Hello, I am new to this forum (and relatively new to growing fruit trees too! :-) I will plant some more fruit trees this winter and would love to have a golden sweet apricot. How did you manage to get one? I live in San Jose, CA) so I can always drive to Burchell nursery but on their website they state that they sell to commercial growers only. Thank you very much!

Scott, You mentioned Jerseycot ripened after Tomcot. My Jerseycot ripened quite a bit before Tomcot. Perhaps the difference is with the rootstock. Also the Tomcot was a pretty small tree (only produced about 10 cots). Maybe that had something to do with it. Sometimes young trees don't follow the predicted ripening schedule. Yesterday, I ended up pulling up, or cutting down my six apricots. The apricots I had just weren't reliable here. Most of them don't produce fruit any earlier in the season than peaches, so there's no advantage for me on that one. Additionally, no one in the family is very excited about the taste of the fruit (including me). They just sit there on the table (Right now there is 4 or 5 Harlaynes sitting there. They are OK, about the same as Harglows.) So I thought I'd just replace them with peaches. Of course I'm not trying to convince anyone else to rip out their apricots, just explaining why I did. Also took out 4 Jap. plums. Same story. Incidentally, two of the apricots died anyway. It's the cycle I've seen so many times, huge prolonged rains followed by scorching heat. It fries the trees. The trees just didn't have good enough drainage.

Just got the spam...from Sweden. The names were "Lotta" (wife) and "Lars" (husband/researcher). Hmmm...sounds like "lotta liars" to me! Anyway, I am not overweight at all, but do live healthy. The last 13 weeks I was on the "Body for Life" program by EAS...consisting of Myoplex shakes (protein), healthy meals (6 small meals a day), 100+ oz. water a day and exercise. Surprisingly, I lost 10lbs! (went from 112 lbs to 102) I really didn't think I could/needed to lose any weight, but I did. Some people think the 2-3 shakes I had a day was weird, but it provided my body with the nutrients and protein it needed to build/maintain muscle and keep my body from eating the muscle it was trying to build. Before I started this program, I would come in to work and not even eat until 1pm. Some people think that skipping meals will help lose weight...it might not add any extra fat or sugar to your diet, but not eating anything is often worse than eating. Your body will eat away at your muscle and your metabolism will go into starvation mode and hold onto all fat you put into it...thinking it might need it to survive later on. Because of that, I would NOT recommend only eating 3 bananas a day (see some peoples emails above), or 3 of only one anything a day. Perhaps this bread does offer the nutrients your body needs to maintain itself, which is much better than starving it. It would be a great thing to have in the morning rather than skipping breakfast. But I would not make up a diet solely of bread. Also, the person who said "Wheat is very bad for somebody trying to lose weight...even ONE cracker made with wheat can stop weight loss in its tracks" is RIDICULOUS! Maybe if you are sitting on your butt hoping that not eating a few things will be the miracle to help you lose 10 lbs...but in reality, wheat bread, crackers, ect. have more protein, fiber, and nutrients than those without. Your muscles crave protein and nutrients and once you activate and build muscle, you will burn a TON more fat/calories than by just altering your diet a bit. I'm not saying become a musclehead (I am not one at all), I am just saying that wheat is very healthy AND will help you burn fat...lose weight. It's kinda like those people who think if you drink 120 oz. of water in a day you will be retaining a lot of water, but in actuality, if you try this, you will feel much thinner at then end of the day...your shoes won't feel so tight and your wedding ring might even spin around your finger. Try it sometime...ps, the more you do it the less you have to run to the bathroom, your body gets use to it. And finally, why would you think the only recipe that makes sense is the flour, salt & water only one. 2,000 years isn't THAT long ago. Remember the Bible stories and the last supper picture (no, I am NOT a Bible thumper, just making an observation). They had bread back then...and it isn't suprising that they learned to add nuts, dates, raisins, or spices to bread. ...

There is a distinct difference between genetically engineered crops and natural hybrids and it would be well worth the efforts of those who are insulting those who are warning people that all frankenfoods are highly dangerous. There are German studies and even Monsanto's own studies which point a great problem with genetic modified foods. To not get too technical, but it has to do with the base amino acid structure the body does not recognize. I would suggest people notice how many people have the 'new diseases' of auto immune from lupus, MG, inflamed bowel, arthritis etc.... as examples that the body is having great difficulty with these grains and oils. Ask your vet or pet food dealer how many 'allergic' pets are showing up now to food. It is because of the hybrid corn some animals can not deal with it. Just because you eat something and you don't end up in the emergency ward does not mean that it is not going to affect your body sooner than later. Studies now indicate diabetes is from an inflamed pancreas. Once again not inflamation is the key disease and it links back to all of these genetically modified crops. For goodness sake people, I deal in agriculture and genetics. There are crops like Roundup corn, soybeans and canola oil where Monsanto has engineered a crop where you can spray Roundup, the same thing you put on your lawns and a herbicide which kills every plant, but it will not affect these crops. You are eating in mass now crops that a poison will not kill. Some of these genetic crops have trace genes of even animal DNA so as to make them more resiliant. That is not natural and if you ever ask the growing number of sick people they will tell you this is not funny as they are dying slow miserable deaths. My research hints that there is a symbiotic relationship between the amino acid hybrids, bacteria and a fungal infection. That is why so many skin diseases are manifesting including boils. If like in MG that a person's lining off their nerve cells is being eaten off so the nervous system shorts out to the fact if complete corn diets are feed cattle that it will burn them out and kill them, should perhaps convince the experts on here claiming all of this is nonsense. This is not about transfats. This is about a genetic engineered mutation that is being fed into the meat chain, the pets you have and you. Do a forensic test on your hair and it will not come back diverse. It will come back that you are corn due the huge amounts of it in all foods and if it is not corn, it is canola oil adding to the problem. I have watched a black lab and an irish setter dog develop arthritis, stumbling, seizures and bloody stools. When the diet was switched to a rice base or no corn, they both recovered and healed. People and their pets need to eat correctly and stop buying this stuff as once that happens, the corporations will loose money and won't push it onto consumers any more. Farmers are only using now what the market demands. Start demanding natural grains, natural beef, chicken, turkey and pork and vegetables not being fertilized in Mexico using human feces (that is where the spinach and jalepino/tomatoe problems came from is human sewage waste and not swine as people were lied to.) and please stop eating those tons of preservatives they have in everything. You don't have to be vegan as that is just as dangerous in the genetic plants they are pushing (get a clue if an insect won't eat it in the field perhaps you shouldn't eat it either.). As far as hunza, it is molasses bread and molasses is still good for you. It covers up the strong taste of buckwheat and if you ever ate millet flower you would cringe it is so bad. (Millet is very good boiled like oatmeal. It just is not a good flour as it is strong.) The link provided is a natural help site for people who are having problems and the modern 'cures' are only making them more ill. There are no side effects to good food except health. You can quote me on that. God bless. Here is a link that might be useful: Earth Clinic