Actually I looked up the real story of Johnny Appleseed and he was more about making hard cider and selling land. 🙃
You can’t take the seed of a tasty apple, plant it and expect the tree to have similarly tasting apples. If you want to duplicate a tree, you need to take a twig and graft it on top of an existing tree.
Source: MinuteEarth on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIajCqcvTg8)
[Edit: Previously, before I remembered that this video exists, I couldn’t remember the correct word for “grafting”. Hence Sidyctism II.’s response.
I love that grafting is real and it works. It always seems like straight scifi to me.
The real marvels are the ones where they graft apples, oranges, etc together. Expensive as hell and they don’t survive as long though.
There’s an artist who did that, and created a series of Trees of 40 Fruit!
I think the trick is that it works better the more closely related the trees are. These use only stone fruits.
Grafting?
Take a small branch of a tree you like, splice it using a technique, take a small young tree of same type but different variety, splice it, attach branch of variety you like, seal. Nurture it, and the branch uses the donor tree to pull up nutrients and water, and the branch then grows into a whole new tree. It’s cloning, but grafting helps it move faster and without as much risk.
They were responding to the original version of my comment where I asked what the technique was called.
Grafting?
Well, you can just buy apple trees from a nursery, it’s what farmers do.
Yes but that’s because the nursery has already grafted the branches of a known-to-be-tasty cultivar onto that tree before putting it up for sale.
Yeah, I’d just rather pay someone who knows what they’re doing for it rather than fuck it up over and over again on my own
When grafting, do you need to remove any of the original branches? Or will the tree grow two different types of apples? Or some kind of hybrid?
Any branches you don’t remove will still be the original tree. You can have a single tree that yields multiple varieties of apples.
Costco was selling fruit trees with multiple different fruits in it a few years ago. One cherry tree has 4 different cherries in it.
If I had a hard i would have bought one and put it in my yard
They’re also soil, water and other conditions. Doubt a tree planted on a city is going to have the nutrients to give you tasty fruits
There are plenty of fruit trees around towns here(eastern Europe).
And they do produce fruit. Pollution around major roads and things like dumpsters are a problem, but the trees are perfectly capable of producing tasty fruit.
Enter Andernach – the edible town
There are fruit trees everywhere in LA, they’re just mostly in private yards.
This is actually a great representation of the difference in culture I’ve seen between the US and visiting a couple places in Europe and particularly Sweden.
I don’t know if actual public fruit tree orchards are a thing anywhere, but the general feel of “holy crap they can have nice things in shared spaces here” was everywhere.
I know of a golf course which has orchard trees on it and golfers are allowed to eat as much as they want.
So rich people get free food but not poor people 😂
Boots theory strikes again
There’s a park in Miami that is populated by fruit trees that people enjoy…and there’s an unspoken rule/law that any fruits that grow over a fence are fair game , just don’t climb my fence to steal my fucking mangos again Lisandra
Upvoting and replying in solidarity against fuuuckin’ Lisandra! ✊
There’s sort of one in the US city I live in. The city manages it and as far as I know they don’t care if you go pick a few apples. It is part of a public park that used to be a farm/orchard, then turned into a small golf course, then was partially sold off for housing development and the core farm/orchard area was either given to or bought by the city. It also has a community garden which always has a waitlist for new plots.
That’s the weird thing about the US: we do actually have nice things, and communities that want to improve things. We also have suburbia hellscape.
johnny appleseed would also show up right after native americans were run off from their native orchards and declare those sapling riparian orchards his.
not a coincidence as his business was selling sour apple saplings to new immigrants.
johnny appleseed was a typical christian businessman using the chaos of genocide as a place to put his wallet and the marketing of a pot on his head to get notice.
and the US destroyed the last of the orchards that he claimed as his creation during Prohibition.
because usa.
Apparently apples were primarily used for making booze right from the start of the country, which does indeed make Johnny Appleseed’s story feel rather different.
