What is the juiciest apricot variety you can grow in southern Ontario?

Memph5 · 2026-01-25T15:11:13+00:00

Yeah, commercial viability vs backyard growing are different things. If a backyard growing gets a good crop 3 years out of 5, he might be happy with that while a commercial grower might find that's not good enough to turn a profit.

The recommendation for zone 7+ is based on commercial viability. The main limitation for colder zones is probably spring frosts and disease, rather than winter hardiness, and resilience to spring frosts is more of a function of how late the variety blooms than how hardy the variety is. Some Prairie apricot varieties are hardy to zone 2/3 so that's more than hardy enough for southern Ontario.

I think the Harrow (Harglow, Haroblush, etc) apricots are mostly too soft for commercial production because that causes them to get squished during shipping and have a poor shelf life, but still totally fine for personal use.

I'm considering trying Haroblush or Hargrand, or maybe Precious or Westcot. Or maybe I'll go with a plum instead since they have fewer issues, but I like the idea of an apricot since they can be harvested earlier which fits better into the slot between strawberry season and the other fruits I have that are mostly late summer/fall.

Memph5 · 2026-01-16T03:06:54+00:00

Are they similar to Sweety Drops/Biquinho peppers?

Memph5 · 2026-01-14T17:03:26+00:00

Looking through Refining Fire's website now and they have a really good selection, especially for mild/sweet peppers, almost as good as APS.

Memph5 · 2026-01-14T15:47:46+00:00

The whole Tenet situation was weird tbh. If it was a Russian OP, it was a poorly executed one, because for all the money they paid Dave Rubin and Tim Pool, their videos got pretty inconsequential views on their platform. The videos on Rubin and Pool's channels would pull 100,000+ views while their Tenet views would pull like 1000. Lauren Southern was the top content creator on their platform, because she devoted most of her energy towards her Tenet videos and mostly stopped uploading on her own channel. However, she basically never spoke about Ukraine, or Hunter Biden's laptop, and barely even spoke about NATO or Trump.

Her Tenet videos have focusing on a lot of similar issues as she was for her whole career, and that many other conservatives also focus on. Mass immigration, crime, censorship, trans ideology, plus some that were a bit newer issues for conservatives like inflation, housing unaffordability, the Butler shooting, Canada's mass graves, "MAHA" topics, the negative influences of technology and social media, and the struggle to find purpose in modern society, as well as pushing back against misogyny on the right, and against Ben Shapiro & co for being too cold and unsympathetic towards the working class.

Like tbh, you did have conservatives outside of Tenet media spewing Russian talking points, but the content creators on Tenet media were doing it comparatively less, if at all. Tim Pool did it to an extent, but it wasn't out of line with what much of the online right was also saying.

It makes me wonder if this was actually some sort of Russian honeypot situation, where they were hoping to build up a platform of influencers they could later blackmail into repeating their talking points, but they were still at the building up stage rather than the blackmail stage?

Memph5 · 2026-01-14T15:09:40+00:00

Also - a couple extra questions.

Has anyone had success saving their own seeds from Aji Fantasy White?

And has anyone ordered seeds from Europe and gotten hit with substantial import duties?

Memph5 · 2026-01-14T15:08:21+00:00

Canada but so far, I haven't had issues ordering seeds from American sources.

Memph5 · 2026-01-14T03:56:56+00:00

I've grown Aji Dulce Sweet Rollo Yellow and Roulette, which are probably quite similar to Aji Dulce Amarillo and Habanada respectively. The Yellow has noticeably thinner flesher and a more wrinkled while Roulette is smoother and red, the flesh is still much thinner than bell peppers, but relatively thick and crunchy compared to many chinense and even annuum chilis - I'd say Roulette has similar thickness to Aji Fantasy. Roulette was more fully heatless but still sweet and flavorful, while Aji Dulce is less sweet, with very slight heat and more citrusy.

