North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Melissa Kacalanos <mijwiz@yahoo.com>]

Gordon,

 

This "Organic vs. Sensible" thing of yours is so bizarre, I wasn't sure if it was worth responding to, but here goes anyway. Before the 20th century, all horticulture was basically organic, and people certainly had fruit to eat. Are you dismissing the vast majority of human history? It's like you're saying it's impossible to have clothing without polyester.

 

It's our modern agricultural system, which is completely dependent on the limited resource of oil, that isn't sensible. Or rather, it's only sensible until the oil runs out, an then we'd better have a fallback plan. Our modern, fossil-fuel dependent, "economy of scale" system of agriculture can't last forever.

 

I'm not a farmer, but I've been a gardener all my life, always organically. In my tiny garden in NYC, I grew strawberries, and was amazed at how productive and trouble-free they were. I also grew melons, which sprawled all over the concrete and bore profusely. Both these fruits were much, much tastier than anything I could buy.

 

Mulberries have naturalized all over NYC, and I enjoyed eating the fruit as a child. No one gave any care to these trees, yet they bore huge crops. The taste of the fruits is quite variable, so I'd like to find a tasty variety and plant it in my garden. I get the impression that no one is doing any breeding work on these trees these days, because the fruits are too soft to be"commercially viable," that is, adapted to our modern system of agriculture that values only the fruit that can be transported vast distances and stored for months. I think this is a shame. If we breed plants to be adapted to one system of agriculture, then of course that one system is going to seem more efficient.

 

When I lived in Iowa, I found native plums growing wild, with no care at all from anyone. They were variable, but many were extremely delicious. The skins were tough (probably keeping out pests) but the flesh was much tastier than storebought plums. They didn't seem to suffer from any pest problems. I plan to plant some of these myself as soon as I get a place with room. I hope they do as well back east. There are also many Asian/American hybrids that sound interesting. I don't know which to chose. This brings up the importance of choosing the right species and varieties for the area. Hearing all these sad tales on this list from people attempting to grow apricots where apricots clearly are not meant to grow makes me wonder why they don't just plant something else.

 

When I moved to Ithaca, NY, zone 5, I rented a garden plot that came with raspberries. They did extremely well, bearing delicious fruit with no problems whatsoever. No problems for the raspberries, that is; my other crops may have suffered, since it was a lot of work to keep the raspberries under control.

 

In Ithaca, there are two pawpaw trees that drop their fruits onto the sidewalk every fall. I doubt that the owners of these trees are doing anything to spray or maintain them, since they aren't even picking up the fruit, but the trees keep pumping out fruit regardless. I picked some up off the sidewalk and ate them, and I think they are at least as good as mangos. As I was doing this, a friend of mine came by, so he tried some too, and his eyes just lit up when he tasted them. He gathered some more to take home to his daughter. When fruit this luscious can be grown in zone 5 with no care, it makes me wonder why people bother with apples. Oh yeah; because apples are so sturdy they can be shipped and stored.

 

Also in Ithaca, juneberries are a popular street tree. Again, they produce delicious fruit with no care. I have stood on the street eating them off the tree, sometimes inspiring strangers to try them too, and they are generally pleased. I think they're at least as good as sweet cherries.

 

In Ithaca, in addition to the tiny sour wild grapes that grow all over, I've also seen what might be escaped 'Concord' type grapes sprawling over trees and telephone wires. These grapes are delicious, and I much prefer them to bland supermarket grapes. I saw the city removing one of these grape vines from a telephone wire when it was very heavily laden with fruit in the fall, for fear that the weight of all that fruit would pull the wire down. This vine was certainly growing itself organically.

 

I then moved to a house in Ithaca which had a 'Montmorency' sour cherry as a street tree in front! It bore huge crops, again with no help from me besides mowing the lawn underneath it (with a human-powered mower, not fossil fuels, just for the record.) I then noticed that the tree seemed to be ailing, and I identified the problem as black knot, a fungal disease. The cure for that is to remove the diseased branches. So I got up on a ladder to prune it, and some guys on a city truck saw me and asked me what I was doing. I said that I was removing the diseased branches of this tree. They looked at it. They came back later and removed the whole tree, and the daffodil bulbs under it, without so much as a notice. It was very sad. My freezer is still full of cherries. That was really the only problem I've ever had growing fruit. Fruit, at least certain kinds, seems to grow itself in Ithaca.

 

With all that, I have to conclude that organic fruit growing is not just sensible, it's also a lot more sensible than conventional fruit growing if the goal is to get the tastiest fruit. My homegrown fruit has always been so much tastier than storebought, there's really no comparison at all. As this is a fruit list, I won't mention the vegetables I grew, but the results were the same.

 

I can see a problem with trying to fit organic agriculture into our current system, which requires many layers of middlemen to ship and store fruit. There might not be much money left for farmers after all those middlemen have taken their cut. But the tastiest fruit tends to be so delicate, it wouldn't stand up to all those middlemen anyway, so I'd rather avoid the whole system. This year, my husband and I are buying a place with a larger garden. We have a freezer. Frozen good fruit is still better than storebought "fresh" fruit that may have been sitting in a warehouse for months. Also, Ithaca has a great farmers' market, where we can buy fresh, local produce, that hasn't been handled by all those middlemen. This seems like the most sensible system to me.

 

Melissa

Subject: [NAFEX] Organic vs Senisble
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
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You can determine from the subject line where my sympathies lie.? I have noted that regardless of how many studies are done in what ever manner there are still going to be people who believe that horticulture, of any sort, can be successful without out the dreaded "chemicals".? There are also Islamic "true believers" who believe that if they strap a bomb to their body and set if off in the middle of a crowd of perfectly innocent persons they will immediately go to paradise and be given seventy two virgins.? The problem in both instances is the word believe.? You cannot argue data and facts with true believers.? They just continue to believe.


?Gordon Hale
Grand Prairie, Texas


On Apr 14, 2008, at 3:59 PM, Karen Tillou wrote:

> who out there in the east is successfully growing organic fruit? are
> you in your backyard, or big-time commercial, or inbetween, taking
> fruit to a farmer's market or restaurant when you have it...

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