She probably smoked a fatty with Snoop after that. Then talked about stock options
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Banana plants can even be grown in zone 5 but they won’t bear, they need to be cut back and mulched over as winter is coming, but I don’t have experience with growing them, I just know a little.
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I planted almost 150 fruit and nut bearing trees and bushes at my parents, there’s lots more diversity there of course, and I could start a business selling just the varieties that are there with little trouble…other than getting enough rootstock.
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I’d imagine the most impressive would be if a fruit person became really rich. As others have said, it’s hard to replace caring and enthusiasm.
I think the biggest two differences you’d see in my fruitery were I really rich would be size and maintenance. If I actually had the kind of money that creates leisure time, I imagine I’d spend a lot of it caring for my garden. That said, I’m sure most of the “middling rich” folks work a lot harder than I do and have less time to do as they please. I suppose it depends on if we’re talking wealthy small business owner with high net worth, but equally high work required to maintain it, or someone rich enough to make their living depositing the dividends checks off their stock portfolio.
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if you won the lottery would you stop growing fruit and looking at your trees and doing stuff in the orchard and garden, or would you end up spending even MORE time out there?
I would have more space (I would buy out the house behind me and connect the yards) and would just have people helping me do the heavy work. hell I might open a community orchard/garden and have free food bank days when things get ripe.
I would be living pretty much the same but less worried about things breaking or needing help to move a lot of mulch or whatever. I would be able to put in more things than I can afford (seedlings or bare root) but I would still end up growing out my peach pits.
I have one friend who’s what most people would consider rich, very rich. she is the same, she is like me though in that her job/business is something she enjoys so she’s never stopped working. she has a great garden.
I think the only thing she does differently in her life is she has someone help her pick the high fruit, but that also is because she is getting older and the ladder makes her nervous. she gets friends to come help pick that stuff. she also has a pool and someone to maintain it, I don’t think I’d bother with that personally.
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There still are many old farmers here who are dirt common and unsophisticated. Often shunned at fancy car dealerships and places of society highness. Went to a big RV chain with one named Bud once. Sales folks just ignored him until one salesman came back from lunch. Turned out ole Bud could have bought a party pack of RV’s. Bud drove a hard bargain and drove an RV off the lot. He gave the Salesman a $1000 tip just to send a message to the jerks who ignored him…lol
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Those folks are my people. Plenty of people around here are quite well off in regards to the population at large. You’d never know it from looking at their homes/farms or from talking with them.
Would they be “rich” on either coast? Nope. Of course we dont have to pay $15 for a beer or $100 for a steak either.
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I’ve got 95 acres and an adequate home mortgage free. I could spend 12 hours a day on my orchards if i chose. Too many other things to get done.
If my net worth suddenly multiplied by 10 I’d still do what I do, but I’d likely add a SW FL Gulf coast home to my holdings.
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the dealerships make their money off the interest on car/RV loans. they dislike people who can pay up front and drive off the lot, a bunch of the inventory is priced below their profit margin so they rely on people who need the loan.
they ignored your friend because they likely realized correctly that he was going to buy cash on the barrel and there’s no profit in that sale for them. the profit for them (and the thing they get bonuses for!) is how many loans people took out.
learned this when I bought my spark, walked in with cash on hand to buy outright from one of my own clients (at my work) who was working at the lot. he broke it down for me, the math. sold me my car at 4k below MSRP too, since the little compacts were considered loss leaders and eye candy to attract people, at the time.
of course if your friend needed a loan, none of this applies. but I would bet he didn’t need one or get one. and they looked at him and knew he wouldn’t be there if he needed one, that he likely had the money to buy the whole place up front if he liked.
and for them there’s no gain in that. the guy got tipped a grand, but his bonus for getting 2 or 3 of their loan or line of credit sales would have been that much anyway. the guy who paid attention to him was just more interested in doing the job (sell people a RV) than in only making a profit (get people to sign a loan or line of credit). and good on him for that. my client is like that too, he said he makes a little less than the sharks in sales there but that people come back to him for everything any time they’re buying any kind of car at all. I think he likes just doing that job, not necessarily getting rich at it
but then we’re right back to the thread topic. do rich people enjoy a job? how many of them got where they are with joy, and how many just looking for the biggest profit? it is really rare for those things to overlap.
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You’re correct. Cash buyers are no longer a positive for most salespeople. For those of us that are of a “certain age” that’s a little weird. Used to be you could walk into a car or implement dealer and use cash as a bargaining point. No longer the case. We recently bought a new Explorer, the first brand new vehicle we’ve purchased in over 25 years. Finding a salesperson interested in selling us the model we wanted at the price we were going to pay wasn’t easy. Ended up traveling over an hour to get it done.
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I would love to have someone do the hard work, but I would never want to miss out on the daily hands-on joys.
