* Welcome David Good, author of Push the Zone

Please join me in welcoming David Good, author of Push the Zone: The Good Guide to Growing Tropical Plants Beyond the Tropics (The Good Guide to Gardening Book 3)




Read the book review here!

David Good will be hanging out in the forums until Friday, June 15th, 2018 answering questions and sharing his experiences with you all.

At the end of the week, we'll make a draw for 4 lucky winners to win a copy of his book! From now until Friday, all new posts in the Permaculture forum are eligible to win.

To win, you must use a name that follows our naming policy and you must have your email set up to receive  the Daily-ish email.

The winners will be notified by Personal Moosage and must respond within 24 hours. Only the winners who respond within that timeframe will receive their book. Watch for a PM, and a notice in this thread announcing the winners!


Please remember that we favor perennial discussion.  The threads you start will last beyond the event.  You don't need to use David Good's name get his attention. We like these threads to be accessible to everyone, and some people may not post their experiences if the thread is directed to the author alone.

Posts in this thread won't count as an entry to win the book, but please say "Hi!" to David the Good and make him feel welcome!

Hey David, I love your books! I bought three of them on Amazon for Kindle recently and really enjoyed them. I like how they seem to have different info than other gardening books. Good stuff! And lively and fun to read.

Welcome back David!

Always great to see you around the forums.

David,

Welcome and a quick thanks for “Turned Earth (Jack Brocolli Book 1).  Great fun, high spirited hijinks and whatnot.  Really enjoyed it, although I did need to look up a few more gardening and plant related references.  Looking forward to any further adventures.

Oh, and I really enjoyed all the actual gardening books also.

Happy trails,

Keith

Hi! Glad to see you here, I have been watching you beginning your garden, it will surely be an amazing feat if it grows much this first year...it looks like a terribly dry bit of earth! But if anyone can, my vote is for you! Thanks for bringing humor into my garden : )

Hey David! Push the Zone sounds like an amazing idea and something I am very interested in as I am in a climate that could probably stretch into different zones,

Awesome to have you here David!

Hi David! I often enjoy your videos. Your way of presenting makes everything / anything interesting.
But growing tropical plants here in the Netherlands...? Even growing the indigenous plants is difficult sometimes (for me).

Rebecca Norman wrote:Hey David, I love your books! I bought three of them on Amazon for Kindle recently and really enjoyed them. I like how they seem to have different info than other gardening books. Good stuff! And lively and fun to read.

Thank you. I decided before I started writing that I wasn't going to be boring. Much appreciated.

Keith Kuhnsman wrote:David,

Welcome and a quick thanks for “Turned Earth (Jack Brocolli Book 1).  Great fun, high spirited hijinks and whatnot.  Really enjoyed it, although I did need to look up a few more gardening and plant related references.  Looking forward to any further adventures.

Oh, and I really enjoyed all the actual gardening books also.

Happy trails,

Keith

Thank you. That was the most fun I ever had writing a book.



I'm hoping it will inspire other garden writers to branch out into horticultural thrillers. It's a truly under-served market.

beth Cromwell wrote:Hi! Glad to see you here, I have been watching you beginning your garden, it will surely be an amazing feat if it grows much this first year...it looks like a terribly dry bit of earth! But if anyone can, my vote is for you! Thanks for bringing humor into my garden : )

Thank you, Beth. I'm hoping to demonstrate how a little work every day leads to huge results over time. The rain will fall eventually.

s wesley wrote:Hey David! Push the Zone sounds like an amazing idea and something I am very interested in as I am in a climate that could probably stretch into different zones,

You can often gain at least a zone without breaking a sweat, provided you hunt and/or nurture micro-climates. I managed to grow coffee outside two zones beyond its range, so the possibilities are often much more interesting than we think.

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:Hi David! I often enjoy your videos. Your way of presenting makes everything / anything interesting.
But growing tropical plants here in the Netherlands...? Even growing the indigenous plants is difficult sometimes (for me).

Yes, Inge - you are in a tougher place. One of my favorite artists is Roos Schuring. She's a Dutch landscape painter. Seeing the weather she endures for her paintings makes me shiver.

Though you may not be able to pull off truly tropical plants, the concepts in the book are geared towards gaining a growing zone or two no matter where you are. So there is the possibility for growing, say, peaches in an area a couple hundred miles north of peach country.

r ranson wrote:Welcome back David!

Always great to see you around the forums.

Thanks. I end up spending so much time answering questions on my videos and website that I barely make it to answering in the forums here. I even killed Facebook, which gave me more time, but still can't keep up.

