You've made so many inspiring and captivating videos, James. To add to Sandy's comment, I loved watching the comparative analysis of Honeycrisp Apples. I would enjoy seeing the same with everything you grow! Let's, GOOOOOOO. -Phil
I'm addicted to growing apples, the more esoteric and difficult-to-find the better. My favorites from a taste standpoint are Wickson, King David, Golden Russet, and Calville Blanc d'Hiver. I'm in my glory this time of year!
You are lucky and blessed to have all these varieties producing well for you. If you ever happen to come across Red Rome please let me know; it was a popular variety back in the 70s/80s but suddenly went out of favour with growers - not everyone’s favourite but I loved it!!
I watched every video of yours James. I love Tuck. I was inspired by your food forest and this year I grew 9 different peppers successfully in 5 gallon buckets on my balcony. I have so many peppers now in my freezer. Homegrown is truly better and its so awesome to watch things grow!!!!!!
Love ❤️ that you use your platform to promote organic when you can’t grow your own! And to vote with your dollars! Not only is organic safer and healthier fir us but is definitely healthier for our earth! Wish we had planted fruit trees years ago!.
I’m going to have to bite the bullet and get 2 apple trees. I’ve been avoiding them, because they’re hard to grow here in the coastal Carolinas, but this time of year, I crave apples. You’re pushing me into starting another project 😂
The number 1 perennial plant I'd recommend for a temperate climate is Rhubarb. Apart from waterlogged soil and deep shade, Rhubarb will thrive in most positions and soils. Majority of small garden would have the space to grow Rhubarb. Once it's established it requires little time and attention apart from an annual early spring mulch and feed. With daylight neutral varieties (available in UK) you can harvest Rhubarb from spring to autumn/fall. I planted a row of Rhubarb in my parents garden over 25 years ago and it's still going strong.
This is such a great video! When making salsa with my neighbour, so he went to the store to buy more Romas. His wife always asks why my salsa tastes so good. When he came back, we did this same test with my home grown tomatoes. His face exploded with surprise at the difference. We mixed our tomatoes together, so at least we all got some good flavour.
We planted apple and peach trees 3 years ago. What a joy it's been picking and eating our own fruits. We also have strawberries, tomatoes, green peppers, cukes, basil, oregano, parsley, sage and lavender. You were our inspiration and I wanted to thank you😁
Your enthusiasm is awesome. We had our best garden ever this year, and part of it was just experimenting based on your encouragement to try new things. We got great cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, squash, and more. We have apple trees all over our property that were here when we moved in. I don't know what kind they are but they produce very nice apples and the applesauce is so sweet it doesn't even need sugar.
Just watching your joy makes me happy! You even had me starting my own apple seed! I now have FOUR OF MY OWN TREES! I am starting a bunch of different pears this winter. Thanks for the ideas!
You're so brilliantly enthusiastic I'm sharing with my great nephew in England & his family who have now got somewhere to plant and have a garden - and I'm hoping your love for gardening will inspire & get them on the road to growing their own food - in these troubling and unpredictable times, having your own fresh food which you've grown has SO many WONDERFUL advantages. You're The Man - Tuff - you're the Garden Dog! Cheers!
Anything from the JP garden is better than whatever can be found in ANY store! Thank you for always sharing your knowledge and expertise with us James because it’s HIGHLY appreciated! #tuckrules
I love watching you and Tuck in your NJ food forest. You just gave me the push I needed to purchase my very own fruit trees. I ordered dwarf and columnar so I can keep them in large containers so I hope they do well for me. Thank you for sharing!
Superb video! And James’ enthusiasm is so appropriate! We have also become fanatical about growing as much food as we can on our tiny lot. We have so many mini dwarf apples from Raintree, including two brand new Honeycrisp apple trees. Now I’m more excited than ever to grow and taste the apples!!!