Washington was a big fan of apple jack, which is what you get when apple cider is freeze distilled.
Much of the US is experiencing prime weather for apple jack actually, though it’s a little late to get a mash started in time for this weekend’s weather.
Probably not primarily booze, but vinegar. Prior to refrigeration and canning, food preservation was massively important. This meant salting, smoking or pickling. Apples that weren’t good for eating were important as a source for producing vinegar.
It was for cider. They drank a staggering amount of beer, cider and rum on a daily basis in the early 1800’s. Cider consumption per capita in the was around 15 gallons/year. They drank even more beer and rum. They were also drinking around 5 gallons/year of distilled spirits.
Most people were what we would classify as functional alcoholics today.
It should be noted that a lot of the beer they drank was ‘small beer’ with 1-2% alcohol, which you’d have to really try to get drunk off of and was more of a nutritional source than anything. Liquid bread.
15 gallons per year comes out to about 6 pints per week. Not exactly staggering amounts, but combined with the spirits (and I’m sure they were drinking other stuff as well), it would definitely qualify for alcoholism today.
Primarily for cider. Of which you can make vinegar, but that was not the primary reason. It was cider, which was the most popular drink in colonial/early US.
If you know what brewing with apples and not having access to modern equipment, sanitation and yeast is like then I highly doubt they were in short supply of vinegar.
Yeah, that’s… that’s what they’re saying.
No they are saying that it was intentionally made into vinegar as it’s primary purpose. That just simply isn’t true, it’s primary purpose was hard cider, vinegar was a byproduct of failed batches that few people would be in short supply of.
For alcohol, just deny it oxygen once it just gets going. You don’t have to prevent exposure to acetobacter.
In Finland there is this law called jokamiehenoikeudet. Roughly translates into “everymans rights”
Everymans rights allow everyone to enjoy nature in regardless of who owns the land as long as it is done responsibly and without causing harm or disturbance. These rights apply to all people, including visitors.
You are allowed to: Walk, ski, and cycle freely in forests, fields, and other natural areas (as long as you do not damage crops or do it on somebodys yard). Camp temporarily on uncultivated land. Pick wild berries, mushrooms, and flowers (aslong as they are not protected.) Swim, row, and use waterways freely.
But you cant: Cause damage to nature, animals, or property. Disturb residents or invade privacy. Light open fires without the landowner’s permission. Drive motor vehicles off-road without permission. Harm protected species or take branches, bark, or timber from living trees.
So atleast in Finland if the fruit tree is not on anybodys yard or planted for a business use, you can eat the fruit and its not a crime.
It’s all of Northern Europe, not Finland especially.
It’s called “the right to roam” in English.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam
All Nordics, Scotland, and even some more central European countries like Switzerland and Czech Republic have variations of it.
And it is not the reason we don’t plant fruit trees in cities. The reason we don’t plant fruit trees in cities is theyre messy as fuck.
Just think of how often you see buckets of apples labeled “omenoita ilmaseksi!” in the fall. Because people want to clean up their yards of all the rotten apples. Imagine that on every sidewalk.
Thats cool. I did know Sweden and Norway had something similiar, but did not know Scotland and the others. I did not bring those up, as i dont know how similiar they are.
Also i did not say anything that anybody should be planting apple trees anywhere. I was just saying what Freedom to roam is in Finland as i tought it was somehow revelant to the post.
Just think of how often you see buckets of apples labeled “omenoita ilmaseksi!” in the fall.
Im thinkin really hard, but i dont think i have ever seen sign that says that, but every now and then when there is good year my relatives tell me to come and pick the ones they cant bother to juice or make jelly.
Again, im not saying cities should be planting fruit trees, but just for an discussion i am going to argue for it.
I think you are somewhat hyperboling the messines of the trees. Of course if every single road side is covered with fruit trees its messy, but one or two trees in a public park could very well be nice. Even if nobody would eat any apples and they all would drop in the ground it would take what, an hour for city worker to clean it up. Cityworkers spends allready days on every autum cleaning leafs and redying the other plants for the winter. Few man hours in a year for keeping the trees well cut and cleaning any leftover fruits would not effect any city budgetwise.
