Cathy Alcorn

We're not tangling with ground elder but I hear you. Our nemesis is an area of aggressive horsetail that appears to have been imported into perennial beds with a batch of topsoil or mulch a number of years ago. The previous owners just gave up on it. We are now engaged in the "big dig" chasing down each runner shrinking its footprint significantly each year. Also Asian bittersweet and poison ivy which grows at the forest edge and even after an area is cleared, birds import it after eating their berries elsewhere. Arrrgh! The solution is the same: Dig, pull. starve the roots. If you can eat some of it along the way, all the better.

Too late for this season but we've had spectacular luck with tromboncino or rampacante squash climbing on arched cattle panel trellises. It tastes a lot like zucchini or crook neck squash but is maybe a bit drier and it holds it's shape well when cooked. It stir fries, sautés, grills excellently, is good in Italian wedding soup and is wonderful in ratatouille. Grate it for breads/muffins and there is very little excess juice unlike with zucchini. I've thought about making hash brown type fried squash patties but haven't done that yet. We also use it to make sweet and dill relish as our cucumber beetles all carry wilt disease and we've almost given up on having enough cukes to process. The rampacante can be allowed to get big and ripen like a winter squash but we haven't done that either.

I thought maybe I had a photo to attach but I don't surprisingly. One thing: Like other summer squash once it gets happy you will be supplying friends, family and neighbors to the point that they might draw their shades and lock their cars...

Maybe take a Master Gardener course. Over the years I've wanted to do that but my career, then small business and family obligations always got in the way. Finally a few years ago in a new place, at loose ends at age 60 I enrolled. It was pretty much all review by then but I was among "my people". There were mostly middle age and senior folk there (similar to myself, people who finally had the time/opportunity to do it) but about a quarter of the class were young people both male and female looking to start lives or careers with the knowledge gained and the certification of Master Gardener. There were all levels of knowledge and experience in that class from newbies with interest to very advanced gardeners. Even though I had already learned most of what was being taught it was well worth the money and time spent.

You describe yourself as I would have described myself in my mid/late 20s. Bored and disenchanted with rootless and often self destructive people, I was more nerdish and interested in establishing something solid and positive in my life. It took a while to connect with my husband (early 30s) who is also nerdy and into all things mechanical but I had already started my real life by then. I'd suggest that you've already established enough reasons to move on and start your life but fear and habit hold you in the rut.

If you can't take a class, maybe there are local meet-ups or gardening groups, also maybe work a season or intern on a local organic farm or orchard. Habitat for Humanity is always looking for help building their donation homes. There are tons of local opportunities here in my area such as groups removing invasive plants, cleaning streams, tree planting, non-profit historical farms or gardens looking for help. As we've rebuilt our lives in a new place I'm too busy to take advantage of most of them now but they are there. Like a concert they are often advertised briefly in local papers and all it takes is going and participating. I think you'll find this crowd more to your taste as most of these folks tend to be self directed, health conscious, non-smokers (or at the very least polite about it) and are not aimless partiers.

Good luck to you.

We had an ancient heirloom apricot that was likely over 100 years old in NE KS . It had actually grown to shade tree proportions over the decades and was KS grand champion apricot tree, likely one of the largest in the USA. It produced a bumper crop of golf ball plus sized very sweet flavorful fruit roughly every 5 years largely because it wanted to break dormancy with spates of early spring warmth there and a lot of the fruit was killed by subsequent freezes.

The tree survived -15 degree winter temperature drops, searing heat, drought, harsh relentless winds and had few if any pests. We were so impressed that we grew seedling trees from the fruit hoping that it had self pollinated as locally there were no other apricots (or early blooming trees) around that we could find.  We transported one of those seedling trees with us when we moved to southern CT two years ago. It's growing slowly but well. Insect critters are eating my cherry and other tree leaves but not the apricot. It has had mild deer predation. It comes out of winter dormancy slower here which bodes well for fruit production. We are waiting for the first blooms to see what we get. Fingers crossed. If nothing else we'll have a beautiful blooming tree eventually.

I would think that apricots could be grown successfully in upstate NY. Northern KS were that tree had grown for nearly a century was a zone 5 and a rough zone 5 at that.

We very recently "quit" for want of a better word. We took some time this winter to travel and as we both turned 60 this year, we focused in on what was left in our bucket lists while we are still healthy. We both realized that what we were building was essentially for someone else having no real family, no heirs, so we took the time and homed in on what we wanted to do and where we wanted to live. We decided to change it all. We have pulled up stakes, moved to the woods in New England (where we know absolutely no one but it is already home to us) and are selling the property in Kansas. People that know of this plan think that we've lost our marbles but this decision is thus far matching up to the decision we both made separately in the late 70s to move to Alaska and we lived there happily for 35 years. One of the best decisions of my life. We'll plant a few fruit trees, (starts of a 100 y/o apricot tree and ancient Asian pear on the KS place) rework the tired perennial beds around the new house using PC/organic/soil centric methods to include areas for growing vegetables, harvest a little downed firewood but it will be for product quality and life enhancement not to wholly feed ourselves and others.

As it turns out there are many local farms/farm stands/markets in the area and it's quite likely that I will apply for grunt labor field work at one of them. I don't need much pay, rather taking it out in trade as it were. We can still have some of the lifestyle while allowing us more free time to do what we need/want to do. I've read every comment in this thread aloud to my husband as we are transitioning back to KS to sell personal items and pack up what's left. Every one of the comments has touched on themes that have constituted our discussions that have culminated in quitting for reasons similar and yet different than in the video.

I've been too busy to read or post much on this site but many thanks for this thread. It's were we are and have been this past year.

We love Baker Seed Co. In fact the photo of the purple podded pole beans at the top is one of our very favorite seeds that we have tried, as well as the Berkley Tie Dye tomato. I've been to both the Seed Bank in Petaluma and their homestead shop in Missouri. We've also been to their spring garden festival. My one suggestion is buy early as some of the most popular seeds have sold out.

Thanks folks! To further clarify, we live on a rural parcel 8 miles as the crow flies from the nearest town and our tree is the only one that we see in bloom at the time that it blooms in our area but we understand that we might not see small apricot trees near buildings. Apricots are not generally planted here because we are so prone to late frosts and for fruit production, they are not reliable from year to year. Our new trees are in their 3rd year and this year they are really taking off, adding height and girth. Next spring we will possibly have pits from the mother tree. This year the fruit was almost nearly wiped out by a late freeze that lasted for three days. I think we got maybe a dozen this year.

I am a new Permies member. I searched the forums and could not find the answer to this specific issue.

Five years ago we bought property in NE KS and inherited a coulee of ancient fruit trees. One is an Asian Pear, the other a 35' tall and wide Apricot likely part of the original homestead which was patented in the 1870s. We are on the original homestead homesite. The tree though having shade tree proportions bears good, tasty fruit, sometimes a lot of fruit if late frosts don't come to do their damage. A few years ago we chilled and planted seed pits of this tree and have several young trees planted elsewhere on the property. Given that the old tree is almost 100% likely an heirloom varietal and because there are no other apricots that I'm aware of in the vicinity to cross-pollinate, will the progeny grow to be the same/very similar to our parent tree? Thanks in advance.