You and Tuck are our blessing! Our family is so grateful we found you this summer! We are learning and growing food! We love your energy, your passion for growing, and your positive attitude. My boys now say “what’s up growers!?!” all the time! ♥️ Love this video! Love Tuck! ♥️♥️♥️
I just found your channel and I love your passion. The way you talk about your plants is like you're enchanted, like it's magic. I can't wait to learn more and start growing my own food
James, I'm originally from North Texas, moved to Colorado where my wife's family is from. I grew up in a farming community, and planted a vineyard of 42 vines when I was 18. Lived near where T.V. Munson is from if you know the history of him. Anyways, I appreciate the content you put out there. You show the importance of nature and the connection that a lot of people don't know of first hand. I just wanted to give you a well deserved shout out to you brother for everything that you do. I'm assuming this is a income source for you at this point and wanted to support you anyway I could. Keep on giving my friend, and hope all goes well for you and your family in gardening.
I feel so lucky to have purchased an in-suburban-town house that had fully,-mature apple trees already planted! There's a August red variety, a September yellow variety, and an October red variety. Someone had a great plan 40 yrs ago (I've owned the house for 18 years). I lost a 4th tree to lightning, and I want to replace it with a honeycrisp next spring.
@@LauradicusThank you! I didn't know that. My first frost date is October 13, but last year it arrived September 13. What do you know about how long before the frost date trees should be planted?
@@meganmackenzie5993 you plant in the winter between your last and your first frost date. If your ground freezes obviously you have to time it to get them in when the ground is workable. Most nurseries will ship the trees to you at an appropriate time for your area. If they don’t you should find a better nursery!
Hey james! Just build my first mini hoop house for my raised bed. Could you do a video on the different types of plastics you can use? Maybe explain some of the differences between poly tunnels, greenhouses, and other methods to protect your plants? Thanks!
What's good bro! Found you this year and I love all your videos. Fellow Jerseyian here. You definitely gave me the inspiration to start gardening, totally fell in love with it this year. Thanks for all you do man.
Love how much you love your apples. This was an awesome video. I’m in the middle of pruning back and caring for some fruit and nut trees in my back yard that have been left ignored for too many years. They’ve got bugs and way too many suckers. It’ll take years and I can’t wait. The little canopy is wonderful to sit under and just enjoy life. Loved this inspiration.
Hello from the Philippines, good to watch videos like yours, so inspiring love watching you harvesting fruits n vegetables, specially your apples and grapes. Makes me feel alright for a moment.
Thanks Kale, it comes from being out there I guess, its tough for me to slow down and to talk slow because I am so excited to show everyone what I have going on.
10:54 That's exactly what happened to me lol. I started with just one tree and everyday I went there to check it out and meanwhile I was thinking "here I can plant this fruit tree, there I can plant some flowers, over there some grapevines" and now I have a very beautiful place with a lot of different plants and I go to check them out everyday.
Fall is the BEST time to plant trees and shrubs! All these woody plants gave to do in the Fall is concentrate their energy on putting down roots. Fertilize with a good slow release organic fertilizer andtor compost and you'll have an amazing Spring. Definitely plant in the Fall!
I love your channel, learned so much from you! Since I’ve started watching you last year, I now have my own food garden in my little back yard. Next year will be adding fruit trees!
I put seeds in the freezer over the winter from honeycrisp apples we picked last fall. I germinated them over the last month from about 20 seeds I have 6 saplings that survived and are about 4" tall in my kitchen window.. I am eager to get them into some pots and out into the garden. I dont have a place to plant the trees yet but I will be gifting 2 or 3 to some friends. It's was so fun and rewarding starting the process from seed. Loved the video. I am excited to get some apples in about 7 or 8 years. Lol
The seeds are way bigger in your Apple that is also way bigger and looks way way healthier! We have an old orchard within 12 minutes from us and it’s a blessing to be able to go down there and to see and partake in the beautiful nature and the old orchard of course is amazing to me:.. Regardless, this is amazing. Thank you for the fine sharing!
I would have loved to see the BRIX readings between the 3 apples. The BRIX on my home grown apples and pears is usually much higher than the store bought ones. I'm betting the BRIX on your Honey Crisp would have been high on the excellent range.
