I'm afraid I have to disagree on some points you made. 1) Just because a tree doesn't bear good tasting fruit is not a reason for not planting it. There are loads of other reasons, eg., aesthetics, increased oxygen. 2) Not all edible stone fruits are grafted. The ones you buy in the grocery stores usually are, but they are bred more for shipping and color rather than taste. There are only a handful of varieties out of hundreds of apple varieties that are commercially grown. I have grown several trees from seed: a wild red plum that is small but tastes like a satsuma plum and makes terrific plum pies; 2 peaches that had tasty fruit but were susceptible to brown rot; and an apple tree grown from a grannie smith seed that is very small, tasty, appears to be disease resistant, and I expect will make great apple juice.
Excellent point: There are lots of great reasons to plant a tree! But this meme was specifically about fruit trees for food, and if we're going for oxygen, aesthetics, etc, best not to plant a fruit tree that will make a mess of rotting fruit no one eats. Yes, I know not all stone fruits are grafted, you're absolutely right: I have three (two cherries and a plum) that aren't, and are seedlings on their own rootstock. I didn't feel it was appropriate to take up several minutes in this video to get into the details of which varieties are grafted v non-grafted (hence "check out my other videos!" where I do discuss those things) because this meme felt to me like it was clearly geared toward folks saving their pips and pits from purchased fruit. I think there's lots of great possibility held in the seed of a fruit tree, but that doesn't mean we get to plant it on someone else's land or in a community spaces without planning on how it will be cared for, whether anyone wants to make use of it, and how it fits into the ecosystem. That doesn't strike me as responsible. On our own property, or in the context of a design with community consent? That sounds like a viable opportunity.
Thank you so much for this! I see gardening "hacks" about fruit all the time and spreading random seeds and I think these same things! Thanks for making this video!!
We’re growing a clementine tree from seed, however, this is in a pot, indoors and was for fun. If it gives good fruit in the future, then that is a bonus. We never would have been able to grow it from seed outside in our climate, plus the natural wax on the seed would stop it from germinating for many years (this wax is on many citrus fruit). The tree itself is two years old, only a foot high and has lived through two winters protected from frost but not cold, so it seems it has good resilience to the cold. We’ll be content even if it only ends up being an ornamental in our house. Wouldn’t many seeds also attract rodents that eat seeds and nuts also? That wouldn’t be popular in most communities.
That's awesome! We've started a number of trees from seed just to do a little experimentation. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes not so much. I hope yours is tasty when it fruits! Part of me has dreamed of having a farm and doing breeding to find new varieties of fruit trees. That kind of experimentation sounds like such a fun long game. But life had other plans. Yeah, totally agree, seeds plus eventual trees dropping fruit = pests.
I watched your video, and absorbed a little positive energy, and then I read the comments and absorbed a negative energy. I want to suggest something a little ridiculous. Most people in the US move every five years. Most soil regeneration efforts take that long or longer. We need a list of people who carry a designation like master gardener, who can carry on the work in a back yard started by someone else. Someone in Permaculture should create a Permaculture standard plan for the Portland, OR region, the Seattle, WA region or the SF Bay Area. Then when someone moves into a new home, they can learn where the previous resident was on the spectrum of garden creation. Then they aren’t starting from scratch every time they move to a new home. What does this have to do with guerrilla gardening? Well, nothing. But maybe if we could redirect bad habits into good habits, people will stop throwing fruit seeds into climates they don’t belong, and start working towards creating the change we all want to see.
I think that’s a lovely suggestion! I have no idea how it could be implemented, but to think about the continuity of care and progression of design from property owner to property owner sounds like permaculture thinking: how are separate parts (owners) actually connected? How can the progression of design be carried from owner to owner, so it really is “permanent agriculture”. There used to be an orchard on my property. The owner before me tore it out and divided the plot and built a house there. I think about it a lot, how much energy was wasted tearing out an orchard that I just replanted a few feet over.
Also was definitely hoping folks would use the comment section to think about “how can we fix the meme to make it truly helpful?” Maybe I should have been more explicit in asking for help coming up with variations on the meme that would be a real benefit to communities? (I do agree with the folks suggesting if you’ve got space on your own property and want to experiment, go for it. I could see trying that out in a zone 4).
How upset would you be if you waited 5 years for the tree to fruit and it wasn’t all you hoped it would be? It is better to spend $15-100 on a variety you know is going to taste good, grafted onto a superior rootstock for better disease and drought tolerance.
