I was just kidding around. My name is Ribs1 because I really like to eat ribs. In a previous life I was a professional bread baker and would often have my coworkers over for ribs so they gave me the nickname.
I am about 6 feet and weigh about 230. Whenever we would get someone new they would ask why I was called “Ribs” I always told them because I was so skinny.
The earth is heating up but that tends to happen following an ice age.
Issue is there is no good places to start explaining. A seed is self explanatory. Like you said you put the seed in and put some dirt over it then water. Heck seeds like lettuce seeds I can just sprinkle on top and water them in to grow them. For fruit trees you have to explain self fertile vs not and it can go even more confusing with nuts like pecans or hazelnuts, self rooted vs grafted etc. Someone asked why is one part of their tree dead and another part growing and posted a picture of the rootstock growing a new tree out. It was something they thought was basic and you and I would consider basic but for someone who does not understand how trees work it is complicated.
The boomers were calling us millennials lazy and worthless and now they call gen z lazy and worthless. Issue is you cannot categorize a generation in a group. I have an uncle who is a boomer and he has not worked since his early 20s from my understanding. Meanwhile he has constant bills being paid by the government including government housing. If I were to judge based on him it would paint the boomers in a bad light. Meanwhile there are boomers like my mother who are great caring hardworking people who have put a lot in.
Partly, this is something engrained in and taught to us by culture. The industrial model reigns supreme and unchallenged in our collective mind, and it is predicated entirely on reducing craft to mere process. The value is vested in the idea people, the pencil pushing class whose job it is to design the process and products that beget it. The person in the field, whether farmer or tradesperson, is effectively rendered a technician- the job is to follow the instructions, paint by numbers. First you plant, then you pick. Never mind that it seldom actually works that way in real life. Nor does the experience, skill set, or profit motive of the manufacturers comport necessarily with the best outcomes, but their products and processes become part and parcel of how things are done because economies of scale require it.
Done well, farming ,like the trades, will always require knowledge, experience, and attention to detail. That reality is lost on the vast majority as people are almost wholly detached from the nuts and bolts of growing things, building houses, building bridges, etc. And kids with the smarts and gumption to do these jobs well are discouraged, tacitly or otherwise, from pursuing them in favor of professional careers dealing with intangibles.
As a kid I grew up reading our families complete set of 1936 Encyclopaedia Britanica’s. It was unbelievably in depth, and nothing like it is produced today. I found it of great historical importance. It was like having a time machine take you back to view the world in it’s pre WW II state. If the modern world with its all electronic knowledge base were to colapse, society could be rebuilt from that antiquated set of Encyclopaedia Britanica’s. If you wanted to build a radio or telephone (or anything else of that era), the detailed explanations and wiring diagrams could be followed for anythings construction without access to miniaturized printed circuit boards that are the basis for all advanced electronics manufacturing today. Cell phones will only be paperweights if our modern infrastructure implodes.
Sadly I had to give those Encyclopaedia Britanica’s away when I relocated and had to put my belongings into storage. You can learn a lot from the way things were done almost a century ago in what some would say much better times.
My dad had a Chiltons Manual for every vehicle we owned.
I get stumped myself on stuff and i owned a 6 bay auto repair business… i usually find what im looking for on Youtube nowadays.
There is a trick to learning on Facebook. I learned this a long time ago.
Whatever you want to know… post the wrong answer as a statement of fact. You will get more correct answers than you could ever imagine. More people will engage to prove you wrong than engage to help you…thats how real life works as well unfortunately.
Stephan Sobkowiak recently posted a video about Fall Planting is the Best Time to Plant… he posted it on NAFEX and all of the fruit growing and permaculture groups. The ‘experts’ trashed him and voraciously proved him wrong…even called him a quack. He really tries to help people i think… and hes failing at it. If he would have posted Spring Planting is the Best Time to Plant… he would have succeded…and everyone would have proved him wrong also…saying that Fall planting is the best.
I feel like I’m the only one here with a positive view of Facebook groups, haha! I’ve had a lot of good experiences with our local gardening group. It’s actually more specifically a local plant swap group. The rules are that you cannot ask for money, and although you can ask for a plant in trade, it’s encouraged to be a bit more generous.
We get a lot of newbies just getting into gardening and have a decent amount of people moving and giving away their potted plants, etc. Lots of people happily trading cuttings and suckers, IDing plants, and alerting people to invasives. Free mulch and gardening stuff too sometimes.
I’m personally no longer very active because I’ve got just about every plant I want, but every once in awhile when some propagation took really well I go on there and give them all away. Met lots of neighbours that way and they are all super nice.
I think the key is that the group I’m in isn’t so much about swapping information about plants as it is about trading plants. Less arguing and misinformation that way, more community generosity.
Figured I would share a positive experience 
He’s not my favorite YouTuber mostly because I think he’s annoying, but I have planted at least half more orchard during the fall.
gardening is local; good groups on that site will be very local. very specialized and smaller. the best group for information I have on there is for
small group, incredibly polite and informative, people who don’t know an answer don’t just throw out an opinion but will follow along asking related questions.
the garden group that’s
it’s full of “salt the earth, what’s the bug, how do I eat this (random weed), etc” stuff that is being brought up in this thread. there’s a lot of bickering, conflicting answers, bold nonsense, people adding AI-scripted answers.
I enjoy tiktok for gardening ideas, it’s like magazine blurbs pretty much- snippets of things people are trying out. that site requires effort to get the feed you see to be of interest to you, it takes a few days looking and clicking “not interested” or the heart, then you’ll only get things you enjoy on the front page. it feels like a video version of reddit in that way.