Hey,
My first time writing in, I do enjoy looking over all the posts and replies.
I live in the Black Hills of SD and last fall the garden club went into Alliance Nebraska and visited a "greenhouse in the snow" where the man had dug underground about 4 ft and then piped about 70 ft of black 4" tubing into his underground greenhouse. He used polycarbonate above and the right angle to our latitude and he has been growing lemons, figs and other citrus for years. I'm not remembering his name off hand, but he now builds these kind of greenhouses for schools and residential use too. It was a great field trip to go on.
I am planning a greenhouse in my lower level, with a rocket stove to keep the chill off and more skylight windows to bring in the light.
I would love your books to give me some more ideas before jumping in with both feet. Thanks for sharing your wisdom, with fun!
MK Nelson

Mary Kate Nelson wrote:Hey,
My first time writing in, I do enjoy looking over all the posts and replies.
I live in the Black Hills of SD and last fall the garden club went into Alliance Nebraska and visited a "greenhouse in the snow" where the man had dug underground about 4 ft and then piped about 70 ft of black 4" tubing into his underground greenhouse. He used polycarbonate above and the right angle to our latitude and he has been growing lemons, figs and other citrus for years. I'm not remembering his name off hand, but he now builds these kind of greenhouses for schools and residential use too. It was a great field trip to go on.
I am planning a greenhouse in my lower level, with a rocket stove to keep the chill off and more skylight windows to bring in the light.
I would love your books to give me some more ideas before jumping in with both feet. Thanks for sharing your wisdom, with fun!
MK Nelson

Thank you, Mary Kate. I love seeing experiments like that. Thermal mass is a zone pusher's best friend.

Hi David,

Welcome and thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom. I look forward to hearing what you share. I have been doing lots of experiments and look forward to gleaning some new ideas or see how ideas worked for those in the north.Have an awesome day.

Welcome David!  And thank you for what you are doing.  I've been trying to push the zone for my entire life...and I need all the help and advice I can get.  My goal is to grow a lot of tropical fruit in the mountains of Appalachia, with minus 7 degree temps in winter or sometimes a bit colder.  Saving my pennies for a big triple pane greenhouse.  

Faye

Welcome!  A great topic, too.  That's certainly the goal of many a gardener!

Kinda new here, myself - as far as actually visiting. Looks like my timing was pretty... Good. ;) Thanks for coming back!  I'm looking forward to learning from you!

Woah- just watched you on the holistic health summit and now here you are! My wife and I are nervous to get grafting but your videos were great for building our confidence

Cameron Granger wrote:Woah- just watched you on the holistic health summit and now here you are! My wife and I are nervous to get grafting but your videos were great for building our confidence

Thank you. Grafting isn't scary once you've done it a couple of times. Like most things, it's hard the first time.

When I first asked my now wife on a date, my heart was in my throat. Now we have eight children together. It's easy once you get started!

Carla Burke wrote: Kinda new here, myself - as far as actually visiting. Looks like my timing was pretty... Good. ;) Thanks for coming back!  I'm looking forward to learning from you!

Hi Carla - welcome. Permies is the best gardening resource on the web. Welcome.

Welcome to the forum! Glad you could visit. I'm just starting to read through your books, but I love the way you share a TON of information with a great sense of humor. It's fun to giggle through gardening books.

Aerating the area would be helpful with minimal soil disruptions

Not sure what happened here was posting to a site on reseeding to a grassy area and got posted to you page. Do like the thoughts on pushing the zone have done it every pace I have lived pretty much from Alaska to Alabama. It is amazing what you can grow where with a little creative thinking and strategic planting.

Hey David.  Great having you back here again.  Please come back soon to show off your new novel.  So looking forward to reading that!


It's Friday afternoon, the moment you have all been waiting for!

The computer did some high-tech thinking and came up with four victims winners.

Melissa Greensher
Rebecca Gray
Inge Leonora-den Ouden
Annie Lochte

you have been sent a PM.  Please reply within 24 hours to claim your prize!

As for all you non-winners, you know you want this book.  You all ready my review, right?  no?  meh, sure you have.  So you know this book isn't just for growing Jaboticaba (whatever that is).  You can use these techniques to push the zone wherever you are.  Since you're gonna buy this book anyway, please clickity this link and support the empire while helping put more jaboticaba on David's table.

Anthony DiDonato wrote:Not sure what happened here was posting to a site on reseeding to a grassy area and got posted to you page. Do like the thoughts on pushing the zone have done it every pace I have lived pretty much from Alaska to Alabama. It is amazing what you can grow where with a little creative thinking and strategic planting.

That is funny. I was wondering if you knew something about aeration being linked to zone pushing.

Kim Arnold wrote:Welcome to the forum! Glad you could visit. I'm just starting to read through your books, but I love the way you share a TON of information with a great sense of humor. It's fun to giggle through gardening books.

Thank you very much.

You are amazing, R Ranson - thank you. The novel is due out in hardcover in a few weeks.

David, I am (19-year-old) aspring Permaculturist with hopes to move to French Guiana for starting my tree garden. Your videos have influenced my friends, where one is beginning her own compost tea (I get to pee in it). I would love a free copy of your newest book, and also the chance to talk with you. Stay Good!
Alex Levy

Aeration can help develop a stronger root system which can be of some help

You had some one asking about pushing the zone to cooler claimant plants in the south. You might want see some of Stephens work at Terroir seeds what works for garden crops should help some with trees or could be used to help in some ways

Read somewhere long ago about putting kelp around fruit trees to help them be more frost tolerant.  I use it on my peach trees all the time, and although in a border area for peaches with our late spring frosts, I often get a good crop.