I will also argue pre-emptivelly that eaten apple cores would not be big problem either. Atleast where i live, people bring their own snacks to the parks and they usually dont leave any garbage behind as long as there are enough thras cans nearby. Another argument could also be that it does not have to be messy plants. Where i live there are red- and blackcurrant bushes in park. I have also seen walnut trees in many countries (but as a dog owner i have to say in real life im against those, and as far trees go they are not really that clean trees) Also there are few towns here i know that has free community gardes, where city offers the tools and spaces and people can grow potatoes, carrots, peas or what ever they want aslongs as they being their seeds (and its not illegal). I would say in areas like those apple or pear tree would fit nicely.
If i wanted to argue against the fruit trees in public i would rather argue that many of them are heavy pollinators and especially in autum they will attract lots of bees and wasps. Both pollen and stinging insects at public places are bad for allergic people.
Have you ever lived in a house with an orchard?
I have. Three different one, actually. My back is still sore from having to clean them as a kid.
And the signs I talked about hang on every fence from here the nearest citymarket.
Both pollen and stinging insects at public places are bad for allergic people.
That as well, yeah. With it and their messiness, it’s a noble thought to have “free food available” but it’s only a small time of the year, nothing anyone can rely on for food (with an orchard it’s still a huge job to preserve a significant portion of the fruit, jams, pies, etc). So perhaps it’s just better to have neat trees and leave the fruit where there already exists infrastructure for it; supermarkets.
not only are there way more people in a city to take the fruit, there are also way less insects so there would be much less fruit
When you buy fruit in the store, do you take the first apple you see, despite it clearly having fingerprints on it? Nah. You take the one behind it.
That applied to fruits in cities equals a ton of fking work cleaning up streets of rotting apples.
Right to Roam is one of those amazing things that outrage the fuck out of Americans.
In my mom’s hometown there are fruit trees literally everywhere. Everyone and their dog has them. The public areas have them. The forests have them. There are fruit all over the ground. Nobody ‘steals’ or gathers to sell. They make alcohol and share it with anyone that comes within line of sight like pokemon trainers forcing you to battle. Also all of the kids are sick of eating the fruit but if they feel like eating any they don’t even have to pick it themselves because all the parents and grandparents will pick wash and even cut up the fruit and serve it on a platter with even the slightest hint of interest. I ate a lot of plums and pears and drank a fuckload of brandy.
What’s the town? You can’t just promise a bounty of food and not name-drop it.
Sounds like somewhere in the Balkans.
100% agree with this. Plums, pears, and brandy - I’d bet Serbia or Bulgaria, maaaaybe Bosnia.
I’m more interested in the moonshine battles. I don’t think I can outdrink small town shiners but by jove I’ll give it a shot.
For legal reasons I would rather not give the location of the blackberry moonshine still that doesn’t exist in my shed and can’t be bought or made for under £50.
The reason we don’t do it today is because fruits would fall on the ground and people would complain it gets dirty. As stupid as that.
City planners in the 60s favored male trees for this reason. Then air pollution and a warming climate, mixed with all that extra pollen, gave rise to a huge increase in seasonal allergies in urban areas.
If you’ve ever walked through a spot with female ginkgo trees that are fruiting you’ll understand why. There’s way too many to eat and they’re somehow sticky and slippery at the same time
Yeah, I’ve got a persimmon tree and pecan tree, all the good stuff gets eaten by the squirrels, what’s falls just makes a rotten mess.
Not just dirty, but the fruit falls on the ground which attracts bugs, rats, etc. that eat the fallen fruit.
I have a bunch of cherry tomatoes plants on the outside fence of my garden. And 6 kiwi plants. They produce so much fruit and i deliberately placed them on the roadside on a road where not a lot of people even walk by. You know, so people can take some fruits if they want. One day my neighbour came over and he was really concerned that people would steal my fruit. I explained to him that it’s not really stealing when i even provide little containers to take some on the road or home. The conversation was way longer than i was comfortable with, and i don’t think he ever understood the concept.
