There’s a spot at the top of the trincheras garden (in the front yard of the Bimini Terrace building where I live) where a tangerine tree was planted. The tangerine struggled there and never really did well and never yielded fruit. I had hoped that, as part of the trincheras project, I could build a sort of berm around the tree in order to help capture and infiltrate rainwater… but… alas… before I got there the tree pretty much died.
I say pretty much died, because the entire top of the tree did die, but there was one sucker alive that was coming out of the rootstock. Like most nursery-bought fruit trees, the tangerine tree was grafted. The top is a clone of a good fruiting tangerine tree; the bottom is a tree that grows more rigorous roots… so it’s not really worth saving if just the rootstock is growing, because it’s very unlikely that that will provide good fruit.
All this to say that there’s a spot at the top of the trincheras where I’ve been thinking a new tree needed to be planted. Fall/winter is the best time of year for planting trees (and other perennials), so I had been thinking about wanting to get a tree into the ground there.
Enter, stage left, Erik Knutzen. Erik is the co-author of the Homegrown Evolution blog. I also highly recommend the book he co-authored The Urban Homestead. Erik and I work out together at the downtown YMCA. He mentioned that he was hoping to visit a couple of unusual nurseries in the valley and I requested to tag along. We planned to visit the Theodore Payne Foundation Nursery (in Sunland) and the Papaya Tree Nursery (in Granada Hills.) I needed to pick up some native plants at Theodore Payne for a landscaping project that I am doing for a friend’s mother – but I will leave that story for another blog entry.

Homegrown Evolution in the Papaya Greenhouse
On to the Papaya Tree Nursery. Papaya is located in the middle of an unassuming suburban neighborhood in the northwest end of the San Fernando Valley – about as far from LA Eco-Village as you can get and still be in the same city. It seemed like we might have the wrong address, but we pulled up and the proprietor Alex Silber was unloading bundles of bare-root trees being delivered by a big truck. Turns out the place is open by appointment only… but Silber was nice enough to accommodate us. He needed to finish unloading and watering the trees being unloaded, so he invited us to go back and explore. The home has a very large backyard, which is highly organized and packed to the gills with all kinds of wonderful trees – pomegranate, tangerine, cherimoya, jakfruit, coffee, caperbush, sapote, Persian mulberry, and much much more. It’s actually pretty incredible that we can grow all these exotic fruit trees in Southern California. On the left is a shot of Erik in the walk-in greenhouse that covers a small portion of the yard.
Erik was looking for quince (which they actually don’t carry) and gojiberry (which they do carry.) Erik has black walnut trees in his backyard. These walnut trees’ roots secrete a substance that inhibits many plants from growing nearby. Quince and gojiberry are two plants that aren’t inhibited growing by walnutes.
I asked Alex about jujube. He responded asking me if I had read about his special jujube trees – a variety called Chang. I’d heard that one needed to plant two jujube trees for them to fruit well. His variety didn’t need two trees. It fruited heavily. It’s drought tolerant. It grows in a “columnar” shape which makes it pretty manageable to garden under, with mainly vertical growth it shouldn’t get too huge and shade too much of the garden. It’s a variety that was given to his father by a old Chinese man. If you’ve never had a jujube (pronounced “jew-jew-bee,”) it’s a bit hard to describe – but it’s more-or-less like a sort of nutty apple flavor. The fruit can be eaten fresh and crisp, though it’s also very common dried. In Asia, I am told, dried jujubes are used for soups, teas, and medicines.
I also asked about citrus, and managed to hear stories about sapote and mulberry (all of which Papaya Nursery has incredibly special versions of) before ultimately deciding to purchase a jujube tree. We picked out a tree that had a relatively thick trunk, and was a little taller than I am. With no small effort, we loaded it into Erik’s car and brought it back to eco-village.

Semi-Circle Ring of Urbanite around the Jujube
Last Saturday, Federico and I planned out where it would go. We put a placeholder stick in the ground, tied a string to it and traced a circle. It’s a fairly large space (about 5 feet in diameter.) We lined it with a level semi-circle of urbanite, allowing an opening at the upstream end for rainwater to enter and soak into the root area. Federico, eco-village’s mushroom aficionado, suggested that we use old phone books that would serve a double purpose – acting like a sponge to soak up water and serving as a matrix to grow oyster mushrooms. You can see some phone-books buried spine down in the lower left of this image. We’re actually going to rework the phone-book scheme, though, because it turns out that we need to inoculate the mushrooms into the phone-books before we bury them, then we need to cover them with mulch. We’ll have to report more on how that goes in a later installment.

