Loquat Trees

By Serena Yeh

I feel like there’s no medium point between a small sapling you buy from Home Depot and a forest of fruit trees in your backyard. My backyard has been likened to a forest at times—there has got to be at least twenty trees. A majority of these trees are loquat trees, a juicy fruit originating in China. They’re usually yellow, but the more ripe fruits are more orange. Their skin is a little thick and furry, and the fruit can be sour or sweet, like any other fruits. Inside the fruit are a couple polished, chestnut-brown seeds. Even though most people may have never tried loquats before, they are quick to like them. Because of the warm climate and the compatible soil, our backyard is full of loquat trees. My parents planted the trees after buying our house almost a decade ago, and many of our trees are more than ten feet high. Their leaves are large, glossy, and green. Loquats seem to grow slowly, but once they hit the height to grow fruit, the branches with flowers on them can attract many honey bees and other pollinators. We usually don’t fertilize our trees because they grow well enough without it, but we do have a compost pile in a corner or our backyard that’s accessible to us whenever we need it. It might be hard to get your hands on a loquat seedling, but they’ll be able to thrive quickly in weed-free, slightly watered soil. We usually have a surplus of loquats in the spring—and that’s when we start making loquat preserves, a process that takes a lot of time but has a tasty reward.