell. The automatic lawn sprinklers failed because
Edison had another of its outages. When I got home, the kumquat
and several plants in the ground all looked dead. They are now
revived, but I got no fruit from the kumquat last year. Most
years, it's covered with more fruit than we can eat. The kumquat
was originally in a very large, concrete flower pot that had a
crack in it (the pot in which I originally planted my lemon).
Eventually, the pot fell apart along the crack.

My Robertson navel orange is about 12 years old. Some years I
get, 2-3 oranges. Some years, I get 20. The orange is still in
its original tub.

The trees were each bought in 1 gallon cans. Each tub required
about 2.5 cubic feet of potting mix. All three tubs rest on 20"
concrete rounds on my back lawn. Each tub actually rests on a
square of bricks set on top of the rounds. This means no weight
rests on the bottom rims of the tubs; all the weight is on the
recessed bottom planks. It also means that air circulates under
the tubs, preventing the wood from rotting. The tubs seem to last
about 25-30 years.

On a balcony, you don't need the concrete rounds; however, if you
use tubs, you should put something underneath so they don't rest
on their rims. If you use large pots, you might want to put
glazed saucers under them so that the deck of the balcony is not
damaged by constant moisture. Be careful about putting too many
trees on your balcony. Just one 18" tub is quite heavy.

--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean
Sunset Zone: 19 -- interior Santa Monica Mountains with some ocean
influence (USDA 10a)
Gardening pages at http://www.rossde.com/garden/