Area gardeners can produce high quality peaches and apples if insects and diseases are controlled with an ambitious spray program. Most of us appreciate home grown fruit, but are not interested in spraying every week.

The good news is that there are many fruits that can be grown in San Antonio without a regular spray program. Here are some to consider:

Oriental persimmon makes a very attractive lawn tree and it will produce a large harvest of nutritious fruit with minimal care. The brightly colored fruit is harvested at this time of the year.

Once the fruit becomes mushy soft it is very sweet, but until that time it is astringent. The exception is the variety Fuyu. It has a mild flavor even when it is firm.

Persimmon is used in many dessert recipes and can be used fresh. Harvest the persimmons when they are firm, and let them become soft ripe on a picnic table or counter.

Pomegranate is a tough fruit for San Antonio neighborhoods. The beautiful orange-red blooms appear in early summer and the fruit is harvested in late summer. Pomegranates are good xeriscape plants and deer do not seem fond of them in some neighborhoods. The pomegranate is a multi-stemmed shrub that reaches 12 feet tall or it can be trained to be a small tree. “Wonderful” is the usual variety used for fruit production. Pomegranates survive in partial shade, but produce the most fruit in full sun.

Plums and peaches are closely related, but plums are less demanding in terms of the need for insecticides and fungicides. The best plum for our area is the methley. Plant it in full sun in a raised bed surrounded by used railroad ties and irrigated with drip irrigation and you can expect a large harvest of plums every May without pesticides.

Plums also do not require as much pruning as peaches. Remove the dead wood and suckers each year and you are in business.

Pears can be very easy to grow. They perform acceptably in most native soils and do even better if planted in a raised bed. A landscape mix filling a frame of 4- to 8-foot-long used railroad ties works very well.

Pears will survive and even produce fruit without irrigation, but do better if you can water them every two weeks during the summer when they have fruit. The Kieffer pear produces a huge crop of cooking pears every year. Orient produces a fewer number of larger pears. Warren produces good pears to eat fresh.

If you have soil, mulch and water, figs can be an easy fruit to grow. They can even tolerate a limited amount of shade. Brown turkey and Celeste are favorite varieties.

Figs will survive with no irrigation, but fruit production improves greatly when a fig is planted in 6 inches of soil, and mulched with 6 inches of organic material. They need to be watered weekly with drip irrigation for maximum fruit production.

Citrus, especially the satsuma orange does well in this area without regular insecticide sprays. Many area gardeners grow Changsha tangerines, Meyer lemon, Mexican lime, and even grapefruit, but in terms of fruit quality and cold tolerance, satsuma mandarin oranges win the contest. The fruit is ripening now and will be at its sweetest in December.

Several of the other tough fruits make attractive additions to area landscapes, but none of them match the dark green evergreen foliage, fragrant blooms, and colorful fruit of the satsuma.

Check out your favorite nursery for the fruits that do not need a regular spray program. Now is a great time to plant them and many nurseries have sales of existing stock. In early February, the new stock will be available.

Calvin R. Finch, Ph.D., is a horticulturist and the director of water resources for the San Antonio Water System.