I air layered a plum tree from a friend's house. I assume that the fruit will be true as it's a clone and should fruit much more quickly than if I'd grown from seed, but do you have any input in how not having a grafted root stock could impact lifespan and palatability? I was trying to save money but after watching this video i feel like I might be wasting my time. Thanks!
I have air layered my mum old apple tree I got 6 to grow, they have the same apple 😅 I just don't know how big the trees will get. and that's ok .for the first year no plum take off fruit .you will get better roots best of luck
You will likely be disappointed when it suddenly gets a disease that either kills it or stresses it and affects the fruit production. Millions of dollars have been spent developing disease and drought-resistant rootstocks for the best possible yields in various regions. If the friend’s tree is sentimental, you could order a single rootstock for around $5 + shipping and try your hand at grafting, or you could maybe find out the variety and buy it already grafted.
Hello! I'm not sure about stone fruits, but I know that some apple seeds can produce thorny apple trees, so I'd be worried about spending a lot of time growing a seed that produces undesirable physical qualities. But, I see what you're saying!
I have met multiple insipid varieties of plums. And some VERY sour and unpleasant seedling cherries. And planting peaches that aren't HIGHLY resistant to fireblight is a very bad idea where I live, and is asking for a disease-riddled tree with poor fruit production.
In my opinion, the worst thing about this meme is the method proposed, as dried out pits are unlikely to grow anything. If randomly planting tree seedlings is really such an issue, you better be absolutely certain none of your fruit is ever eaten by wild life. A bad tasting peach tree in a place where it is unwanted is the result of years of choices, not the initial sowing. Distributing chunks of Jerusalem Artichoke or Comfrey root would create a real ongoing problem but fruit tree seedlings can be dealt with like any other tree seedlings. They simply are not an issue, or if they really are, then every fruit eaten by animals or tossed in the compost is a problem.
I agree that there is a "this is a waste of energy and nothing is going to come of it" element here. Especially because most of these seeds need cold stratification to germinate, and also nothing is going to happen to them chucked onto the surface of the soil. Yet another way that folks' good intentions here won't actually yield good fruit. Thanks for pointing that out :)
Of course it did. And most as carefully selected trees, whose parentage was chosen to produce specific qualities. And for every good one, there were a hundred or more complete duds. But that doesn't mean chucking seeds out hither and thither is good permaculture. It doesn't mean that any of this is a good idea. As I said, plant breeding is an entirely separate topic from what is going on in this meme.
You decide what is good permaculture? interesting. where did you get the 99/100+ seedlings are duds number btw? so many factors come into play and this number is just an opinion. Also growing out 100 seedlings isnt the same as breeding. I want to hear facts...youre confusing new growers that absorb your opinions and repeat them as facts.
@@alwyzDTF oh good grief. Happy to have good faith engagement, but not interested in giving my energy to snarky arguments. Of course growing out 100 seedlings isn't the same thing as plant breeding. What is it you're looking for here? What is it you're hoping for out of this convo?
@@ParkrosePermaculture i dont want your energy lol wtf and I stated CLEARLY in my last comment what I want out of this conversation. Are you too self absorbed to even read my comments before you respond?
Go ahead and plant seeds, it's fun. You don't need to control creation for it to exist. If people don't like it they can cut a sapling in like 5 seconds.
Certain species can damage preexisting ecosystems, like Angela said. Also, saplings can grow unnoticed for a couple of years and then you have a tree that isn't so easy to get rid of. I'd recommend contacting your local land management bureau and asking them what plants you could grow to help your community. If you want to play with seeds, you could put them in pots in your house; I do that myself because it's fun to watch an apricot seedling produce leaves. I just don't plant them outside! :)
I never said folks shouldn't plant seeds for fun. But that's entirely different than throwing seeds out into the wild or into community spaces and just letting them grow, with no care, no knowledge of how edible the fruit may or may not be, no design, and no consent from the community. Starting your own fruits from seed to see what happens and perhaps find some awesome new fruits? GREAT IDEA. Throwing the seeds from fruit you bought at the grocery out onto someone else's property or wild spaces? A terrible idea. On many levels.
It takes more than 5 seconds to work on bushland that has been overtaken by passionfruit, blackberry, loquat, olive, hawthorn and dozens of other edible plants.
@@SamStone1964 my huge backyard meadow (over 6 acres) has so many useless invasive nonfruitbearing olive trees because I couldn't afford to cut the whole thing back for a few years; now it would take hundreds of personal hours or thousands of dollars to cut them down and grind the roots out if I wanted to start over.