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Bud’s wife wanted a job and she picked out a convenience store to buy. By the time she got done she owned 140 stores in her little empire. Bud himself picked up farm acreage and invested in rolling mechanical farming groups for hire. His sons are still a farming empire in South Central Georgia. Any one of that bunch can sign for about any farm equipment they need. Not a one of them is jaded in the least.
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Having 10M doesn’t necessarily mean a ton of money to spend. It just means more money to invest. I think even at 20M I would still be investing most cashflow. Though in my case, investing more means buying more rental properties, which then means more space for trees, something I am always looking for, And it also doesn’t mean I wouldn’t spend more when seeing additional cashflow. As it is, I no longer think twice about buying as much fruit as I think we’ll eat. Even spending ~$10 a pound on cherries at the start of the season when they were most expensive. I did pass on some $23/lb strawberries, as it just felt like a waste. But I would have bought them if I really really wanted them. 25 years ago, I would have been more restrained.
Given unlimited money I’d have a very large greenhouse. No more farming outside for me 
. I have to imagine that most things are easier indoors, aside from having to water all the time. Actually, I suspect I’d still have some outdoor orchards, as well as a nice industrially sized (1/4 acre?) greenhouse. But the outdoor orchards would be much less densely packed than what I have now. It makes things a lot easier to maintain.
I think there are two aspects- the sheer variety and utility vs the orderly spacious beauty. I’ve seen both Alan’s orchard and some of his clients and while both are great, I’m most jealous of one of his clients. Not that I wouldn’t want to plant a ton of different things there, but just having wide open rolling lawns (100% full sun!) with widely spaced fruit trees is just a beautiful sight.
This thread has pics of both Alan’s trees and several of the orchards that he has planted. The link will bring you to some pics of the spacious park-like one I was so impressed with.
At the rentals, I tend to space trees at least 10-12 feet, which really helps keep things open and is the closest I’ve come to replicating the park-like effect. Maybe 20’ would be even better, but I can’t bring myself to waste so much space. Here’s example pics from 3 different properties:
5 Jujubes in front:
3 jujubes, a persimmon and a watermelon patch:
4 newly planted Chinese chestnuts (and a spot where an ornamental tree was removed to make space):
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I am jealous of the orchards with dawn to dusk sun, and the one you came to in Bedford Hills certainly had that. Between the husband and wife I was told they had half a billion dollars when I started working for them. After installing all 120 trees on their two orchards, I managed them for about 20 years before they relocated to CA and now the trees are being managed without the extent of my knowledge- the results seem to have gone south.
That extra sun did slightly push up brix it seemed, but very slightly, and overall, I’m sure that during the growing season I had the superior fruit. Right now I’m eating steel cut oats with yogurt topped with a huge portion of blueberries, sliced apricot and aprium from my own orchard. I don’t think I could be eating better no matter how much money I had- and I like food more than “things”.
They gave up on apricots because all the trees eventually died and they didn’t want to replace them, I get to harvest them almost every year because I grow trees against the southern wall of my house. The Alfred variety I planted first has been going for a quarter of a century and stronger than ever. My site is not as good as theirs was for apricots but my desire for the fruit exceeded theirs so I found the right spot.
Whenever I hear of a variety I want to try, I obtain wood, if I can, and graft it onto one of my trees, unless I decide to make room for an entire tree. That is a service I only marginally supply for my customers. My overall fruit selection is better than any of my customers as a result.
As far as vast expanses of rolling lawns, nothing aggravates me more on the properties of the orchards I manage. Yeah, mowed turf is great around orchards, and well justified because it reduces pest pressure and assures more water and nutrients for the trees. But the weekly mowing and blowing of a quarter mile of turf is obscene and selfish, IMO.
In defense of that Heffernan property, a lot of the land was devoted to the most successful native mini-prairie I’ve ever seen established in my region. They covered a huge area with black plastic for about 2 years before seeding it with native plants and had a nearly perfect balance of grasses and flowering dicots. Jamie, the land manager, only had to spend a few days a year making sure invasives didn’t get a chance to take over. Once it was established, it required much less maintenance than turf, and it was beautiful and provided food for a wide range of creatures, especially my buzzem buddies, who kept my orchards there well pollinated. I suspect you prefer the orderly look of turf somewhat broken up with managed beds of ornamentals. My favorite landscape, besides orchards, is wilderness.
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That is something I am still struggling with- finding a location where apricots will survive. You mentioned they seem to do fine at some sites and die suddenly at others for you, so I branched out a bit and planted them at 2 more locations in 2021. Of the 8 total (4 at each location) one has 1 left and the other has 2 (only 1 of which has produced). 2 trees died at each location this year. So it seems like neither is all that good for apricots. Interestingly, the only variety which hasn’t died at either location is the probably mis-labeled Sugar Pearls (not the right color). It’s chugging along at both locations with good fruit-sets.
This spring, I planted 2 more at a 3rd location. But this time, they are just my own grafts to plum tree suckers. No point in buying more to see them die…
But, your comment has me thinking that the next time I find an open location at a South facing wall, I should plant an apricot there. So far, I’ve been dedicating such locations to figs and non-astringent persimmons.
