Kevin Reimer Is Santa Barbara’s Rare Fruit Man
Downhill Skateboard Champ Turns
Obsession to Growing Crazy Fruits
atop Santa Marcos Pass
by Matt Kettmann | Photos by Ingrid Bostrom
Read the rest of our 2024 Fall Home & Garden cover story here.
Taking a ramble through Kevin Reimer’s dense, jungly garden at the tippy-top of San Marcos Pass is a multisensory mystery tour full of visuals, aromas, flavors, and textures that could go on for hours.
“It’s just like a fruit park,” said Reimer, who’s been growing an insane variety of species — some from seed, some from grafts, and some being hybridized — for a half-dozen years now. “When I moved in, it was all succulents and sand. I’m trying everything, and have had very few failures.”
His nearly 200 different flavors feature fruits you know (apples, citrus, plums, figs, etc.); fruits you probably know (pluots, quince, dragonfruits, etc.); fruits you know but in varieties that you don’t (Hawaiian blackberry, white mulberry, guineense guava, etc.); and fruits you know but didn’t know grew here (pineapple, mango, pawpaw, etc.).
Most fascinating — and promising, at least when it comes to drought-tolerant, delicious species that appear to thrive in Santa Barbara’s environs — are the fruits you probably don’t know at all: pitangatuba, guabiju, guazumifolia, guajava, jaboticaba, and, probably Reimer’s favorite, multiple shades of cherry of the Rio Grande.
Some are even a mystery to Reimer. “We don’t know what that species is,” he said of one bush. “We call it Skittle guava.”
Most of these fruits are from the tropics, particularly South America. Quite a few are from the Eugenia or Campomanesia families, which produce leafy shrubs that dangle with colorful, tiny balls of sweet, tangy, even peppery fruits. Most bizarre is the jaboticaba, whose grape-like orbs grow directly from the tree’s papery trunk. Said Reimer, “That is one of the stars of the garden.”
An Incomplete List of Kevin Reimer’s Fruits
Psidium (guava)
- Guineense
- Australe
- Ganevii
- Strawberry
- Lemon
- Purple Forest guava
- Crunchy Thai White
- Orange Flesh
- SP “Skittles”
- Narrow Leaf
Stonefruit
- Flavor King
- Flavor Grenade
- Late Santa Rosa
- Arctic Snow nectarine
- Spicy Z nectaplum
- Sweet Treat Pluerry
- Santa Barbara peach
Apples
- Anna
- Pink Lady
- Pink Pearl
- Cox’s Orange Pippin
- Winter Banana
- White Winter Pearmain
- Åkerö
- Goodland
- Regent
Mulberry
- King White “Shahtoot”
- Pakistani
- Himalaya
- Skinner
- DMOR9
Dragonfruit
- Cosmic Charlie
- Dark Star
- Asunta 3
- Baby Cerrado
- S8
- AX
- Purple Haze
Figs
- LSU Purple
- LSU Champagne
- Figoin
- Cessac
- CDD Grise
- CDD Blanc
- Sal’s GS
- Ron de Bordeaux
- Musso di Vo
Eugenia (Myrtaceae)
- “Cherry of the Rio Grande”: E. involucrata (an orange version of this too)
- E. calycina
- “Pitanga”: E. uniflora
- E. multicostata
- E. acutata
- “Grumichama”: E. brasiliensis
- E. moraviana
- E. tenuipedunculata
- E. squamiflora
Tropicals
- Mangoes (Peach Cobbler, Fairchild, CAC, etc.)
- Kohala Longan
- Erdon Lee lychee
Reimer started discovering such fruits about 15 years ago while downhill skateboarding in Brazil. Originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, where he braved steep skills while skating to school, Reimer went right into professional skating at 18 years old, eventually winning a couple of world championships. (Check his skating-focused Instagram here.) He also developed skateboard truck company called Aera, then sold that to Santa Barbara’s Powell-Peralta in 2014, which is when he moved to town.
“I’m very obsessive, as you can probably tell,” said Reimer. “I just figured out how to make skateboard stuff, and now I’m hoping to do the same with fruit.”
His timing is fortuitous, as the fruit seed market out of South America is becoming much more accessible. “It’s like a renaissance for rare fruit growers, because all of the seeds are coming out of Brazil now,” said Reimer.
He has no intention of keeping this fruit zoo all to himself. In addition to his job at Skate One, the Powell-Peralta parent company where he’s worked since selling his company, Reimer is now consulting on fruit trees for property owners all around Santa Barbara.
Through his company, SB Fruit Tree, Reimer can be hired to help with grafting, pruning, pest management, soil adjustments, and/or selecting the right fruits for your yard. He could, for instance, graft five different apple or plum varieties onto the same tree, like he’s done all around his yard. “We call them cocktail trees,” said Reimer, whose Instagram photos of this year’s harvest would stoke envy in any backyard gardener.
“I’m such a fruit nerd,” admitted Reimer, who’s become knowledgeable about the various maladies affecting fruits of all types, such as the black fig fly that’s threatening every fig tree in California. (All of his figs — 25 different varieties! — are now covered in silk bags to keep the larvae-laying pest out.)
“I see fruit trees around town, and they look so neglected,” said Reimer with a hint of sadness. But he wants to help, and spread the gospel about these low-water, easy-to-grow species, particularly Eugenias like that cherry of the Rio Grande.
“I’ve found them to grow very well up here and all around Santa Barbara,” he explained. “It’s like a Christmas ornament. It’s super full, and tasty and pretty. If it falls right into your hand, it’s ready!”
See sbfruittree.com and his Instagram account @sbfruittree.
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