Den Vic, It's nice looking garden and sure it's remarkable given that it's in BC - and not in California. I have been in BC and actually lived in the interiors for at least a year. I love the climate of the interiors and of the island but I just couldn't stand the rainy weather in the coastal areas. Back then (~30 years ago) tropicana types couldn't survive the area. I can only think of climate changes that allow tropical plants to survive there. If so, that is worrisome. In some areas of Toronto, even the Japanese banana manage to survive. It's either the heat of the city or again climate change. or the El Nina effect. One can only look at the devastation in China and Pakistan to see how bad the climate has become. However, of course it can also be that plants were developed to tolerate colder zones. I know the Japanese bananas trees is one such case. In my old tropical country, we do have palms growing in the highest mountains which are colder areas and so I can see how some plants from a more cooler climate can be developed further for cold tolerance.

When I was a kid, we couldn't jump if a cake was in the oven. Probably angel food cake. My trick to flatten out cookies that are rising too much (usually chocolate chip), is to open the oven 2/3 way throught the cooking time, raise and end of the pan, and bang it down on the rack. Cookies instantly flatten out. So, I have a hunch, at least with a cake like angel food cake, a direct hit like the cake pan jarring, might deflate it. Shouting...not so much. Half myth, half must.

Olpea, I'm glad I got to read your posts before you deleted them. I very much appreciated your thoughts. I would have described your two posts as thoughtful and patient. And, by the way, I certainly wasn't trying to take up any spray v. no-spray debate with my question in the thread title. I was just wondering how much middle ground (low spray) there is in reality and how credible the claim by the unknown orchardist in the other thread is. You certainly convinced me with your second post that IPM would mean something real if applied to your own practices. I wasn't sure if there was even economically viable space for that kind of differentiation, but you showed me you've been able to make it a reality. Do you even describe your practices as "IPM" or "low spray" to your customers, though, or is that not even part of your marketing? (If you'd rather not follow up on those previous posts, please just ignore all my questions. I hope you don't mind me adding more to the discussion.) I also vaguely recall, perhaps mistakenly, that you said your orchard isn't really profitable yet. If that is what you said, that makes me wonder the degree to which your IPM practices have worked against your profitability. I know you mentioned some IPM practices that were more expensive, but you also talked about cost savings from not spraying more than necessary, so I wonder how your total spraying cost compares to a more middle of the road orchard. Regarding SWD, I was only aware of it affecting bramble fruit (and as little as I know about it, I'm not 100% sure about that.) What other fruits that I listed does SWD affect? Another thought on fruit marketed as "low spray" and particularly examples like in the other thread where an orchardist said he only sprays 8 times per year was to question the number of times someone sprayed as a measure of the weight of an orchard's chemical footprint. Olpea you talked about using relatively less concerning chemicals. I wonder if that ever means you have to use them more often? Along those lines, here's a quote from a cooperative extension agent in NC involved with organic apples: "The majority of consumers think 'organic' means we don't spray with anything, but in fact, we actually spray twice as often, but we spray with USDA-approved materials...That's one of the reasons it's three to four times more expensive to grow organic apples than it is conventional apples. An acre of conventionally grown apples would cost $700 a season for pesticides and fungicides; an identical organic crop's price tag for organic crop protectants is about $3,400." Maybe I'm just overly cynical when it comes to people making claims like "low spray" (definitely not with you, Olpea, and not really with anyone in discussions like this, but especially in the marketplace where there are so many exploitable consumers just begging to be misled), but it seems like there are lots of ways "low spray" marketing claims could correlate very poorly with the orchards that actually are meaningfully low spray/IPM. Olpea, I hope you won't give up on persimmons. The seeds are a major drawback in a relatively small fruit, and there are definitely superior and inferior trees, and there are further issues with appearance and shelf life and marketability (especially having to do with waiting for the fruit to drop and sometimes splat a little and then picking it up off the ground), but at the same time I think the best trees produce fruit with flavor as desirable as about any fruit. Perhaps you could find a variety that will yield good fruit in your location without pollination -- I'm assuming you don't have wild trees -- and thereby give you seedless fruit. Persimmon pudding is also a first rate baked fruit dessert. I'd also encourage you to try a Rosseyanka, the Asian-native cross, that has some of the great flavor of native persimmons without most of the drawbacks. I'll admit that I come at persimmons (and other fruits) from an unusual perspective, however, in that I gave up several years ago on fruits that I couldn't grow, scavenge, or buy local-organically. Peaches were previously a favorite fruit, but I basically don't eat peaches any more. Maybe the absence of peaches has made persimmons look better to me, but at the same time, I just finished some incredibly sweet and delicious homegrown strawberries out of the freezer, and even before I gave up eating conventional local peaches I thought figs (with some differences between varieties) were a truly great fruit, and I'd say the same about hardy kiwis, which I thought (as I still do) were just amazing the first time I tried them. I'm definitely eager to see my new things reach fruiting age, and I'm interested in trying different things, but even in my very insect and fungus and fireblight and late spring freeze prone location, I feel like I eat a full assortment of delicious no-spray fruits.

I'm at 6500 feet. I find that cooking is a process that has many variables and altitude is only one of those variables. As far as baking, I have found that I have to watch yeasted breads a little more closely during the rise time and that is about it. Much of what I bake is gluten free which has its own share of difficulties and variables. My ovens are electric. I have far more difficulties with the way the dry air affects the baked goods. Now, my cooktop is natural gas. When we bought it, it was calibrated for high altitude. I have no clue as to the science behind it or what that even means. I can say the biggest difference I notice with cooking at altitude is that boiled potatoes take longer/forever as do dried beans. Actually, even baked potatoes take a while so I nuke them first and then finish in the toaster oven/microwave. A pressure cooker helps for mashed potatoes. Granted, my philosophy about cooking is that observation and experience are what can make the biggest difference and that is true at any altitude. Adjusting the leavening, temperature, moisture, etc. automatically is just more work than I am willing to put in unless something looks off.