…when the beast is intelligent enough to operate within civilization, but fails to grasp the basic concept of working together. …or, when seeing threat everywhere, the concept of taking a nonthreatening stance seems nonsensical.
If you made public fruit trees, someone would try to pick them clean and sell it at a fruit stand 20 miles away.
In the Republic, Plato proposed that any citizen could eat fruit from any tree so long as they were sitting underneath the tree that bore the fruit.
This is true and has led to my new system for evaluating economic systems, what does it do with antisocial people.
Capitalism is interesting in that it actually has a plan for them. Let them be greedy little fucks and the system works for a while. Then they fuck everything up and the system collapses, either in a minor correction every couple of years or into fascism.
I would love for something like socialism or communism to work, but there’s this 1% that would pick the trees clean to better their own lot.
I don’t have any answer, but I have come to the conclusion that every economic and social system should only be considered viable if there’s a reasonable and compelling solution for what to do with the guy that wants to pick the fruit tree clean.
the anarchist solution is to abolish property, meaning picking the fruit tree clean wouldn’t actually give you anything besides a bunch of rotting fruit and others will probably get angry and stop giving you the stuff they make
Then no one has fruit. There is a non-zero percent of the population who would pick the trees clean for that reason alone.
Anarchy, like capitalism, works best when all the actors are rational. People are not rational.
this isn’t a “people will manage the commons” argument; “that reason” is property itself which anarchism wants to abolish
I get the idea: if no one exclusively owns anything, then no one needs to hoard anything, and everyone gets what they need.
Unfortunately, we do not yet live in a post-scarcity society. There needs to be a way to both ensure that limited resources are distributed appropriately (by whatever metric) AND to ensure that someone doesn’t take more even when they are not acting in their own best interest.
To continue the apples analogy, it’s all fine and well to say that no one owns the apples so anyone can eat one whenever they want. In theory, no one would eat more than they can, so there would be enough to go around. But how do you handle someone who decides they want to control people by controlling the apples? If they take all the apples, then people will have to go to him if they want an apple, and they will have to pay some price for it (and I don’t mean cash). What is the mechanism to ensure that doesn’t happen? Or, what is the mechanism to prevent someone from burning down all the apple trees because they don’t like apples or because they want someone else to not have apples?
The idea that no one owns anything does not stop someone with an irrational mindset or with a mindset to force their will on others.
the idea is that everyone knows the idea that nobody owns anything, so they’ll boycott that person with zir rotting fruit and stop delivering their own stuff to zim so this person with the irrational mindset will have to confront that ze’s ostracized. (of course, ze could still steal stuff from them if ze wishes, but ze no longer have the social feelings of receiving a gift.) if there are no apples anywhere else they’re supposed to revolt and take the apples by force because of how used they are to the status quo, and if that person wants ze can start a hermit life somewhere else and ask for people to join zir quest about rotting fruit
This still depends on people behaving rationally. We need only look at the current state of things in the U. S. To know that people do not behave rationally on large groups.
Here we have a man who has declared he is in charge of things he was never given charge over, and doing things he has no authority to do. Rather than say “no,” enough people have simply shrugged their shoulders and said “okay,” or worse, are actively supporting his control.
You cannot depend on the majority to do the right thing at large scales. Small scales like a village, sure, but on a population level, most people are too apathetic. That makes it inevitable that those who desire power can take it, either by charisma or by force, and there will always be a group of people who will want that to happen and support them because they think they can get a piece of that pie. No amount of social stigma will help when someone controls the means for people to merely survive.
Unless you support vigilante justice, but we only need to look at lynch mobs in history to see how well THAT turns out. There is a reason we have due process, but due process requires a governing body.
