North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Mark & Helen Angermayer" <hangermayer@isp.com>]

A lot of people have commented on membership.  Here are some of my personal thoughts/experiences.

 

I found out about Nafex from a Nurseryman (Ram Fishman).  I got a used copy of the handbook from Amazon and was a bit hesitant about joining Nafex.  Reason:  One was the cost and I just wasn't sure it would be worth it (I've since loosened up quite a bit when it comes to this hobby/obsession.)  Second, Nafex sounded like a group of people whose interests were beyond my own.  I simply wanted to learn to grow fruit successfully (primarily that is still my goal) and had little interest in "fruit exploring."  What I've found is that engaging other people who are interested in fruit (Nafexers) has ignited more of a passion in me.  After moving here, we planted our first fruit tree on this place about 5 or 6 years ago.  I thought a maximum of nine trees would be plenty for our family's needs and my interests.  Now I have 40 trees with another 15 on order for this spring. I'm planning to try to sell a little fruit at the farmer's market, and always looking for a little more space to squeeze in a few more varieties.  And I'm even doing a little fruit exploring (testing an unknown cultivar) of my own.

 

 

I'm not sure there are really any great suggestions from my experiences, but perhaps letting people know that there are a bunch of people in this group who don't do a lot of exploring, don't grow exotic/unusual fruits, but who just simply love to grow fruit.

 

One other thought on increasing membership.  It's probably been suggested before, but has Nafex ever tried to do advertising swaps?  In other words, how often Nafex is mentioned in other gardening magazines?  I wonder if Nafex and other gardening magazines would allow each other to post ads in each other's periodicals for free.

Mark

KS