Steve Thorn

steward

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news 2,878 Posts 209 Threads

since Nov 12, 2018

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Biography

Steve started his first "permaculture" garden when he was about 7 years old and has been addicted to growing things ever since! It was only about 20 square feet back then, and he didn't know much about gardening except what was on the back of the seed packet, but he knew he didn't want to use any fertilizer or pesticides, and wanted to grow everything as naturally as possible.
Years later, when he got some land of his own, he started planting a larger garden, berry bushes, and fruit trees, and also discovered permaculture and Permies! Permaculture has made growing things so much easier and enjoyable! He is passionate about growing things naturally using natural farming and permaculture methods to minimize work and maximize enjoyment!
He is also passionate about saving seed and creating new and locally adapted vegetable and own root fruit varieties to increase the natural growing vigor, flavor, and pest and disease resistance of the plants, to make them easier and more enjoyable to grow.
Creating a plant nursery selling these types of plants occupies most of his free time right now, and he is hoping to start selling these types of plants and seeds soon! He has learned so much from the Permies community and is excited to learn and share our experiences together!

For More

Zone 7b/8a Southeast US

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrRCqBr9G8JObD-cxQG8s5A

Apples and Likes

Apples

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Forums and Threads

Recent posts by Steve Thorn

Growing Peach Trees from Seed Naturally

Hugo Morvan wrote:Hi Steve Thorn.
With the weather getting more eratic those late frosts seem to be a bigger problem every time. I never understood why we as gardeners have to put up with these early flowering varieties. If you're an orchard i understand you want to be the first, because you can charge top dollars. But we as amateurs should have late to extremely late flowering fruit trees. I'd love to eat peach from june to october. Instead of everything at once.

Yes I'm surprised this hasn't been the goal of more breeding programs. It is a huge thing that I'm selecting for in my seedlings.

For apples i got some late flowering long keeping variety like court pendu gris(french). And i tried to get apples that are hanging around Christmas and get better after the frost, but i'm not yet super skilled with grafting, and took them too early so they died.... I've got two late cherries, but with peaches i have no info on it.
Any thoughts?

Yeah I love the late flowering apples and long keeping ones also. I've heard that one of the Court Pendu apples is nicknamed the Wise Apple, because it blooms after the late frosts and so was very wise.

I thought that was kind of neat.

1 week ago

peaches

Growing Peach Trees from Seed Naturally

Suzette Thib wrote:My dad has talked about some delicious peach trees from his youth and finding this thread has me thinking we should put some pits in the ground sooner than later. Anyone have updates on their plantings?

Peaches have been hard to grow here due to late frosts, but last Spring the frosts held off, and I got to taste a lot of peaches.

I tasted a seedling of the wild seedling mentioned earlier in this thread and they were very good, however were very susceptible to brown rot. I hope to cross this one with another peach tree that is resistant to it and am hopeful on getting some good tasting seedlings from the cross that are resistant to the disease. The seedling is also a little more frost resistant than some other ones, so looking to try to increase that trait.

1 week ago

peaches

Growing Peach Trees from Seed Naturally

Timothy Norton wrote:I'm planning on making a peach cobbler from local peaches. I didn't realize that just planting the pit in the ground after processing has a good germination rate.

Are peaches grown from seed similar to apples when it comes to the random chances of being a delicious peach or not? I wonder if there are alternative uses for less tasty fruit?

Peaches seem to be a lot like their parents for me, probably because they are self fertile a lot more than apples. I tasted about 10 seedlings this year for the first time, and they were all very similar to their parents, so I'm guessing most of mine were either self pollinated or either the mother peach has a strong influence on the taste in peaches.

1 week ago

peaches

Growing Cherries Naturally

Devon Olsen wrote:Would love to see how your trees are do8ng now, in 2024.

Also, did you grow from seed, 8f so what survival rate dis you see from seeds stratified to trees grown?

Cherries have been a challenge here for me. I have harvested a few but not a lot, as the varieties I have are very frost sensitive to damage and don't fruit most years.

I think they can be bred to overcome this, but I don't have a lot of space at the moment. What I hope to do one day is harvest a lot of different cherries from an orchard and grow out the seedlings and breed from the best ones.

1 week ago

cherries

Growing Apple Trees from Seed Naturally

Those are awesome apples May! That growth is incredible too, I'm hoping to select for high vigor in my seedlings. So cool to see the results!

I've had some setbacks with deer and rabbit damage, but hope to taste my first seedlings in maybe two years!

1 week ago

apples

Creating a Super Vigorous and Productive Pole Bean Landrace

I have, I didn't solely exclude them though to have similar offspring, so I don't get a whole lot as they are mixed with the others, but I have been getting more each year. It has definitely been my favorite color to show up that I have seen so far!

7 months ago

beans

Growing Apple Trees from Seed Naturally

That's so exciting May! It really looks like it is going to produce quite a few apples so I bet you'll get a good sample!

9 months ago

apples

Growing Pomegranates Naturally

Thanks!

I'm in zone 7b.

The one leafing out is a named variety, but I can't remember what its name is though. The seedlings are the ones that haven't leafed out yet, so appear to have the beneficial trait of leafing out later, and they had zero frost or freeze damage last year, even as young plants which are more susceptible, while the purchased varieties had mostly severe and some had moderate dieback even as larger plants.

9 months ago

fruit trees

Growing Pomegranates Naturally

It's coming along pretty well. I have about 5 seedlings so far that leaf out about a week or two after the parent, which should greatly help them avoid frost and freeze damage here. I transplanted them last spring, so they had some transplant shock and will hopefully have a growth spurt this year.

My other pomegranates will hopefully fruit this year for the first time, so if they do, I hope to have a lot more seedlings to evaluate!

Here are some pictures I took of how the young plants look with almost no leafing out yet, compared to the parent plant that broke dormancy a week or two ago. It is a little hard to see the seedlings, since they all pretty much are still dormant and look like sticks.

9 months ago

fruit trees

Burying the graft

I plant all of my fruit trees this way now, and it seems to cut out a lot of problems. I try to bury it by at least 3 inches or more if possible and this seems to help encourage rooting. Also I had good results on trees using a knife to remove squares of bark of the grafted variety below the soil line, to encourage rooting.

Also an interesting observation I've seen, is that almost 80% or more of the own rooted trees that I've had, is that in full sun they are extremely precocious, producing fruit on their 3rd year, so they do equal or better than most rootstock, and they grow faster so when they fruit the trees produce more fruit with the same amount of time. I have a lot of trees this year that will probably produce at least 20 fruit their first year fruiting in their 3rd growing season!

9 months ago

fruit trees