@@BlackJesus8463 I have a hand-held refractometer that I bought at a garden center many years ago, but they are readily available on-line such as Amazon for less than $20 now. Just make sure one you get has ATC (Automatic Temperature Compensation).
Ever since I started buying apples from a local farmers market, I can barely buy any at the store, even the organic ones (which are ridiculously expensive). I now make the most of the apple season, often stocking up and making apple sauce to freeze. We enjoy all the apples we can well into late fall/early winter here in GA. I have eaten so many more varieties, too!! We just bough some honey crisp and crimson crisp and they are outstanding. Not very big but beautiful and delicious!
James, you are such an amazing teacher and I have really learned so much about gardening. I never realized how much I would enjoy it but watching your videos has given me so much inspiration. Tuck is such a good steward of the food forest & I enjoy his shenanigans too! Lol oh I tried the board trick with my carrots and it worked! YAASSSS!!!
Totally agree with the different way of life sensation, I have a peach tree in Texas and when those peaches are just piling up in our kitchen we just FEAST on them and the enzymes and everything are totally beyond any comparison even to organic. I love harvesting from the tree. Wonderful, healthy, happy, wholesome energy coming off of your garden in Jersey live through the airways, thanks for sharing the fun! We in the future need communities based around food forests!
I have a teeny tiny back yard - 45x20 feet. But it is a food forest with 30+ different foods. Including 4 apple trees and 2 cherry trees all because I bought a book titled Grow a Little Fruit Tree. Basically, you crowd the trees so the roots are unable to spread too far. Then you summer prune (not winter) and that stunts the growth. My fruit trees take up no more room than my blueberry bushes. Bonus: no ladders needed to harvest and no sprays because I can see every bug and just squish them one at a time! 👍
I love my backyard orchard and told myself it was only going to be 5 trees, then the next year I turned it into 12, and I’ve got more growing in containers until I can figure out how I want to permanently arrange them. The cold killed all three of my persimmons I purchased in the spring, but one of them started growing suckers and now I have a 16” tall persimmon bush. Apparently cutting trees down to the ground is called coppicing, which results in more trunks. Now I don’t even need to reorder the other two persimmons because I am going to graft three females and a male onto the four trunks and just give it more room than I was planning for a single tree.
Love the honeycrisp variety. I have struggled here for 10 years trying to grow apple trees. The best I can tell I have acidic soil and that is my problem. On a good note I can grow blueberries very easily. I enjoyed the video.
Wow James! That’s so funny - I watched a few other videos of yours about apple trees and ordered the dwarf honeycrisp and Queen cox through Raintree. This video was perfect and got me stoked to prepare the perfect soil and planting hole! Hey Tuck 🥕
I took your advice and planted several fruit trees the first year that we bought our first house. Two years later we got just one solo honey crisp apple that we have been checking on for weeks and weeks this summer after discovering by surprise (we thought there were none, but my youngest son spotted a hidden one underneath the bottom branch). I didn’t know exactly when it would be fully ripe, and I got nervous that some critter would snap it up or take a bite, so I picked it a couple days ago and split it between the four of us. It was a little more tart than I expected, so I figured I picked it a little too early. I like green apples though, so I definitely didn’t think it was that tart. We all enjoyed it so much. Good to know that honeycrisps are ripe at the end of September. Hopefully next year we have more, and can let a good amount fully ripen. Next year should be pretty exciting. Finally seeing the “fruits” of my labor 😂
Nice episode! I think we all take pride and happiness in growing our own fruits and vegetables. I love that we can see that coming from you in this video! You said that this tree is four years old. How old was the tree when it first began bearing fruits? And how mature of a tree did you start with? Did you get a 1-2 yr whip and pruned it yourself? The tree looks great though!
We just ate our first apples from a local organic orchard.... NEVER going back! Our trees are in their first year, so we may not see fruit for another 1 or 2 years, but when it happens, IT'S APPLE SEASON!!!
