A Brief History of Cultivating Fruit Trees Through the Ages
This is post 2 in my series retelling and reviewing Backyard Farming: Fruit Trees, Berries & Nuts by Kim Pezza (ISBN: 978-1-57826-532-9). Today we’re looking at Chapter 1: A Brief History of Cultivating Fruit Trees.
We Take Fruit for Granted
Here’s something I never really thought about before reading this chapter. Most of us grew up with fruit in the house. Apples in a bowl on the counter. Bananas going brown next to the microwave. Berries in the fridge. We just accept that fruit exists and shows up at the grocery store.
But somebody, thousands of years ago, looked at a wild tree and thought: “What if I grew that on purpose?”
That shift from just finding food to actually growing it is one of the biggest things humans ever did. And Kim Pezza starts the book right there, at the very beginning.
A 5,000 Year Old Vase Tells the Story
The chapter opens with the Warka Vase, also called the Uruk Vase. This thing is over 5,000 years old. It was found in Uruk, which is believed to be one of the first cities in human history. We’re talking ancient Mesopotamia here, modern-day Iraq.
The vase is about 3 feet tall, made from alabaster, and it shows a wedding procession. People are bringing offerings to the gods, hoping for good luck in the marriage. And among those offerings? Cultivated fruits and grains.
That detail hit me. Even 5,000 years ago, people considered cultivated fruit valuable enough to offer to their gods. It wasn’t just food. It was a symbol of wealth, effort, and civilization itself.
Sadly, the vase was broken during looting after the Iraq War. But here’s a wild detail: it had already been broken and repaired multiple times throughout history. People kept putting it back together because it mattered that much.
Wildcrafting: The Original Grocery Run
Before humans started planting things on purpose, they foraged. Pezza introduces the concept of wildcrafting, which is basically gathering food and herbs from the wild.
Think of it as the original trip to the grocery store. You walk outside, find what nature has growing, and bring it home. People still do this today, especially if they have wild berries or herbs growing on their property.
But Pezza is careful to point out that wildcrafting comes with rules. You don’t just rip everything out of the ground. You take only what you need. You leave endangered species alone. If you pull up a plant by the root, you plant the seeds back where you found it. It’s about respect for the land.
And there’s a safety warning too. Some wild fruits and berries are toxic. If you don’t know what you’re picking, don’t pick it. Take a class first, or go with someone who knows what they’re doing. This isn’t the kind of thing where you want to learn from your mistakes.
I appreciate that Pezza includes this. It would be easy to romanticize foraging without mentioning that eating the wrong berry could seriously hurt you.
From Wild Harvesting to Intentional Farming
The chapter then traces how humans went from wildcrafting to actual cultivation. Most fruits, nuts, and vegetables started as wild plants. But records show early domestication happening in Asia and the ancient Mediterranean.
Some highlights:
- Date palms from Iraq were among the earliest cultivated species, grown from Mesopotamia to Egypt since around 4000 BCE.
- Apricots, apples, pears, and bananas were first domesticated in Asia, some over 4,000 years ago.
- Dates, olives, grapes, figs, and pomegranates were domesticated in the Mediterranean between 6000 and 3000 BCE.
That timeline is staggering. People were intentionally growing fruit trees 6,000 to 8,000 years ago. Long before most of what we think of as “civilization” even existed.
The First American Orchard
Pezza notes that pinpointing exactly when orchards started is tricky. They probably showed up alongside domestication, once people figured out that growing lots of one tree in the same place made sense.
The first apple orchard in the United States is believed to have been planted in Boston by Reverend William Blaxton in 1625. He grew a variety called the Yellow Sweeting apple. Not much else is known about this orchard, but it marks the beginning of American fruit growing.
For most of history, orchards were a rich person’s thing. They required serious time and money. Even kids got pulled into the labor. In the late 1600s and early 1700s, orchard owners would pay children a few coins to pick the ripe fruit.
Today, most orchards are commercial operations run by big distributors. But Pezza’s whole point with this book is that you don’t need acres of land or a corporation behind you. You can grow fruit trees in your backyard.
Blueberries Are Newer Than You Think
One thing that surprised me: blueberries and blackberries are relative newcomers. Even though blueberries are native to North America (along with cranberries and Concord grapes), they weren’t domesticated until the 1800s and 1900s. Commercial blueberry farming is barely over a century old.
Meanwhile, some fruits and nuts that seem totally ordinary to us are still harvested from the wild today. The line between “wild” and “cultivated” is blurrier than I expected.
My Take
This chapter is short but it sets the stage well. Pezza doesn’t overload you with dates and facts. She gives you just enough history to make you appreciate what you’re about to learn in the rest of the book.
The message is clear: humans have been growing fruit for thousands of years. If ancient Mesopotamians could do it, you can probably manage a couple of trees in your yard.
And that’s a pretty motivating way to start a gardening book.