Welcome 
May your fluffy spirit have full domination over your workaday side whenever you enter these gates. 
Alan has built up quite the anticipation for your arrival.
Welcome Fluffy
Hah! Welcome FluffyBunny 
A Hump Day chuckle.
Iāll jump inā¦
This is Tom and I live in Illinois (hence tomIL). I think my obsession with growing things started around age 10, 11. Before our current location in the US, we lived in the southeast Asia. My parents bought a unit on the 2nd floor of a condominium complex that failed to fully developed and occupied but thatās another story. Mind you that thereās absolutely no open ground for 2nd floor residents.
Somehow, my 2 brothers and I managed to get enough wood planks (due to the incomplete condominium development, there were plenty of construction materials lay around) and managed to put up couple raised beds on the concrete balcony. Soon after that, we found enough soil to fill our raised beds.
I started out with growing simple things like marigold, then lettuces, basils, daikon and slowly graduated to build trellises for cucumbers, melons and squashes and even a fruit tree (itās a longan from seed) in a 30g metal container! I even learned to recognize male and female squash flowers and manual pollination though agricultural subscriptions! Though at that age in my time, I had absolutely no idea what sex is and made no connection of reproduction process from plants and animals to us human! 
Too slow to mature kid!
Though living on a 2nd floor, we manage to grow and hatch chickens, ducks and our grandma even raised a pair of pigs! Thatās another story to tellā¦ 
With all that animals wasted from ducks, chickens and pig (and even my own urine), I had plenty of chances to learn the concept of composting since that tender age though not necessarily correct! 
Iād like to believe that I enjoyed my self-made garden immensely! It perked my sense of curiosity, taught me patience and rewarded me with āfruitsā of my labors! And the accolades from grandma, admirations and complimentary from neighbors and visitors are hard not to take in! 
Now, in the US, and in my 50ish. My garden interests have been pushed aside for 30 some years to tender my other interests: KIDS!
I slowly am getting into gardening mode for the past 10 years but just recently have major interest in fruit trees. My current possession in a 3/4 acre are:
3 espalier apples that has 8 varieties on: Golden Hudson, Fuji, Gala, Red MacIntosh, Yellow Delicious, Red Fuji, Yellow Transparent and Gravenstein.
1 stand alone apple: Honeycrisp
1 plum - Burgundy
1 plout - 3-in-1 Flavor Queen, Supreme and Dapple Dandy
4 Asian pear - Shinko, 20 Century, Hosui and Shinseiki (new this year as bare root)
2 peach - Donut Saturn and Alberta
2 pawpaw - Susquehanna and Overleese (new this year)
I also have 5 clumps of blueberry that I forgot to label and now have no clue of what they are.
Last but not least, I built a raised bed last year for a bunch of raspberry with no name. As long as they give berries, Iāll tolerate them taking the space as a no namer!
Iām more of a lurker than a poster and will be forever in learning mode. I enjoyed reading you expertsā opinions and truly appreciated to have such privilege to learn from you all. Latest in my curiosity is the art of grafting. I started some grafts, apples, pears, cherries, peaches and plums, since last year with some success. More to learnā¦
Last, I still want to raise some backyard chickens but after moving to the 3rd house, I still canāt due to local restrictions!
I guess this desire ties me back to my early tender days of unaware self-sustaining consciousness! 
Sorry for theā¦ ESSAY!
tomIL
5 Likes
Tom,
Welcome to the gang. How do you like your Burgundy plum? Can you provide a review of its taste, texture, juiciness, freeness of pit, etc? Where in Illinois are you?
Welcome, we could see you lurking over there. Keep working on the chickens. Fresh eggs are the best.
I enjoyed your story, Tom. Welcome.
Welcome on board Tom. Keep on growing fruit trees
Tony
Welcome Tom. which part of IL are you at?
Thank you all for the warm welcome greetings.