Somer and Hunter watering the newly planted Jujube tree
On Sunday, eco-villagers Hunter, Jimmy, Somer, and I dug out the circle and a much deeper portion in the middle and planted the tree. I have to say that nearly every time I’ve planted a tree, it has been after digging and digging and deciding that it’s about deep enough… then later I regret that I didn’t dig just a few inches deeper, so the tree would be ever so slightly below grade, so it would actually collect rainwater, instead of shedding it. This passive rainwater harvesting strategy is a trick that I learned from hearing presentations and reading books by Brad Lancaster. Once we got it plenty deep, we planted the tree, which, once out of the pot and into the ground, was just shorter than I am.
There are still some edge treatments that I plan to do around the circular root area, and we’ll add the phone books, mushrooms, and plenty of mulch… but I was really happy to get the tree into the ground… and look forward it fruiting, hopefully starting this summer.
February 6, 2009 at 8:02 am
Hi Joe, thanks for all the great gardening tips. I’ve been wondering what kinds of fruit trees and edible plants grow best in the LA area? I live in Culver City and we have a big backyard with nothing but a lemon tree. What’s easiest to maintain? What do you recommend? Thanks!
February 7, 2009 at 12:06 am
@Cesar – You can grow nearly anything in So. Cal. (except some things that like a really cold winter – cherries and most apples.) It’s more a matter of what fruit do you want to eat? Our most dependable trees include: peach, apricot, nectarine, feijoa, pomegranate, guayaba, fig, avocado, mulberry, persimmon.
I’d suggest that you go to good tree nursery and ask them what they have – not a nationwide big box chain nursery – but something local. You could go to Papaya Nursery in the Valley (link in blog above) or Green Arrow Nursery (13457 Sherman Way in Van Nuys)… but probably best to just search the internet for someone in Culver City.
If you’re fairly close to the beach, you may have a little more marine influence than we do.
April 22, 2009 at 11:14 pm
You actually did it right by planting it at grade or above grade as waterlogging is more likely than lack of water. The main requirement of a jujube is LOTS of sun and heat. When most trees wilt, jujube ask for more. I live in Texas and they just loved it last year when we had more than 40 days over 100 degrees. I take that back, the ones in the ground loved it but the ones in pots, not so much. You will have to take care of it the first year or two but not much after that. You should also expect fruit the first year of planting if you get enough sun/heat. You dont have to water often but water deeply when you do to avoid suckering from the roots.
THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT:
Only pick fruit in the early morning as it dumps water during the day and becomes dry. If you water a day or two before picking and then pick early, it will be much much better.
September 25, 2009 at 7:10 pm
when is the best time to plant jujube tree?
October 8, 2009 at 8:08 pm
I am not a total expert on this. It does depend on the climate where you live. For Southern California I think that it’s best to plant a jujube some time from around November to around February. After it’s cooled off, while the tree is still dormant – and before it gets warm in the Spring.
You might ask a local tree nursery.
October 25, 2009 at 11:12 am
I live in the state of Kansas and I have clay land. I would like to know how to plant a jujube tree and a white peach tree. My white peach tree is dead.
November 9, 2009 at 8:18 pm
I’d suggest that you talk with a local nursery or other fruit tree growers near you… see what works best for your soil and your climate.
October 29, 2009 at 12:47 pm
I just got a jujube to plant into a greenhouse. I am not sure if it will fruit without a cold period. It is going into a greenhouse as I live at 7000 ft in elevation in the Colorado Rockies. Do I dare plant it outside and hope that it doesn’t get to 28 below zero F. I have plenty of south facing and south west facing areas to plant.
November 9, 2009 at 8:22 pm
I don’t know about how it would do in other climates… most years we don’t have any snow here, even freezing nights are infrequent. The jujube is a pretty tough tree though – so I’ve heard… maybe ask around other folks in your area and see if anyone else has grown them? or just try it and try not to get toooo attached. Good luck.
April 30, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Was talking to Mr. Google to look for a tree to plant in our backyard and stumbled on this post again! So how is the jujube tree doing? The people request an update.
May 4, 2010 at 6:46 pm
I’ve yet to score any actual jujube fruit… but the tree has leafed out nicely this spring.
I was a little worried that I had killed it (by not watering consistently enough late last summer) but it came back healthy and happy so far. I think it’s a pretty tough, drought-tolerant tree.
May 13, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Wanted to plant two jujube li trees in my front yard . Was wondering can they b planted within 7 feet from one another and trained? Or they best off in thier own locations a distance away?
May 13, 2010 at 8:02 pm
I bought 2 jujube li trees . Can I plant them with in 7 feet of eachother and train them in the begining. Or are they better off a distance away from one another? Wanted to do something different.
May 16, 2010 at 10:31 pm
@Evan – I am not sure – they seem to be quite tough, so they may do ok at 7 feet… but I think it’s probably better to plant them a little further.
September 27, 2011 at 9:45 am
I planted a jujube about 18 months ago in south FLA. The growth is astronomical. Tons of flowers attracting many bees. But no fruit????
Fertilize 1/2 cup Palm fertilizer about once a mth and plenty of water
September 27, 2011 at 4:50 pm
I just ate my first fruit yesterday from the tree planted two and a half years ago. The first and second summers the tree was ok, but no fruit until this year.
November 7, 2012 at 6:44 pm
[…] book Down by the Los Angeles Riveris on my must read list). Creek Freak detailed his experience here on the Eco-village garden blog, and came back from Papaya Tree with an unique variety of jujube (Zyzyphus jujuba) which Alex […]