Most profitable fruits to grow in your home garden
13.8 years ago blackberries, peach, raspberries, strawberries, summer
I previously did some analysis on the profitability of vegetables in your garden and there have been requests as well as my own curiosity of how fruits would stack up against fruit trees/bushes.
To keep things simple I made the assumption of fruit trees/bushes are fully mature with maximum yields. So please take into account that you will see some variance throughout the years. I have also used the fair market retail value of fruit when purchased by the pound, obviously all of these could be purchased cheaper by the bushel…but many of us you live in urban areas it can be difficult to make these discounted large purchases nor consume 48 lbs. of apples before they go bad.
After a crunched the numbers I was a bit surprised and happy to see blueberries at the top of the list. I have four blueberry plants already in the ground and two more waiting to be planted. Though one asterisk for this plant is that is take 3-4 years to really start producing but you get several years of good production and by buying a variety of plants with different harvest times, so unlike many other fruits you do not get a huge supply of fruit all at the same time.
Overall fruit compared to vegetables provides a similar range of harvest value depending on the variety. There are a couple of differences that should be taken in to consideration:
- Space: Fruit trees/plants range from a little over a square foot to over 60 square feet per planting
- Time to Maturity: It can take several years for some trees to become mature and start producing high yields.
- Size of Harvest: You could see hundreds of lbs. of produce within a couple weeks. You will need to determine a means to actually use this (canning, pies, forcing on neighbors)
- Commitment: Unlike annual vegetables if you decide you really don’t care for the produce it can be time intensive and expensive to switch out an apple tree for a difference variety.
| Fruit | Harvest Value/ Square Foot |
| Blueberries | $ 18.71 |
| Pomegranate | $ 13.38 |
| Nectarine | $ 8.64 |
| Strawberries | $ 8.13 |
| Peach | $ 7.90 |
| Apple (Standard) | $ 6.64 |
| Apple (Semi-Dwarf) | $ 6.40 |
| Raspberries | $ 6.23 |
| Apricot | $ 3.54 |
| Plum | $ 3.18 |
| Blackberries | $ 3.05 |
| Pear (Standard) | $ 2.90 |
| Fig | $ 2.66 |
| Almond | $ 2.56 |
| Apple (Dwarf) | $ 2.35 |
| Walnut | $ 2.28 |
| Pear (Dwarf) | $ 2.10 |
| Cherry (Sour) | $ 1.13 |
| Cherry (Sweet) | $ 0.84 |
As always the common sense principles apply:
- Grow what you like to eat
- Cost is only one factor to consider, you can’t beat real fresh produce
13.8 years ago
Not sure how I stumbled on your blog, but it’s been a fun resource to browse through. I planted elderberries a couple years ago and am hooping to get some fruit this year. I’m adding sea buckthorn and wolfberry to the mix soon too. I wonder what the value is of the stuff you can’t buy at the grocery store. 😉
I do love my strawberries though. They’re the one thing that always thrives no matter how crappy the PNW summer is. They *like* it here, laugh. Also, unlike blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries (do people in the PNW actually buy blackberries when there are wild ones everywhere?), garden strawberries taste sooo much better than store-bought. With the other berries, I’m not sure I can tell the difference, though it’s cool to know I grew them and nothing funkier than dog pee ever hit the bush. 😛
13.5 years ago
[…] Some resources to see how profitable your garden can be: most profitable fruits and most profitable […]
12.6 years ago
Hi,
Loved your articles on value/sq ft. i didn’t see rhubarb on either list. Do you happen to know the value of rhubarb, by chance?
Thanks for all of your hard work!-Laura
12.1 years ago
[…] Here is a link about the most profitable things to grow. link: http://www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/2011/03/most-profitable-fruits-to-grow-in-your-home-garden-2.h… […]
10.4 years ago
Excellent article but it would be good if the price/lb and yield/sq ft that you used to get the values were also listed so that we could get a better picture.
Thanks.
10 years ago
Thanks for the information. Very helpful. Would you please clarify the value per square ft. for blueberries? All the research I have done suggests approx. $5,000 per acre (or less). Your values indicate around $800,000 per acre. That doesn’t make sense.