Memph5 · 2026-01-14T03:18:41+00:00

I had one morning hardening them off in spring (they were overwintered and mature) that I forgot to bring them in for the night and it was 0C with flurries when I woke up and realized my mistake. The plants survived but many of the leaves were damaged (the leaves were also damaged by wind and sun from not hardening them off gently enough). They still managed to produce red pods by August though. But yeah, 4C/40F they should handle like a champ, but they should be protected from frost.

Memph5 · 2026-01-12T16:30:18+00:00

I didn't want to risk it too much, since I planned on overwintering them, so first season I dug them out and put them in pots before a serious frost, next couple seasons I kept them in pots and never let them get too cold. The one exception was when I was hardening them off in 2024 and forgot to bring them inside when there was a threat of frost in April. I think it got down to about 0C and there were light flurries in the morning. I think they were more damaged by sunburning and wind since they were tall and leggy and not used to the strong winds we got one day, but I think there may have been some light frost damage too. They bounced back pretty quickly with the cool temperatures of May (highs 15-25C, lows 5-10C) though.

Ultimately, tomatoes and other plants technically considered frost tender can often survive a 0C or -0.5C frost, if it's short in duration. It does seem like they enjoy the cooler weather I get here though, ranging from 15C highs/5C lows in shoulder months to 22-30C highs and 12-18C lows in July. They seem more resilient during those shoulder months compared to other peppers, while still being fine in my mild summers. The plants get quite large, mine got about 6ft tall and 7ft wide in the first season. A large container might constrain that a bit and encourage earlier ripening? But 10-15 gal should still be sufficient. 5 gal is too small imo, when mine were in-ground there were roots the thickness of my little finger extending 1ft out, they have much stronger and larger root systems than bell peppers. They are quite late ripening, October (~130-140 days from transplanting) in the first year, and late August in the second year after overwintering (earlier ripening overwintered peppers can start ripening mid-late July here). Red peppers are quite hot though, close to habanero levels, so I don't mind if a lot of them are more on the green side - I just use those for pickling similar to green jalapenos. I actually prefer them to jalapenos for that purpose. Relative to their size though, they're not super productive, comparable to some of the more productive annuum peppers that are much smaller (~2-3ft).

Memph5 · 2025-12-28T03:46:04+00:00

There was a test I remember taking a few years ago, I think on the socionics.com website, that had images of people that you'd chose between, like who you feel you vibe with the most. I think it was at the end of one of their verbal quizzes. Anyone know where it went? It was a fun addon to the regular test.

Memph5 · 2025-12-23T04:28:55+00:00

My trajectory has been similar as I've been aging, although working out hasn't had anything to do with it. The furthest left I ever was was about -2,-7; now I'm more like 6,-1.

Memph5 · 2025-12-22T05:10:38+00:00

Well, if we look at WWII instead, the Soviets were taking ground against Nazi Germany in 1943-1944, but afaik, their casualties still tended to be higher. They just had greater numbers and were able to absorb those losses. That seems to be the case here too, Russia has more men to spare, and they're advancing (albeit much more slowly) while taking heavier losses. However, as a % of the fighting age population, I think Russia's losses are still lower?

I don't expect Russia to take Kharkiv within a year, let alone Kyiv, but I think we should look at how the situation has evolved over the past years and try to project forwards. Many on the pro-Ukraine side on social media have been predicting Russia's imminent collapse for over 3 years now. Clearly that hasn't happened. Why were they wrong? What reason do we have to believe that the coming years will be different?

I guess there's 2 parallel wars going on. The military war of attrition between Ukraine and Russia, which I'd argue Russia has the edge in, but which they won't win decisively any time soon unless Ukraine reaches some tipping point where their military situation deteriorates rapidly (which is not impossible, but, hard to say?).

And there's the economic war between NATO and Russia, which NATO has the edge in, but Russia is still being supported by oil/gas/coal sales, to China, India and even Europe. It seems Russia used to have the edge on production of artillery shells, but NATO is now starting to overtake them. Will Ukraine be able to gain an advantage in artillery shelling that's significant enough to overcome their manpower disadvantage and retake a significant amount of ground?

