So, I love eating fruit. It’s delicious and nutritious. Plus, it makes me happy.
However, I find myself more interested in harvesting seed and planting it than in eating the fruit I plant.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still eating lots of fruit, it’s just that, often, I’m eating fruit so I can begin/continue the breeding/development work.
Part of the reason for this is that the Lord has told me that I’m supposed to spread the Garden Everything ™️ philosophy and to set a worthy example. Part of it is simply that I love growing plants, and being their steward, and having that relationship enhances my life and my spirit.
Are any of you in the same boat, in which you’re more interested in growing the fruit than in eating it?
I will buy fruit just to plant the seed. Typically tropicals. Most recently I got Imbe (Garcinia livingstonei) fruit just so that I could plant the seeds, as it is is supposed to one of the most cold hardy Garcinias. Getting to taste it first was just a bonus. Did the same thing with Abiu, Rollinia, Achacha, Canistel and a few others.
I do not limit ourselves to our own plants and fruits. I look to improve or take from every location that gives us permission. Just today we took young plants of Rose Glory Bower / Mexican hydrangea from an elderly couple’s property.
Many folks who are retired get tickled to death others notice varieties they established growing. And want to spread that. We were told to explore the yard as there are a lot of things planted on the 3 acres.
I really enjoy the gardening and being outside so would be growing things regardless. And I grow fruit I don’t even like with the intent to give it away. Example: I taste pawpaw and keep getting new stuff to graft and may someday dabble in breeding, but I can’t see myself doing more than tasting the fruit.
However, I’m growing stone fruit and berries to eat. The stone fruit is too much of a pain to grow - no way I’d be doing it except I want the fruit. Both are not really available (or the good stuff isn’t available) in the grocery store where I’m at and I really want them.
Though, because I’m already spraying and pruning the stone fruit, I do have some that I am not particularly interested in (but I think friends might be). I don’t really care for white peaches or low-acid peaches and I have a few.
Splits down the middle for me. Berries and veg, definitely growing to eat. But with fruit trees I find myself more absorbed by the watching than the eating. Have a quince that only started producing after years of nothing and honestly the fascination is mostly in how long it took and whether it’ll do it again.
I’m in the camp of growing to feed my community. There’s little better feeling for me than to share something I have grown and see others enjoy it. It may even inspire them to plant their own.
I agree with you. I grow my fruit to share with the people in my community. Friends, neighbors, and people I do business with. Hoping they will enjoy the fruit I grow to grow their own.
Since I grow mostly heirloom varieties. I hope they enjoy these older varieties enough to perhaps start growing some at their homes. So far it is working. I have had several people ask me about where I bought certain fruit trees.
These people didn’t realize how different different apple and pear varieties taste.
Really interesting topic! Over the past couple of years, I have discovered the joy and fulfillment of fruit propagation. I would even say it’s becoming a passion of mine. In my lifetime, I would like to try and get as close to mastering all of the different techniques to propagate fruit.
In a sense, that may not be eating to grow, but growing to grow more?! I bring this up also, and this is a little detour from my above point, because over the past year and change specifically, I successfully stratified an apricot seed that is really growing nicely. Not as prolific as some other seedlings I have seen on the forum, but I will tell you there is no other feeling than successfully growing something like a stone fruit from seed. I may never see fruit, but I also never thought the whole “grow your groceries” thing was anything more than a gimmick. Maybe it is, but still really cool. The fruit could be terrible if I even get any.
Either way, I find myself in the camp of harmoniously living with both growing to eat, and eating to grow. I love sharing an abundant harvest, and that makes propagating, growing from seed, etc. a really fulfilling hobby in and of itself beyond just throwing stuff in the ground.