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LAST NOVEMBER a customer sacrificed one of her three, Berkeley-grown Braeburn apples from her young backyard tree so we, here at the nursery, could taste for ourselves just how exceptional it was. Freshly picked, it was everything an apple should be; crisp and juicy with a complex blend of sugar and acid. We were raving about it. This apple was remarkable when we ate it fresh, and it had enough of a bite so it would bake deliciously into pies, cakes, sauces, and galettes. We have a similar experience with the Fuji apples we grow on our own five-foot nursery tree. When we pass out samples, customers reserve Fujis on the spot. There’s no doubt that fruit tastes best fresh off the tree. We offer Gravensteins, Granny Smiths, Cox Orange Pippins, and other varieties of apple, plum, pear, pluot, and persimmon that perform with equal aplomb in the East Bay. 
Fruit trees are a joy in the garden, especially if you keep them small. At Berkeley Hort we strongly encourage (some would say "insist") on an initial pruning cut that seems radical if you aren’t familiar with the bad behavior of fruit trees. To get a fruit tree off to a good start, the newly planted sapling must be pruned to an eighteen to twenty-four inch stub when it first goes in the ground. This is the most difficult and important pruning decision you will ever have to make, but at planting time you have this one chance to create a small, manageable tree. This cut is so important we like to make it for you before you leave the nursery. We prune our container stock the same way and for the same reason: this cut is critical, not just for size control and aesthetics, but also for the ultimate fruit supporting structure of the tree. Bareroot season is brief. For the best price and selection buy fruit trees bareroot in January and February. Bareroot plants offer not just a price advantage; they adapt more easily to our native soils than container-grown plants do. Explore the possibility of fresh fruit from your own backyard. Attend one of our January pruning seminars and pick up a Backyard Fruit Tree handout at the sales counter. – Ann
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