Drought Tolerant Fruit Trees And Vegetables To Plant Now!

Drought tolerant fruit trees/vines:
Fig, Jujube (chinese date), grapes, apple, persimmon, Asian pear, apricot
Drought tolerant fruit, veg, and grain:
Amaranth, sweet potato, melons, tomato?, swiss chard, collard greens

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[Doc]

We grow collard’s, mustard greens, and Swiss chard every summer.
The secret to getting rid of the bitterness that Collards tend to have is to freeze them before cooking.
We add our collards, mustard, turnip greens and Swiss chard together in a Large pot to cook them down. We add 2 heaping Tbsp of bacon grease, salt and pepper to taste.
About 10 minutes before they’re done, we add 2-3 full cloves of peeled garlic in with the greens.
Even though I’m a WA native my parents were raised in Oklahoma and Arkansas, so naturally they taught me how to cook with southern traditions.
My wife is from Montana and I’ve taught her how to cook southern.

One of my favorite veggies is fried Okra.
A few minutes before the Okra is ready, I add a clove or 2 of peeled garlic and a sliced sweet onion.

I do have a question for you. You said that the leaves of sweet potatoes are edible. Do I cook them like I do spinach?

Another thing I wanted to add is that Dandelion is VERY good for your body. The entire “weed” can be consumed. Add the tender young leaves to your garden salads.
The roots, stems and flowers can be boiled down to make tea. If the tea is bitter, add some honey.
Dandelion is high in vitamin K, C, A & D.
Dandelion also helps our bodies pancreas produce insulin, which is good for diabetics.
God knew exactly what our bodies need, so He created food for us to enjoy and to live healthy.

[DeepSouthBama]

I do hate to correct you, but Figs are shallow rooted and for optimum growth and production benefit from mulching above ground. Oh and yes they are great for the homestead.

[Jim-frgr]

We finally got some rain Monday and Tuesday.We got about five inches here NE Texas.

[carolynstreet]

I live near Abilene, TX and our tomato plants are doing absolutely terrible. From 23 plants we have harvested about 6 tomatoes. About 3 weeks ago we installed shade cloth, but that doesn't seem to have helped. I think they were too stressed for too long. My cherry tomatoes have produced a few tomatoes and the yellow pear have lots of fruit, but none has ripened yet. Thank you for your informative, upbeat videos.

[NynkevanderBurg]

Wonderful video, nice to see which fruit trees grow well in Texas. I live in Adelaide which has a mediterranean climate with very dry summers with extreme heatwaves and cool winters but never frost. We moved here 4 years ago and I started planting fruit trees in our suburban block right away. So far I am really happy with grapes, loquat, pomegranate, apricot, plum, apples (different varieties), figs, feijoa, quince and jujube. So a lot of the same ones you mentioned. I don't grow olives although they would do well here but they can get invasive in the bushland. I think the best drought resistant trees I have planted are black and white mulberries. They are quite amazing and have never needed water beyond the first summer. I grow citrus too but they do need water in summer. And thanks for mentioning your experience with the jujube. I planted it this past winter and now plan not to water it. Tomatoes don't do well in our climate at all, cherry tomatoes are ok. Sweet potatoes do ok here but did way better in Queensland (where we lived before moving here) where it is much more humid, so I think they like humidity. The best fairly drought resistant vegetable in my experience here are eggplant, artichoke -both regular and Jerusalem artichoke, and asparagus. And the herbs that are great here as you would expect: oregano, thyme, rosemary, sage.

[scottcampbell]

I live in S Texas. The deer eat our figs trees leaves. In fact, they eat any young plant or tree they can get their grubby mouths on. We must put fencing around any plant we want to keep.

[xrpayday]

Drought and higher than normal early summer temps and sandy soil seemed to bring me a lot of blossom end rot on my tomatoes that i have never experienced before. We have rain barrels as our only water source but when it doesn’t rain the gutters only collect dust!

[stevenpage]

I live near Norman Oklahoma. It’s been hot and dry this summer. My tomatoes did awesome! They’re still producing.

[ligbzd]

We have so many gophers! How do you manage your gophers or moles?

[TropicalGardeningCyprus]

Here in the East Med, what thrives ''in the wild'' regarding fruit trees and bushes, are the olives as you said, date palms, loquats as you mentioned, carobs but that's a taste not everyone likes, I personally love them and have been eating them since a child, if they can grow there and you manage to make carob honey on your own it will be fantastic. Almonds of course, wild blackberries, sycamore, and last the mulberry tree. Tons of both white and black mulberries, no one waters them and they get loaded with fruits every year.

[barbaralong]

Small or cherry tomatoes usually do well in hot arid climate. Larger tomatoes quit in the summer but will sometimes begin producing again in late September.

[SuerteDelMolinoFarm]

Greetings from the LooseNatural farm in Andalusia Spain

[debkincaid]

Very helpful as we're in our 4th? year of drought here in SE Idaho. Question: do you do market gardening? What do you do with all those melons? We are zone 5 here, extreme temps but usually low humidity (thank goodness!), and a very short, hot, challenging growing season. Grape vines are on my to-purchase list & now I'm going to investigate figs. I've discovered a kiwi variety that is supposed to tolerate our cold winters, too, so I'm excited about that as well. I'm enjoying your channel; thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience. 🙂

[Stephenrsm]

What were the two type of fig trees you have???? I could not understand what name you said. Thank you for this

[Doc]

What is a JuJubee tree? What does the fruit taste like?

As you know we live in north central WA state and get a lot of rain in the fall and spring.
Our summers are getting hotter than normal.
We grow apples, cherries, peaches and next year we’ll add 2 Elderberry trees.
All of our water comes from our well, so we’re not dependent on city water.

[samialsahhar]

The other tree you need to plant is pomegranate tree. pomegranate easily can grow in TX and tolerate heat and cold. Not sure about Loquat tree as they flower in Nov/Dec period and cold damage the flowers so you may get small crop or not due to the cold weather in TX.

[iceprincess]

I live in the DFW area, and while we have the normal Texas weather my property has a high amount of clay.

Would this be a problem for those sensitive to water?

[crystalaudas]

Do you have a video on how you set up your grape vines and materials used? I would be interested in seeing that! I live in the Texas Hill Country, also in zone 8b. I have been watching your videos as we are going to start turning our small back yard into a place we can grow some of our own food.

[TK-]

GREAT ADVICE! I just planted some jujube and think I’ve been overwatering!

Do you have a list of these plants from your video? Thanks..

[lunabeta]

Oh my gosh, I love sweet potato leaves. So much better than spinach