So, stick to native plants... sounds like that could alleviate a lot of your concerns. But I do agree about consent, it's a tricky issue. More or less biodiversity is probably another discussion topic. If we indefinitely breed for fruit quality, would we run into extreme disease / pest issues? Don't get me wrong, I love a bunch of the new apple varieties (sugar bee and cosmic crisp are really good). When does this become an issue for us? I grew up in the PNW and the random seedling plums and cherry-plums were usually pretty tasty. I also enjoyed all the native plants (salal, huckleberries, thimbleberries, etc) and perhaps some invasive non-natives too (blackberries).
There's something similar I have done, I hope a little more thought through than meme, although still culpable to some of the criticism... There is a native variety of elder where I live. Each autumn I go out and forage for the berries in local suburban parks I know well (often wild plants that grow in these public spaces, from birds dropping seeds). There are a couple of trees that bare particularly good fruit. I have taken cuttings for my own garden. But also, as the cuttings of elder root so easily, I have guerilla planted spare cuttings in uncared for public areas nearby. Possibly they might be removed or cut back in future years, but I do at least know these trees have good genetics and are appropriate to the local ecology.
I grow a VERY resistant peach that gets no peach leaf curl. The fruit is smaller than the more admired peach varieties, and the fruit doesn't have a rosey blush to the skin that some folks want. But I will take decent flavor and extreme disease resistance over disease-prone but extravagant any day. I'd rather spend less work and still get a tasty, if in some ways more modest, yield. Agree, planting natives would solve a big chunk of the issue! The improved serviceberries are native but absolutely delicious and yield huge crops, for example.
I just read about the war on invasive Bradford pears. Too bad plant nurseries weren't more responsible.
I'm afraid I have to disagree on some points you made. 1) Just because a tree doesn't bear good tasting fruit is not a reason for not planting it. There are loads of other reasons, eg., aesthetics, increased oxygen. 2) Not all edible stone fruits are grafted. The ones you buy in the grocery stores usually are, but they are bred more for shipping and color rather than taste. There are only a handful of varieties out of hundreds of apple varieties that are commercially grown. I have grown several trees from seed: a wild red plum that is small but tastes like a satsuma plum and makes terrific plum pies; 2 peaches that had tasty fruit but were susceptible to brown rot; and an apple tree grown from a grannie smith seed that is very small, tasty, appears to be disease resistant, and I expect will make great apple juice.
Excellent point: There are lots of great reasons to plant a tree! But this meme was specifically about fruit trees for food, and if we're going for oxygen, aesthetics, etc, best not to plant a fruit tree that will make a mess of rotting fruit no one eats.
Yes, I know not all stone fruits are grafted, you're absolutely right: I have three (two cherries and a plum) that aren't, and are seedlings on their own rootstock. I didn't feel it was appropriate to take up several minutes in this video to get into the details of which varieties are grafted v non-grafted (hence "check out my other videos!" where I do discuss those things) because this meme felt to me like it was clearly geared toward folks saving their pips and pits from purchased fruit.
I think there's lots of great possibility held in the seed of a fruit tree, but that doesn't mean we get to plant it on someone else's land or in a community spaces without planning on how it will be cared for, whether anyone wants to make use of it, and how it fits into the ecosystem. That doesn't strike me as responsible. On our own property, or in the context of a design with community consent? That sounds like a viable opportunity.
She should've said it differently. Sometimes what grows up from seed is so unpalatable that it can make you sick ie many citrus tree.
I do this but on my own property. If i like it i eat it. If i don't like it my wilderness animals will eat it.
Thank you so much for this! I see gardening "hacks" about fruit all the time and spreading random seeds and I think these same things! Thanks for making this video!!
We’re growing a clementine tree from seed, however, this is in a pot, indoors and was for fun. If it gives good fruit in the future, then that is a bonus. We never would have been able to grow it from seed outside in our climate, plus the natural wax on the seed would stop it from germinating for many years (this wax is on many citrus fruit). The tree itself is two years old, only a foot high and has lived through two winters protected from frost but not cold, so it seems it has good resilience to the cold. We’ll be content even if it only ends up being an ornamental in our house.
Wouldn’t many seeds also attract rodents that eat seeds and nuts also? That wouldn’t be popular in most communities.
That's awesome! We've started a number of trees from seed just to do a little experimentation. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes not so much. I hope yours is tasty when it fruits!