Yeah I think the only way around that would be to plant so many trees that the fruit is basically worthless. Probably wouldn’t work in places with high population density
Rotting fruit is also a massive problem :) One of my relative had this HUGE fucking pear tree. When it hit pear season, they were begging people to come and take all they could. They would beg food pantries to organize, come and pick.
Canning, freezing, salting, curing, drying, baking … Aaaaaaaaa there are still more!
Have pear tree, can confirm. I used to fill my dumpster twice with rotten fallen pears. I figured out a new tactic though: let them fall, then leave the back gate open so the urban deer can come eat them.
Then let’s get rid of money.
By having a society with a culture that encourages empathy
This happens in low trust societies with scarce resources and even scarcer empathy as the result. Also known as “that’s why we cant’ have nice things”. However, not only it’s absolutely not universal, I don’t believe it’s even the majority
162 comments and not one about lemon stealing whores.
Not sure if I’m disappointed or just old.
Yes, porn released in 2006 on DVD and uploaded to the internet in 2007 … You are surely very old …
I mean, it probably makes them at least 30. Im almost 30 and it feels quite old.
I was working as a private investigator in Hawaii between 1980 and 1988.
Tv show as well I suppose
No I have never been into TV too much. I am more of an active guy you could say. I love to watch baseball though, when Detroit is on, then I’m watching TV!
Apple seeds have like a one in 10k chance of producing a sweet apple that is nearly as good as what else is on the market, and like one in 100k for it to be better. Every other one comes out to a nearly inedible crab apple.
Always seemed like a cool hobby to me if I somehow became rich. It’s like a gamble that is just as much your time, as it is your money.
yeah but if you grow an apple tree with crappy fruit you can saw off branches and graft good branches from a good tree onto it so that it produces good apples, that is how nearly all apple orchards are
You can graft individual branches? :O
You can graft different kinds of fruit as well so the tree can have some branches with one variety and different branches with another.
Wait a minute
Are you telling me a tree can produce different types of fruit? Am I reading that right? A SINGLE tree???
What in the frankenstein bullshit is that???
WHAT THE HELL
Yes, most commonly just different varieties of a fruit, but sometimes completely different fruits. You can have apples and pears, plums, you name it.
They can be quite pretty because the different branches will blossom and bear fruit at different times.
Yes, it can literally be done. Works best if the tree species are closely related. However, you can also get trees from different genus working together, so enjoy pears on an apple tree
peach, plum and cherry get along well
You can graft anything
I don’t know if that is really true. Yes apples will be different to the parent tree but I often eat from roadside apple trees which grew from discarded apple cores and plenty taste fine.
Yes I do have my favourite apple trees. Would be nice to get a press sometime tbh. Free cider! Maybe even calvados?
Then your lucky. I know someone who has an apple tree that’s semi edible (most of the apples finish with a slight sweetness). I also know dozens of people whose apples are only really useful for cider. Its all technically edible if your tongue can handle the acidity and astringency.
Get a press, cider making is fun. Don’t try to use a Jack Lallane juicer to feed through a couple bushells… Also don’t ask me how I know that.
Its tempting but they are not exactly cheap. Everything online that says “cheap and easy” clearly hasn’t looked at the price of timber lately, or has a very different idea to me as to what cheap means. Often using tools I don’t have too which doesn’t help. Normal people don’t have an entire workshop in their house.
Home depot has a small starter one for <50 near me that would probably be adequate if your not processing multiple bushells every year.
What sort of volume is reasonable for a small press? UK, never used bushells as a unit of measurement. Usually when they are growing I can go out on my bike and fill the bags on my bike each time I go out.
Is dedicated equipment for crushing them worth getting or just beat them to a pulp in a bucket or something?
Depends on how much time you want to spend. I would recommend most people no matter how much they have to get a small cheap one before investing more. You need a lot of apples/fruit before it’s worth getting something bigger/better.
A bushel of apples is like ~20 Kilos so maybe 2 or 3 bags? Not sure how big your bags are and how much you fill them.