Matt in Maryland - The Burgundy plum is only into its 2nd year and flower a bit last week. No fruit, no taste test yet! So I have no clue of what to tell youā¦
I grafted 3 other J. plums to this 3 feet high burgundy during the warm up of 70 degree here. With its night time temp lately plunged to 28-30 degree, these grafts may not take!
IL847 - I live in northern Illinois, sw of Naperville. if youāre close enough, we could drive up for the scions trades later!
Tom
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Tom, I am a little north of you. Woodfield mall area.
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Welcome Tom. Love your story.
Growing up, pig manure was the best fertilizer we had (for free).
Giving the current standard of sanitation that Iām accustomed to nowadays, I say I would not and dare not to wade, barefoot, back into the pig pen again! That stuff is nasty, smelly and could be deadly if not equip with proper measures. Now think about that, I wonder how I grow old with no serious consequence health-wise! 
All that deadly stuff, salmonella, meningitis, listeria, anything and everything in between could get to us kids but somehow we get to live another day to tell the story! Their loss, our gain 
Hello!!!. I found this group yesterday when I was looking up on some information for Nadia cherry/plum. I ordered one from Raintree and got it yesterday! I love growing but it is challenging as I container grow, lack full sun and space. I am in PA, zone 6.
This morning I received a box of bare rooted fruit trees that have leafed out. Combo pear, combo cherry, fruit salad, peacotum, golden nectar and they sent me a free combo apple!It was a mad rush to get them all in containers. Still trying to learn as much as I can from everyone regarding container gardening and fruit trees growing in general.
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Welcome to you. Stick around and you will soon round out your knowledge base.
Mike
Greeting all from Tulsa, OK. I would like to introduce myself here at the forum.
I am 44 years old, having deep a passion for gardening. I can spend hours for watching a plant, even a small seeding. I am from other side of the world, from Dhaka, Bangladesh, a tropical country. I inherited gardening passion from my dad, and my current trade too, structural engineering. We grew summer and winter vegetables, flowers and tropical fruits. We grew tropical fruits as I can remember mango, guava, jackfruit, starfruit, banana, bel fruit, jujube, pomegranate, wood apple and few other tropical fruits I do not even know their English name. We also grew few kinds of tropical berries.
This year I started my own home orchard around my new home. I planted 7 plum (Santa Rosa, Late Santa Rosa, Burgundy, Shiro, Methley, Damson, Stanley), 4 plout (Flavor Supreme, Splash, Dapple Dandy, Flavor Grenade), 2 Asian pear (Hosui, 20th Century), 3 persimmon (Hachiya, Fuyu, Hana Fuyu), 1 Spice Zee Nectaplum, 3 fig (Brawn Turkey, Celeste, Chicago Hardy) trees. I also planted 2 grape vines (Flame & Lakemont) and few berry plants (Gooseberry (Pixwell), Josta Berry, Blackberry (Prime Ark-45), Raspberry (Heritage), Everbearing Strawberry, etc.).
I am going in a process of learning by reading (internet, GW/HOUZZ & here off course) and watching Youtube videos about orchard culture here in USA. A lot of difference in here from my native place, growing calendar, plants, hand tools, growing practice etc. As example, no bare root tree planting, no permanent mulch for trees.
In future I will ask many question to all of you for help.
3 Likes
Welcome MMR!
Welcome, roundface! I like hearing when people find this forum through search engines.
Yes, container growing fruit trees has its challenges, but so does growing them in the ground. What company did you purchase your batch of combo trees from? No one ever sends me a free anything. Well, except for the little packet of agri-gel that Nourse always includes with their orders.
Welcome, MMR!
Wow! Thatās quite a variety of delicious fruit bearing trees to start off with! I hope they all do well for you. You will never stop learning. Thatās part of the adventure of growing a variety of fruit.
For those who are interested, I got this lot of fruit trees from isons. they were very decent specimens with Dave WIlsonās label. I wasnt going to buy but canāt say no the sale prices! Just as well I donāt have much room and full sun. If I did, can you imagine how many more I would get? Some of these are replacement for trees who have fallen casualties to old man winter 
There is a sale going on in Ison 
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