Part of me has dreamed of having a farm and doing breeding to find new varieties of fruit trees. That kind of experimentation sounds like such a fun long game. But life had other plans.
Yeah, totally agree, seeds plus eventual trees dropping fruit = pests.
I watched your video, and absorbed a little positive energy, and then I read the comments and absorbed a negative energy.
I want to suggest something a little ridiculous. Most people in the US move every five years. Most soil regeneration efforts take that long or longer. We need a list of people who carry a designation like master gardener, who can carry on the work in a back yard started by someone else.
Someone in Permaculture should create a Permaculture standard plan for the Portland, OR region, the Seattle, WA region or the SF Bay Area.
Then when someone moves into a new home, they can learn where the previous resident was on the spectrum of garden creation. Then they aren’t starting from scratch every time they move to a new home.
What does this have to do with guerrilla gardening? Well, nothing. But maybe if we could redirect bad habits into good habits, people will stop throwing fruit seeds into climates they don’t belong, and start working towards creating the change we all want to see.
I think that’s a lovely suggestion! I have no idea how it could be implemented, but to think about the continuity of care and progression of design from property owner to property owner sounds like permaculture thinking: how are separate parts (owners) actually connected? How can the progression of design be carried from owner to owner, so it really is “permanent agriculture”.
There used to be an orchard on my property. The owner before me tore it out and divided the plot and built a house there. I think about it a lot, how much energy was wasted tearing out an orchard that I just replanted a few feet over.
Also was definitely hoping folks would use the comment section to think about “how can we fix the meme to make it truly helpful?” Maybe I should have been more explicit in asking for help coming up with variations on the meme that would be a real benefit to communities? (I do agree with the folks suggesting if you’ve got space on your own property and want to experiment, go for it. I could see trying that out in a zone 4).
Chestnut tree growing it for 15 years hardly any nuts, I am using it for wood fire.
I thought peaches bred true to seed. This helped a lot as I was saving all my pits from my peach tree in hopes of making another one.
How upset would you be if you waited 5 years for the tree to fruit and it wasn’t all you hoped it would be? It is better to spend $15-100 on a variety you know is going to taste good, grafted onto a superior rootstock for better disease and drought tolerance.
@@jeremybyington you're totally right!
Hey ya'll CHOOSE Wildflower Dirt bombs! Throw them everywhere
I air layered a plum tree from a friend's house. I assume that the fruit will be true as it's a clone and should fruit much more quickly than if I'd grown from seed, but do you have any input in how not having a grafted root stock could impact lifespan and palatability? I was trying to save money but after watching this video i feel like I might be wasting my time. Thanks!
I have air layered my mum old apple tree I got 6 to grow, they have the same apple 😅 I just don't know how big the trees will get. and that's ok .for the first year no plum take off fruit .you will get better roots best of luck
You will likely be disappointed when it suddenly gets a disease that either kills it or stresses it and affects the fruit production. Millions of dollars have been spent developing disease and drought-resistant rootstocks for the best possible yields in various regions. If the friend’s tree is sentimental, you could order a single rootstock for around $5 + shipping and try your hand at grafting, or you could maybe find out the variety and buy it already grafted.
Never met a stonefruit that I did not eat. Although heard of toxic plums from japan.
Any apple type can be made into a delicious fruit tea.
Hello! I'm not sure about stone fruits, but I know that some apple seeds can produce thorny apple trees, so I'd be worried about spending a lot of time growing a seed that produces undesirable physical qualities. But, I see what you're saying!
oh you can get SUPER thorny plum trees, too!
I have met multiple insipid varieties of plums. And some VERY sour and unpleasant seedling cherries. And planting peaches that aren't HIGHLY resistant to fireblight is a very bad idea where I live, and is asking for a disease-riddled tree with poor fruit production.
This will be very useful when that meme or similar show up in the local group I admin. Much appreciated.
In my opinion, the worst thing about this meme is the method proposed, as dried out pits are unlikely to grow anything.
If randomly planting tree seedlings is really such an issue, you better be absolutely certain none of your fruit is ever eaten by wild life.
A bad tasting peach tree in a place where it is unwanted is the result of years of choices, not the initial sowing.
Distributing chunks of Jerusalem Artichoke or Comfrey root would create a real ongoing problem but fruit
tree seedlings can be dealt with like any other tree seedlings.
They simply are not an issue, or if they really are, then every fruit eaten by animals or tossed in the compost is a problem.
