Natural Burial and Human Composting

Yeah, I think back when we spoke in January, neither of us or anybody had any inclination, right, that we were going to have a really bad frost right at the worst time possible for the mid-Atlantic region.

And a lot of our fruit growers especially were hit, you know, right at the wrong time.

We lost a lot of our apple crops.

Peaches got really slammed.

Pawpaws, I know also for a lot of the region.

Was that the case for you too, Michael?

Well, they purposely grow things that are super adapted here.

And it's not always, doesn't necessarily mean it's always native, but that will have different flowering periods or often late flowering periods.

Or in the case of the pawpaw, it will re-flower if the frost damages its first flush of flowers.

I mean, the pawpaw, remember, is a super adaptive species.

I mean, basically a subtropical fruit that's migrated all the way into... you know, the northern cold lands and produces a tropical fruit.

So it adapts, it grows in, you know, full shade, partial light, full sun.

It's very interactive.

And one of those features is that it will reset flowers if the first ones get wiped out, but typically only about half as many.

That's what I was going to ask was, yeah, if that second flush was much reduced from the first.

It is, but being less fruits made them gorgeous, big fruits this year.

So like the fruits that I had a really decent harvest.

And oftentimes when you grow pawpaws and their trees are healthy and you're growing them in full sun and you've got really good cultivars and genetics, you have to thin your fruit, you know, because they'll produce easily 50 pounds a tree.

So you want to reduce that, the clusters so that you're getting, you know, more full ripening fruits.

So, This frost, in a way, kind of helped me out.

It did that.

It thinned out the fruits for me, so the ones I did get were really beautiful.

I had a record one this year.

It was two and three-quarter pounds of a pawpaw.

It was almost three pounds.

Yeah, I think back when we spoke in January, neither of us or anybody had any inclination, right, that we were going to have a really bad frost right at the worst time possible for the mid-Atlantic region.

And a lot of our fruit growers especially were hit, you know, right at the wrong time.

We lost a lot of our apple crops.

Peaches got really slammed.

Pawpaws, I know also for a lot of the region.

Was that the case for you too, Michael?

Well, they purposely grow things that are super adapted here.

And it's not always, doesn't necessarily mean it's always native, but that will have different flowering periods or often late flowering periods.

Or in the case of the pawpaw, it will re-flower if the frost damages its first flush of flowers.

I mean, the pawpaw, remember, is a super adaptive species.

I mean, basically a subtropical fruit that's migrated all the way into... you know, the northern cold lands and produces a tropical fruit.

So it adapts, it grows in, you know, full shade, partial light, full sun.

It's very interactive.

And one of those features is that it will reset flowers if the first ones get wiped out, but typically only about half as many.

That's what I was going to ask was, yeah, if that second flush was much reduced from the first.

It is, but being less fruits made them gorgeous, big fruits this year.

So like the fruits that I had a really decent harvest.

And oftentimes when you grow pawpaws and their trees are healthy and you're growing them in full sun and you've got really good cultivars and genetics, you have to thin your fruit, you know, because they'll produce easily 50 pounds a tree.

So you want to reduce that, the clusters so that you're getting, you know, more full ripening fruits.

So, This frost, in a way, kind of helped me out.

It did that.

It thinned out the fruits for me, so the ones I did get were really beautiful.

I had a record one this year.

It was two and three-quarter pounds of a pawpaw.

It was almost three pounds.