You can buy a small 1.6 Gallon press for ~$50 and it would take ~3 pressing refills to process the bushel and will yield around 12 Liters of raw cider.
Sorry about the chaotic mix of units… I am American
they are still good for apple pies though.
I’d be worried about someone taking all the fruit from all the trees then selling it.
Too many trees to harvest them all. People won’t buy it when they can pick their own for free. If people see you taking ALL of the fruit, not just what you can use, they will stop you.
you’re underestimating tweakers
I underestimate tweakers not being able to sell fruit that people won’t buy?
I underestimate tweakers not being beat up when other people see them trying to take all the fruit?
No, not being able to steal all of the fruit.
In times like these when federal agents are murdering people in the streets for filming them, it’s almost comforting to come into threads like these and see people still having the world’s stupidest debate about fruit trees planted on public land.
There’s only so much batshit crazy a brain can take before fruit related debates become inevitable.
That’s the point. Why have we allowed this to become a problem?
Some problems are good to have.
There’s an issue with Wild Ramps. Very very difficult to grow in a garden to that point that no one does it. So if you want it, you have to harvest from the wild and the places they grow is limited for the same reason they’re difficult to garden.
Foragers that find a patch growing either keep the spot a secret and harvest responsibility or it gets shared and over harvested to the point of destroying the patch.
Ramps aren’t the same thing as a fruit tree, but I would be worried about randos breaking branches trying to harvest the fruits. You need to pick trees and shrubs that are resistant to that. Raspberry bushes have thorns, so maybe that?
I wonder if that person would consider foraging for mushrooms and berries in the forest to be stealing as well.
It can be.
Poaching on the king’s land, you are!
Not all forests are public, and laws vary by location! Imagine that.
Bro literally says “in public spaces”.
Also; fuck private property and fuck the laws that protect it.
Can you point to the “bro” who “literally” said “in public spaces” in this thread?
. . . the picture you’re commenting on says “public spaces”. That is the context of the entire conversation.
You argued that “it can be” stealing “off a public tree”, now you’re claiming not all trees are public.
Are you trolling right now?
Yup, this whole ownership thing is totally fubar!
(and yes, I do prefer to own things too, but there could be a healthy middle ground)
private, public, and personal property are three different concepts. most anarcho-communists have no objection at all to personal property
There are literally zero leftist ideologies who have a problem with personal property.
BuT My tOoThBrUsH!!!
that why billionaires are good 🧠
Yes, I’m just saying before the ‘they’re taking your stuff!’ people come out 😉
saaame lol. it’s amazing how certain political positions are like “you know how civilization is fundamentally structured around violence? what if… we just… didn’t?”
and then people are like “THEY’RE TRYING TO TAKE AWAY OUR STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE, GET THEM!!!”
Get the falling fruit app and you’ll be able to find fruit trees in your area that are available for picking.
In my city, olives are PROLIFIC and I’m still eating last year’s loved that I picked and brined
Hahahaha I had a look and it lists the dumpster out back of Aldi near me.
" Dumpster (edible) Season January - December"
It does also list dumpsters that are viable for diving for food yes… But you can filter those out, if you want, I guess.
Your Johnny Appleseed comment reminded me of my favorite movie musical, Paint Your Wagon (1969) with Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin. And, yes, they both sing!
Elizabeth: Did you know that the Fenty’s had an apple farm back in Pennsylvania?
Ben Rumson: Apple jack, huh?
Mr. Fenty: No, sir, we did not make apple jack.
Ben Rumson: Then, what did you grow the apples for?
Mr. Fenty: Mr. Rumson, do you think that everything that comes out of the earth should be used to make liquor?
Ben Rumson: Whenever possible, yes.
Gonna paint our wagon
gonna paint it good
We ain’t braggin’
We’re gonna coat that wood!
Gonna paint your wagon
Gonna paint it fiiine
Gonna use oil-based paint
Cause the wood is pīíîine
Ponderoooooosa pine