I grew up close to Wauconda apple orchards. Nothing like fresh apples. Had a tree in the yard and the cool morning air is best time to pick an apple. That Crunch........That Crispness........That Taste..........
You're making me so envious! I loved apples when I lived in Massachusetts and picked them fresh. Now I'm in south Florida and don't eat apples anymore because they are just so disappointing. I wish I could grow them myself but I don't know if they'll grow here.
Bro, I am following you since you have 200k subs.🌲🍎🍏.And your channel is the best 🍎🍏.I love your all videos because I love nature and vegetables and fruit garden so much🍒🍒
Look at the tag on those apples, see where they are from, also, from someone who hauled apples for 16 year from Washington state to Florida for Publix, some apples are gassed and stored at or near freezing Temps for up to two years which effects the taste. The gas puts the fruit to sleep. You can tell those apples because they tend to get small brown spots on the skin from the sugars in the fruit, just like a banana does.
If your goal is to encourage people to grow their own food - it’s working! After I found your channel I started sheet mulching my yard and planted a mini orchard. I can’t wait for the fruit trees to start producing! Thanks for your enthusiasm and information
You're an amazing young man. Inspirational, encouraging, knowledgeable, generous. Thank you for your uplifting videos. It's been so heart warming to see your confidence and personality blossom over the years. Beautiful heart for animals. Great camera work! Stay safe to all your family from Australia.
Thanks to you I put in 3 apple trees last winter. Thank you! I always buy organic (serious health issues in the family). I can’t wait to bite into my own organic. You know what? Trees want to grow. We stress so much over things we actively plant but truly plants do fine without us. Yes, there are pests and diseases but pests tend to go after the weak plants. Diseases do too. We stress over fertilizers when every single nutrient any plant needs to grow exists in dirt. Every. Single. One. We aren’t missing NPK or trace minerals. We are missing healthy soil microorganisms. We may be missing top soil and organic matter and we are pretty good at fixing that. But if you don’t have the microorganisms, micro and macro arthropods and amino acids your plants won’t be able to take up the nutrients that are there much less one that we add. You are amazed at the difference between store bought and homegrown, you should try the difference between regular garden practices and robust soil. No struggles, much less watering, no worries, just food. And scents. And beauty. And bees. And butterflies. And hummingbirds. And songbirds. And frogs… a real garden. Soil rocks!
Been wanting a couple apple trees for a while now, if I’m in the area I’ll stop by for an apple, your making me hungry 😀. Home grown beats store bought every time ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Hey James, I've been watching your videos for about a year now. It is by far my favorite channel. I look forward to each new video you produce. I can't match what you grow but you certainly give me inspiration to WANT to grow and produce as much as I can. By the way, my wife bought me a "Food Forest" t-shirt for my birthday. I love it! God Bless James!!!! Keep it up. Mike in Louisiana
I was smiling like a goof from the very beginning of this video, honey crisp are my favorite too. But when you cut into your home grown one I gasped and started talking to my lap top. "Oh that looks so good!" I said. And the way the juice shot out when you bit into it hahaha. Its not just your imagination. Even on the video it looked so much better than the others.
I have an apple tree but it has some bad pests. I do have an apple orchard a few miles from here and Honey Crisp is also my favorite. They sell some that are not "top shelf" that I'll buy and turn into Jelly. Well also eat them. They grow organic and I appreciate that too.
Awesome video. Nothing like home grown fruit. I stopped eating store bought apples because they were all ‘mealy’. I started growing my own and he’s right, the best flavor and no mealy texture.
That honeycrisp looks so good!!! I'm planting fruit trees this spring. I'm curious, how do you decide which root stock to get? I'm trying to decide between keeping the trees small to pack them in vs a few big full size for the canopy.
Bro when you bit into your apple the juice just exploded out of your mouth!!🤣😂😱 I can only imagine the taste!! My goodness. I grow alot of my own food also, not like you James🥴 but I am also blown away with taste. I give my friends and family fruits and veggies and they too are blown away with the taste and texture. Much love and Aloha James!!🙏🏼🤙🏼