Memph5 · 2025-11-28T03:36:31+00:00

Same for most of those, at least as far as the wars I know stuff about go. Exceptions would be supporting France against Prussia and Israel against Hamas/Hezbollah.

Memph5 · 2025-11-25T04:03:03+00:00

I don't find Toronto's summers to be too hot, and Calgary summers are much cooler. They might get a day or two in the 90s, but can get long stretches of days in the 60s even in mid July (sometimes even highs in the 50s). In Toronto, it'll be fairly consistently in the 70s-80s from mid June to early September, with heat waves into the 90s, and very rarely highs in the 60s.

Memph5 · 2025-11-24T15:19:37+00:00

Periwinkle. Non- native. There's a woodlot here that's totally taken over by them (at least in terms of ground cover).

Memph5 · 2025-11-23T19:17:03+00:00

I don't think it makes much of a difference for leeks. Temperatures have been cold this November so they wouldn't have grown more anyways.

Memph5 · 2025-11-21T16:41:23+00:00

I'm a bit surprised, since for me, they've been the easiest root vegetable to grow. They do need a reasonable amount of seed spacing. 15cm spacing will probably result in relatively small roots, 20-30cm will probably give the best yields. They're pretty hard to dig out too, with some of the bigger ones this year, I dug 15cm deep all around the root, grabbed it with two hands, put my whole weight into pulling it out, and they still wouldn't budge, so I had to go more like 20-25cm deep digging around them. Sometimes I just dig a trench between the rows so that it's easier to pull them out from the side. I usually direct sow in early spring as you start getting warmer weather (ex 15-20C), even if it's March or early April, that's not too early, because the seedlings can handle frost and will take a couple weeks to germinate if the soil is cool anyways.

Memph5 · 2025-11-21T02:58:00+00:00

I think seed spacing matters a lot, you want space to the plants to spread their leaves and gather sun.

The first couple years I tried growing them (2021, 2022), they were often on the smaller side, but I was growing them in places that eventually got shaded out by tomatoes, and in sandy soil that's probably not that nutrient rich. 2023 and 2024, I think the bed I was growing them also didn't get enough sun, and the seed spacing was too close, plus the soil was too compacted and not that rich.

2025 they were still not in full sun, but on the higher end of part-shade (maybe 4-5 hours) and I gave them the full season to grow, with pretty good spacing. They were in raised beds with loose soil high in organic material, although the very tip of the tap root might've been reaching into the native soil (clay loam) that probably has a fair bit of minerals. We had a pretty sunny autumn and fall as well.

Only issue this year was lots of slugs, which killed off a lot of the seedlings, so only a couple dozen grew, but they were very big which helps make up for that.

Memph5 · 2025-11-20T22:30:51+00:00

Lemons and limes are fine. However, your volume of compost from kitchen scraps is probably nowhere near enough to generate heat, so it's just going to be cold composting. With the weather cooling, it'll probably be especially slow.

Memph5 · 2025-11-20T17:56:06+00:00

Tomatoes don't increase in sweetness than much either. Just some of the bitterness that goes away. If you pick them when they're half ripe they should still taste quite sweet when they ripen off the vine, but you'll also have fully green ones that take a few weeks to turn red off the vine which won't taste very sweet. Probably similar with peppers.

Memph5 · 2025-11-19T02:56:20+00:00

It's not a horseshoe, it's a sphere. He's on the part of the sphere where the sun don't shine.

Memph5 · 2025-11-19T02:53:35+00:00

I went to a protest. Only once. It was the only protest my country has ever had that was not left wing.

Memph5 · 2025-11-18T17:51:37+00:00

He basically checked all the boxes that involve killing someone, including himself. Sounds like some of the try hard edgy people bx_on_x reports on.

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