I agree that there is a "this is a waste of energy and nothing is going to come of it" element here. Especially because most of these seeds need cold stratification to germinate, and also nothing is going to happen to them chucked onto the surface of the soil. Yet another way that folks' good intentions here won't actually yield good fruit. Thanks for pointing that out :)
Every single good variety out there in the world grafted or not started out as a seedling.
Of course it did. And most as carefully selected trees, whose parentage was chosen to produce specific qualities. And for every good one, there were a hundred or more complete duds.
But that doesn't mean chucking seeds out hither and thither is good permaculture. It doesn't mean that any of this is a good idea. As I said, plant breeding is an entirely separate topic from what is going on in this meme.
You decide what is good permaculture? interesting. where did you get the 99/100+ seedlings are duds number btw? so many factors come into play and this number is just an opinion. Also growing out 100 seedlings isnt the same as breeding. I want to hear facts...youre confusing new growers that absorb your opinions and repeat them as facts.
@@alwyzDTF oh good grief. Happy to have good faith engagement, but not interested in giving my energy to snarky arguments.
Of course growing out 100 seedlings isn't the same thing as plant breeding.
What is it you're looking for here? What is it you're hoping for out of this convo?
@@ParkrosePermaculture i dont want your energy lol wtf and I stated CLEARLY in my last comment what I want out of this conversation. Are you too self absorbed to even read my comments before you respond?
Not willing to engage with folks who fail to bring People Care and respect to the discourse. Enjoy your evening.
Go ahead and plant seeds, it's fun. You don't need to control creation for it to exist. If people don't like it they can cut a sapling in like 5 seconds.
Certain species can damage preexisting ecosystems, like Angela said. Also, saplings can grow unnoticed for a couple of years and then you have a tree that isn't so easy to get rid of.
I'd recommend contacting your local land management bureau and asking them what plants you could grow to help your community.
If you want to play with seeds, you could put them in pots in your house; I do that myself because it's fun to watch an apricot seedling produce leaves. I just don't plant them outside! :)
I never said folks shouldn't plant seeds for fun. But that's entirely different than throwing seeds out into the wild or into community spaces and just letting them grow, with no care, no knowledge of how edible the fruit may or may not be, no design, and no consent from the community.
Starting your own fruits from seed to see what happens and perhaps find some awesome new fruits? GREAT IDEA.
Throwing the seeds from fruit you bought at the grocery out onto someone else's property or wild spaces? A terrible idea. On many levels.
It takes more than 5 seconds to work on bushland that has been overtaken by passionfruit, blackberry, loquat, olive, hawthorn and dozens of other edible plants.
@@SamStone1964 my huge backyard meadow (over 6 acres) has so many useless invasive nonfruitbearing olive trees because I couldn't afford to cut the whole thing back for a few years; now it would take hundreds of personal hours or thousands of dollars to cut them down and grind the roots out if I wanted to start over.
So, stick to native plants... sounds like that could alleviate a lot of your concerns. But I do agree about consent, it's a tricky issue. More or less biodiversity is probably another discussion topic. If we indefinitely breed for fruit quality, would we run into extreme disease / pest issues? Don't get me wrong, I love a bunch of the new apple varieties (sugar bee and cosmic crisp are really good). When does this become an issue for us?
I grew up in the PNW and the random seedling plums and cherry-plums were usually pretty tasty. I also enjoyed all the native plants (salal, huckleberries, thimbleberries, etc) and perhaps some invasive non-natives too (blackberries).
There's something similar I have done, I hope a little more thought through than meme, although still culpable to some of the criticism... There is a native variety of elder where I live. Each autumn I go out and forage for the berries in local suburban parks I know well (often wild plants that grow in these public spaces, from birds dropping seeds). There are a couple of trees that bare particularly good fruit. I have taken cuttings for my own garden. But also, as the cuttings of elder root so easily, I have guerilla planted spare cuttings in uncared for public areas nearby. Possibly they might be removed or cut back in future years, but I do at least know these trees have good genetics and are appropriate to the local ecology.
I grow a VERY resistant peach that gets no peach leaf curl. The fruit is smaller than the more admired peach varieties, and the fruit doesn't have a rosey blush to the skin that some folks want. But I will take decent flavor and extreme disease resistance over disease-prone but extravagant any day. I'd rather spend less work and still get a tasty, if in some ways more modest, yield.
Agree, planting natives would solve a big chunk of the issue! The improved serviceberries are native but absolutely delicious and yield huge crops, for example.