Natalie McVander

Dale Hodgins wrote: Sheep and goats who read this already want one.

LOL

I Love this idea. Kudos!

So sorry, Ranate.
I apologize for offending or sounding like I was trying to be discouraging to you.

It wasn't meant to be negative - as I also enjoy and have done this, as I said.
I actually used to host fruit seminars on my farm with experts coming in a sharing teaching, so I'm not without experience.

Just trying to give a heads-up to people who may think that they will be able to propagate an entire fruit orchard by collecting seeds from the store.
It was from experience of my own - I am a huge experimenter and like to learn from my mistakes and share what I've learned with others.

You can do this with some, but not all.

Dawn,

Can you define how allotments work / what they are?
I've never run across anything in the USA like that.

Here's something that's kind of close, but VERY expensive.

Some great ideas here:

Search Cabot Cove Cottages.

https://www.google.com/search?q=cabot+cove+cottages&safe=active&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=ZBwfU-LFL5LuqwHrmoHYAw&sqi=2&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAg&biw=1521&bih=819&dpr=0.9

This is a fun project. I've grown lots of things from seed. It's just nice to be able to see something growing in your window, even in winter.

Just be aware that you will not get the big juicy grocery store type fruits from these seeds.

Most seeds come from highly hybridized stock that does not reproduce true to the fruit from which it came.

You might end up with something fairly decent, you might end up with something inedible.
Mostly likely you will fall somewhere in between.
It's genetics - each seed will carry original DNA and you won't really know for sure what you will get.

If you can get cuttings, that's a more sure way.

Hiya, Dave!

Glad you are here. Feel free to post some pics and details about your beds.

Love this idea!
I tried to come up with all sorts of refrigeration ideas at one time - even trying to figure out if I could power one by riding a bike for an hour a day.
This would be a huge thing.
I want someone to do this and then tell me how to make one. LOL

I know that people have hatched eggs that were kept in a fridge temporarily.
The viability DOES GO DOWN with each successive day they are not under the hen.

However, I have no idea what the percentage of viability decline is.
I suspect you wouldn't want to use eggs that had been VERY cold, nor in for longer than two or three days, if you want good success.

There is often up to a week of adding eggs into a nest with broody hens.
She'll go off broody pretty much as soon as her chicks are wandering far, because it's her job to take them out and feed them.

If I had to make the choice, I'd not use eggs that had been chilled more than two days, and I'd not add more eggs to a broody clutch more than 3 to 5 days after the hen began to sit.
You can, of course, try anything, but I always think of the little suffering chicks. LOL

I've had one bad hatch and it was enough for me. Chicks were born alive, but.....
Some of them had innards hanging out and died almost right away, others within days and then weeks.
I had one survivor but she must have been deficient in many ways.
She was a reject from the chicken community, she acted a bit strangely, and when we culled her, we found that she never developed eggs.

Temperature and timing are very important for good hatches.

I"m in Greene County, just a hop, skip, and jump over the mountain from Asheville, NC.

I visited here from CA decades ago and the change in this area in the last 30 years is amazing.
Transplants are coming in by the droves and bringing in new ideas.
I love so many things about this place - the importance of family, the importance of tradition, the value of Christian heritage... but it can be also a little stubborn when it comes to doing ANYthing if Mammaw and Pappaw didn't do it. Mammaws and Pappaws have a lot of influence around here. That's a good thing, really.

However,
You couldn't find anything but fluffy white bread 10 years ago.
Now you can find sourdough and good quality whole wheat.
"Organic" used to be one of those new-fangled ideas - now you can find them in almost every store.
What would be great is if the sticking to heritage went back further than 2 generations, and hearkened back to many generations - and permaculture style ideas.

With more people arriving, the transplants are getting to be almost as populous as the natives, so I am finding more and more like-minded people.
I have many friends interested in learning natural and healthful ways of life here.
One of them is actually an artist and does a bit of traveling back and forth to Asheville.
Another friend is just finishing up a cordwood house.
For myself - I have a bunch of people from church who want to come over and learn as they assist me in building earth ovens and heaters.
Permaculture is a new term for what we've always called self-sustained living.
If you said permaculture to a lot of people, they'd look at you funny.
But say you want to be able to fully support yourself and your family off the land in a way that increases the production rather than laying waste to what you've got, then there are quite a few people here interested.