That is one of the things I hate about Facebook gardening groups actually. At least for me over the years I have gained a lot of trees, bushes,groundcover etc. I paid for them all however. It bothers me when I hear someone go on a Facebook group and say can I have free seeds or annuals. It really bothers me when someone goes on Facebook and says can I have a free tree or bush. I have collected over the years so I am sure they can too if they are really into actually gardening or want to grow that plant.
Fall planting really depends on where you live and whether or not you want to get the warranty. I know One Green World does not guarantee plants zone 6 and below planted in the fall because they claim it is not enough time to let the roots develop. HoneyberryUSA does not warranty fall plants either. I bought plants from both last fall and it looks like I will have to utilize those guarantees this year as I have had many trees/bushes not leaf out. I have a Romeo bush cherry from HoneyberryUSA that did not leaf, a lot of the pawpaw and the honeybee from OneGreenWorld did not leaf. If I planted in fall I would be boned with those companies.
One GW is located where the ground doesn’t tend to freeze in winter. As far as I can determine here after 30 years of fall planting 100’s of bearing age fruit trees in my business in a Z6 that has seen winter temps below -20 in that time and used to regularly see lows between -10 and -15F the key issue of fall planting is very cold temps followed by thaws on ground not covered by insulating snow or mulch. Very hard freezing and thawing of uninsulated ground can dislodge trees and expose roots to lows they wouldn’t otherwise face.
It is rare for a tree I plant in the fall to die over winter or I wouldn’t base my business on doing almost all my orchard installation in Nov and Dec. I have other pressing matters to tend to in the spring- like planting all the tiny trees in my nursery that I will eventually sell as bearing age trees. .
I can’t really speak for areas that see lows regularly well below -20F.
Which is the conundrum. The guy that recommends it the most lives in Canada, but he mostly uses French techniques and practices.
The USDA in 1977 is on par with everyone else here in the NorthEast.
Planting of fruit trees in the north-
eastern United States should be done
as early as possible—as soon as the
land is dry enough to work in the
very early spring. Fall planting is
risky because it may result in winter
injury to the trees, but in warmer
regions, fall planting is practical.
I obtained pomegranates and also figs from One Green world during the heat of summer last year.
All are still alive. I potted them. Brought all but 2 containers indoors for the couple worst spells in the winter weather. Even the 2 that spent the winter in pots outdoors have sprouted out from the root after -5F here in zone 6b.
I live in Canada, but I have an extremely mild (9b) winter climate. I always prefer to plant in the fall. However, according to Abraham Lincoln you can’t always believe things you read on the internet, (I think he was referring to Facebook).
We’re definitely on opposite ends of the spectrum here! Of course, I don’t like it if someone is acting entitled to free stuff, but usually to my mind the more people who enjoy my hobby the better, and I’ve nearly always got more cuttings and suckers than I can handle if my plants are doing well. So I like to lower the gateway for newbies with my excess stuff. I’m also pretty active in the Buy Nothing groups and have gotten and given a lot of things that way over time.
Actually just gave away three enormous ornamental bushes to an old guy with a spade and pickup truck! I had been thinking about removing them for forever, but I hated the thought of digging them up or using stump remover or killing them. He had them out in an hour and a half, for free, without me ever touching a spade, and I know they’ll be happy on his property.
Haven’t used facebook in over a decade. Only good thing i’ve seen it used for is selling stuff.
you can’t always believe things you read on the internet, (I think he was referring to Facebook).
Dr Ieuean Evans (also a Canadian) (founder of the Evans Cherry) who is a scientist with great credentials in Canada says… “Peach seeds are exact clones of their parents” (also says that nectarines and peaches are the same).
Im not a Dr. and not a plant pathologist, and not a crop scientist and i havent created my own cultivars…
So you would have to have better credentials than him to prove him wrong technically?
A quick search for apomixis in Peaches yielded nothing of note. They do self pollinate readily though, so by extension would tend to come fairly true from seed. There are stable seed grown lines of peaches too. I’m thinking of some of the rootstocks such as Siberian. Nectarine is generally regarded as a subspecies of peach I believe. I’ve grown peaches from seed and have found ones with almost no fuzz. I grew out seed from a couple of flats of Red Haven peaches from a local orchard and got 2 white fleshed seedlings (so not that true to type!) but they’re both high quality fruit, and one has almost no fuzz, nearly a nectarine.
To return to this - if they care enough and want to figure it all out, they’ll end up here eventually. I found my way here by google searching endlessly about how to take care of my new fruit trees. I had no idea what to do with them or how to take care of them - but I wanted to.
And because it is DEFINITELY a lot of knowledge and skill, I am very, very grateful to everyone on this forum. Having fruit trees has always been a dream of mine and I’m really glad that I have you all to keep me from messing them all up.
This is brilliant.
I’m going to post and see if anyone wants a few bushes I have that I hate (and some trees). Everyone around here seems to love those hibiscus tree/bushes and I think they’re awful; 75% of the year they look terrible and 20% of the year they’re dropping goey flowers everywhere.
After realizing how clever the 5 rules to reduce maintence thread was - not just the original advice but a ton of the follow up - I’ve been trying to increase mowable area and decrease everything else. I am mulching with wood chips since that’s what seems best for my yard.
ALSO, all you all slamming on young people “these days”. I work with college students and my brother is a high school teacher. I really believe that most of the “kids these days” are hardworking, kind and generous to a fault.
I will say that the last couple of years the students I get seemed pretty messed up from the pandemic “learning” and “school”. Regardless of whether closing schools was necessary (which I don’t care to debate) it happened and many of my students spent over a year of high school isolated and trying to learn online. It seems to have badly affected many. Oddly, my younger nephews (elementary school) don’t really seem to be affected at all anymore - they barely remember it.