Welcome, Phillip! What a very beautiful backyard you have. Just lovely to look at. Very glad you found our forum, and I know you’ll find a lot of great information and support, here.
Patty S.
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Welcome, Phillip! If I ever post a photo of my yard, you will see I am not an engineer, but a writer. Things are in relation to each other according to sizing and in order to avoid the sewer drain down the middle of the yard. One of my wife’s relatives kindly said to me my yard resembles a farm yard. Especially when ducks lived out there!
If I ever take down the old barn, maybe I can put Mount Royal plum in for preserves. And another North Star cherry?
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Best of luck to everyone. I’ve never grafted anything but maybe next year or two. For now I’m just learning. My main focus is figs. I have about 75 varieties with more to add this spring. Grafting has taken a back seat, but I do have a huge crab apple tree I want to graft some apples onto. I also have wild hickory trees. Maybe i could graft other nuts onto, but I’m not sure. Have fun everyone!
My wife grew up in the Philippines and her story about growing things there is similar to yours. They would plant a seed or a tree or even a slip of wood and would not have to water or fertilize. We live in the California central valley now and grow mostly jujubes and chestnuts as a hobby, but also apples, plums, Asian pears, pomegranates, peaches, mulberries, walnuts, guomis and a few other things. We have some seedling jackfruit in pots.
Castanea,
Please say hi to your wife for me. I have a few filipina friends here in MA. Thais and Filipinos look so much alike. I bet you if you wife walks a street in Bangkok, people would think she was Thai.
I never knew growing fruit could be difficult until I started growing them here. So much work and hassle 
Sometimes when we are in restaurants people assume my wife is Thai. I will tell her hello. She is always complaining about how hard it is to grow fruit here.
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Tell her she ain’t see nothing yet. CA is probably one of the easiest states to grow fruit in the US. In our humid east, it is not that easy.
Glad you join us. Look forward to learning from your posts/experience.
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In a few years I will retire and we will be moving to southwest Missouri. That should be interesting, going from zone 9 to zone 6.
Hi @castanea, welcome to the forum! Where in Central valley are you located? I’m just west of Tracy.
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Thank you. I’m in Sacramento county
Welcome! Glad to have a fellow structuran engineer in here. Hope you enjoy this fruit growing community.
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Hi MMR, looks like you’ve been on here a while, but wanted to say hey to a fellow Okie. I was raised and schooled in Broken Arrow, and most of my family are still in OK.
Lived and worked in N Texas for 30 years before me and my wife of 7 years moved up here almost 3 years ago to live on her family farm. Am sorta semi retired now, but worked in the electronics industry in TX, mostly as a diagnostician. My wife does some sub teaching here and there occasionally.
Welcome @castanea, you certainly have a large fruit resume’ there. Of all the fruits you grow, which is you and your wife’s favorites?
We just started a little “orchard” here on the farm this year, and I’ve already learned a lot from the friendly folks on here.
Jujubes are our favorite fruit and it’s not close. Chestnuts are a lot more important to me than jujubes though.
Hi subdood,
Nice to here about you. I am at South-East part of Tulsa, near Broken Arrow. I am from Dhaka, Bangladesh but settled down here few years before. I am designing drilling rigs in here. Before this I was designing high rise buildings in New York City and in Dhaka, Bangladesh. My wife also is doing some sub teaching at Union schools.
I read so many of your post at this site. I love your posts and all the other good people in here. Thanks.
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Welcome to all the new folks. I for one continue to be absolutely amazed at how many of the members here and/or their spouses live here in the U.S. but are from other countries- especially Asia- but all over. I just wonder what that says about Americans and how we don’t value growing fresh fruit and nuts the way people from other countries do. Perhaps its because we have better access to more affordable fresh produce at grocery stores, but I’m not sure. I love having such a diverse group of people here, but I just often wonder why there seems to be a disproportionately high number of people and/or family members with origins outside the USA. Just curious if anyone else has any thoughts on that? Either way, I say again that its wonderful having such a diverse group of people who are all so helpful, and I’m you newer folks will find this site to be extremely rewarding- I’m sure glad you are here.
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Well, you are certainly in the right place to be designing rigs! I’m sure you know by now that oil is big business in OK. One of my cousins, who lives in the SE part of the state is a field supervisor of a rig crew. It’s a good paying job if only the oil prices stay above a certain price. Right now oil is about $53 a barrel so the industry is doing better than a year ago. His nephew from that same area is working on a oil rig crew up here in this part of the country, in PA, I think.
I am very familiar with Union schools, they were and are now a big rival to Broken Arrow in football, but Union and Jenks always seems to win the state titles. BA did get to the finals a couple years ago and lost. My Mom and sister live in north BA in the same house I grew up in, and my bro-in-law and nephew are in south BA. The town has gotten so big over the last 20 years or so, I think it’s now the #4 largest town in OK now. But, it’s still a nice place to live. Hope y’all are enjoying your time in OK, there are some really nice folks there.
Thanks for the comments, I try to make my posts entertaining sometimes, but they can get a bit wordy at times. @thecityman and I seem to be afflicted with this issue…
I also see that @mksmth is in your area, in Bixby, so hey Mike. I saw pics of your orchard in a post from last year. Looking good! How did you do this year?
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city,
I am not sure about other people or other country, but in my country, people do not want to leave a piece of land to be unused. May be the reason we have more people per square unit of land or maybe it is too easy to grow over there. If you left a piece of good and accessible land unused, people will start to think of your mental instability. Even someone will offer you some money to grow something for him at that land.
Dig the soil and plant seed, you only need start up irrigation and little bit of fertilizer, little or no insecticide. Easy!
Great Point, @MMR_Tulsa6B . Sadly, where I live and most places in the U.S. people also think idle land is wasteful, but in a completely different way than what you describe. Here, most people see empty land and think “what a great place for a subdivision” (or condo, or commercial development, etc). People here rarely look at a nice, fertile piece of land and think “that would be a nice place to grow things”. I desperately wish it wasn’t that way, but I spend most of my time trying to prevent “Urban Sprawl”. SO I think you have hit on a key difference in most Americans and others- and one I’m not that proud of.
@subdood_ky_z6b : WHAT? Were you trying to say that I can be a bit wordy at times? Surely not! Unfortunately my philosophy tends to be why say it in 10 words when you can say it in 50? Kind if the opposite of what good writers recommend!
Thanks for the comments. Tulsa is a nice place to live, I really like this place and good people around here. Yes, oil industry is doing better right now than the last year. It is not as good as was two or three years before but it is getting up, and that is good sign for people in here.
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