Thank you everybody who contributed to the sharing of information and conviviality on this forum.
When the Home Orchard Society closed its operations, I was happy that we were able to carry forward a piece of what made it special with the discussion forum.
There won't be an appeal for donations this year. Thanks to the many of us who contributed time and money to keep it afloat.
We're not planning abrupt changes, but rather more of a staged fade. For the first quarter or two of 2026 the site will continue running as it has. So if there are things you want to say, questions you'd like to ask, or posters you'd like to try and connect with either posting in the General Forum, or messaging - now is your chance. After that we'll transition to a read-only format, hopefully through 2026 before finally sunsetting the site.
We've had our ups and downs, but it's been a good ride. Happily, there are other good sources of fruit growing information and discussion available to us that we didn't have back in the HOS prime when this forum was especially vital.
Happy fruit growing!
Jafar
Thank you Jafar for keeping this forum going, providing a gentle journey into the sunset for the HOS.
One thought I had as we say our goodbyes - If you maintain a list(s) of the varieties you have, would you be willing to share it here (publicly) or privately via direct message? I have read about many "lost apple hunters" scouring old orchards and homesteads for old varieties. Perhaps we could make that easier for researchers and future generations, by posting here what varieties we currently have.
Or perhaps if someone knows of a shared registry, we could put our info there. Some ideas for apples:
https://www.inaturalist.org/ta.....ca#map-tab
Dave, there's a great website called growingfruit.org . There may already be a topic like that, or if not it is a very active form with lots of traffic.
I kind of like the entries on orangepippin.com. Have you done it? Can you upload a spreadsheet or something, or must it be one by one?
jafar said
Dave, there's a great website called growingfruit.org . There may already be a topic like that, or if not it is a very active form with lots of traffic.
I kind of like the entries on orangepippin.com. Have you done it? Can you upload a spreadsheet or something, or must it be one by one?
I don't recall visiting growingfruit.org but I seem to already have a login l, so I must have visited in the past. I will check it out.
I have made a few entries on orange pippin, one at a time. I agree, I would only upload my lists in bulk. I have 200 varieties of edible plants, it would take forever to do them one at a time.
davem said
jafar said
Dave, there's a great website called growingfruit.org . There may already be a topic like that, or if not it is a very active form with lots of traffic.
I kind of like the entries on orangepippin.com. Have you done it? Can you upload a spreadsheet or something, or must it be one by one?
I don't recall visiting growingfruit.org but I seem to already have a login l, so I must have visited in the past. I will check it out.
I have made a few entries on orange pippin, one at a time. I agree, I would only upload my lists in bulk. I have 200 varieties of edible plants, it would take forever to do them one at a time.
Dave, RegisTREE of North America (your third link) asks that you contact them if you have a large data set you would like imported into RegisTREE, so they must have some mechanism for uploading large databases.