Yes, no point in lawns on their own, but I much prefer them around my trees. Its a lot easier to keep the weeds from taking over. All my mowing is battery powered hand-push, so I definitely don’t have any vast acreages. Though I wouldn’t mind having a bit more to allow me to more properly space my trees.
I do prefer open grass- I would be fine with packed dirt, if it didn’t get muddy or generate weeds. I almost never plant ornamentals- everything should be fruiting. The only ornamentals I have are the ones which were there when I bought the place and even then I sometimes remove them if they get in my way. The tall hedge in one of my pics will likely get significantly lowered (from maybe 7-8’ to 4-5’ tall), as it is too much trouble to prune. Ornamental beds are also a maintenance pain- too much weeding and mulching, so I often turn them into lawn, putting in a tree if there is room or a garden bed for me or tenants if there is enough sun at the location.
It was a very impressive property. It was something like 1/4 of a mile drive from the front gate to the back orchard I remember going past the massive wildflower field, as well as a complete soccer field.
I’m surprised she was able to keep knotweed, Virginia creeper, bindweed, poison ivy, thistle, wineberry, etc out of it. I wrestle with all of those in my own, relatively small, yard. Though now that I think about it, I don’t necessarily see them at most of the other properties.
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Jamie is a man.
He kept invasives out with herbicide applications- one yearly throughout the meadow. Because the mix included a lot of native grasses established immediately after removing the plastic a balance was created that closed off entrance of unwanted species simply because the soil was so occupied with roots. Eliminating existing species before seeding with natives is the prerequisite usually missed. I guess you can’t get it done with a single app of glyphosate- the process of establishment is complicated.
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That’s not enough space for chestnut trees. And two (for cross-pollination) would give you more than enough nuts for home use.
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Yeah, I’ve been struggling with knotweed on the border with the neighbor’s yard for several years. He gave me the go-ahead to do whatever I need to it, but cutting it back and applying herbicide 1-3X a year just slows it down. Once that stuff gets established it is very difficult to eliminate.
Yes, that is a bit of a concern. 3 of the 4 are seedlings of Qing, a variety which tends to have more dwarf , orchard-like trees, so my hope is that I’ll be able to keep them pruned to fit in the small yard (currently 12-15’ spacing). If that doesn’t seem possible after a while, hopefully I’ll have sampled nuts from all 4 of the trees and can make a well educated decision about which one(s) to cut out.
We’ll see, but I won’t be holding my breath We’ve had a few chestnuts in the past, but it was mostly my wife. This year I tried them and decided they were very good (thanks @GiovanniDoe for the homegrown ones!). After we finished those, we got 10+ lbs from the Chinese grocery store and I ordered 20 lbs online. We finished all those pretty quick, but by that point there weren’t any more for sale online. Qing is supposed to be pretty precocious, but I’m sure it will be quite a while before these trees supply anything close to enough.
I also planted 2 other Qing seedlings at another property (a total of 6 between the two properties), though the ones there will also need to be kept pruned to dwarf fruit-tree levels(an even tighter 10-12’ spacing), where they are replacing 2 apricots that died.
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My understanding about knotweed is the best thing to do is injecting concentrated glyphosate (>40%) into the stem. Apparently, it still comes back in spring but much smaller and then you can directly spray it.
I haven’t actually tried it yet on knotweed, but there are videos about how to do it. Most recommend 3ml in the 2nd or 3rd internode which seems like a lot - but knotweed sounds crazy.
Establishing a meadow like this is a BIG undertaking and you have to wait a long time for it to pay off.
The university where I work established a native plant meadow. Several years were spent reviewing options for preparing the site (3 acres) because many objected to using chemicals to eliminate the plants currently growing there. In the end, they sprayed glyphosate twice + spot spray other chemicals + spot spray glyphosate because every other plan was more harmful or would not work.
They also had to use a nurse/cover crop to keep other things out while the meadow plants were established.
Two years after the native planting, some admins tried to remove the meadow because they didn’t like the way it looked. And for the first few years, it did look kind of bleh and sgraggly. However, once it was fully established it started to look better and no one tries to get rid of it anymore. It took probably 3-5 years before it looked really nice.
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When I first started my business, I called it Landscape Habitats and offered establishing native mini-prairies as one of my services. I read up on it and was prepared to use glyphosate as a main prep tool because that is what I heard non-profits were using in the midwest when engaging in major prairie re-establishment projects. Just as your group decided, these groups reluctantly accepted this method as the least ecologically evil way to do this. 30 plus years ago I may have been a little ahead of my time by East Coast standards on that, and got little response for that part of my business.
The Heffernans had to use many hundreds of pounds of plastic because the town board ignorantly believed that was ecologically much better than using glyphosate. That plastic is now in a land fill somewhere bleeding microplastics into the ground water.
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