Steve Thorn

steward

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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!

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Zone 7b/8a Southeast US

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

Apples and Likes

Apples

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In last 30 days

Forums and Threads

Recent posts by Steve Thorn

Aquatic plants for ponds or smaller pools in the Southeast US zones 7 or 8

Sorry just saw this, yes it is! I planted fruit trees around it that are now tall enough to mostly shade it out so there isn't a lot of vegetation anymore, but the water is very clear. My biggest one (still very small) gets a lot of diverse insects, amphibians, and even some minnows somehow.

I love seeing all of the beneficial wildlife they attract.

1 week ago

ponds

Growing Pomegranates from Seed Naturally

This year the best and latest two seedlings to leaf out started about April 3rd, the other best two about March 30th and the rest about March 25th. It looks like 2 of the seedlings leaf out about about a week after the parent which is better than I expected. Maybe after 2 more generations I can get one that will make it to our average last frost date of April 15th.

We have a possible frost over the next few nights, so it should be interesting to see how all of them do.

2 weeks ago

seeds and breeding

Growing Pomegranates from Seed Naturally

Last year the best 4 were transplanted to a more roomy spot, and the two best ones had zero dieback and the other two had very minor damage, which was good to see as they are most susceptible when they are small.

2 weeks ago

seeds and breeding

Growing Pomegranates Naturally

Those year the best and latest two seedlings to leaf out started about April 3rd, the other best two about March 30th and the rest about March 25th. It looks like 2 of the seedlings leaf about about a week after the parent which is better than I expected. Maybe after 2 more generations I can get one that will make it to our average last frost date of April 15th.

We have a possible frost over the next few nights, so it should be interesting to see how all of them do.

2 weeks ago

fruit trees

Growing Apple Trees from Seed Naturally

Courtney Munson wrote:
First of all, everyone is talking about how growing from seed could lead to finding a wonderful new variety that does well in your local conditions. Awesome, great, yes. So, then.... what next? It seems obvious you could take scionwood and then graft onto rootstock. But then that's just propagating the same system we want to get away from, right? Wouldn't it be better if you could just propagate the entire tree (fruiting top and roots)? This seems obvious to me yet I'm not seeing anyone discussing the mechanics of how this is done. How do you just propagate the tree itself? I read some about air layering. Is that what people are doing (or planning to do if they got a great new tree?) If the tree was young enough would you just dig it up and create a stool bed with it? Something less drastic I would hope?

Yes my goal is to include rooting from cuttings as a desired trait. I grow them on their own roots by planting the graft below the soil so the roots start growing out from the grafted variety, and they seem to be a lot stronger tree. I havent noticed any downsides to this, and they all have fruited within 4 years this way, so it seems that rootstock inducing early bearing is overstated from what i've seen.

Another question: from what I've read it seems like it's been "debunked" that apple trees just grow randomly from seed like Michael Pollan told me in his book all those years ago. Is that true? What I think I'm understanding from my recent reading is that if you get seeds from apples in your orchard where you have tasty varieties, and no crabapples, etc nearby, you're going to likely get crosses from those varieties, correct? And/or you could hand pollinate somehow and know exactly what you were crossing?

It's interesting to me how most old varieties that were amazing originated this way, and yes deliberate crosses can increase the chances even more, however I plan to mostly just let cross what will cross, and if all the apples being grown are good, then there is a very high chance the seedling will be as well! Hope your orchard continues to do well!

Steve

3 weeks ago

apples

Looking to Graft an Apple "Frankentree" but Have Some Questions

S Tonin wrote:Should I put off the beginning of my grafting project another year and let the tree focus on making roots on the air layered branches? Or can I do both at the same time, as long as I only do one or two grafts and one or two air layers?

You can do as many as you want of both, preferably grafts on pencil sized wood to minimize shock to the tree that can happen with removing more wood which would delay fruiting.

How many air layers can I do on a relatively young, healthy tree? No grafts, just trying to maximize rootstock production. Even though the rootstock is old, the aboveground part is only 5 or 6 years old. Is there some kind of ratio of branches, like one air layer for every 10 branches, or is it a vibes thing?

The only limiting factor really is if the branch can hold up the weight of the air layer from the soil in the air layer, but in your case you could really let the branch go all the way to the ground and then layer it in the soil also if the branch is long enough.

Conversely, how many grafts can I do on one mature tree per year (no air layering)? If I do spring grafting, can I do bud grafting in the fall of the same year?

As many as you want. Yes you can do both in the year.

As you can tell, I'm kind of a grafting noob; I've only done it twice so far (peach to apricot, apricot to apricot), though like 80% of what I did took and is still healthy after a few years, so I think I have the basics down.

I have two apple trees and one pear tree with multiple grafted varieties and it's been really fun seeing all of the varieties growing beside one another! Hope yours turn out well!

2 months ago

apples

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.

3 months 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.

3 months 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.

3 months 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.

3 months ago

cherries