Explore

The interactive section of the HON website consists of a forum where discussions take place, a collection of grower profiles, a calendar of orchard-related events, and a library of useful documents.

A few specifics are in order concerning our fruit grower’s forum. Anyone can read these wide-ranging posts . . . but primarily it's folks making a living at orcharding who get to contribute. The cutting edge discussion envisioned here between community orchardists and holistic-minded researchers will have plenty for everyone only if we maintain this dedicated focus. We wish to avoid being overwhelmed by basic questions that are better addressed elsewhere, be that through reading, attending workshops, or watching a fruitful neighbor in action.

Applying for a forum participant account starts by clicking 'Create a New Account' in the upper right corner of any forum page. REAL NAMES are a must. One of our moderators will review each application to assure you are a genuine orchardist and/or orchard researcher. Scale does not matter . . . as we believe more folks need to grow fruit for their communities everywhere. Actual members of the network—including bold home orchardists!—can count on getting a participant account. Once approved, it's time to head Out to the Orchard or to Fruit Varieties to consider the topic selection. The in-house search engine is another good tool for locating particular information.

suggestion:

Take a good look at the portal page, where links to the most recent postings are shown. Plunge directly into orchard nuance from there. If you need help, go over to 'Just Talk' and ask, or email the site administrators. Willingness to explore will indeed get you where you're going!

Getting About

A number of options for getting there from here exist on the portal page. Links to all forum topics open in a new window . . . thus keeping the portal page easily accessible at all times in your browser. The 'Forum Categories' and 'Hot Topics' boxes provide numerous links to the most recent posts. Big hint that.

Look for all the usual suspects within the forum itself. Opened threads come with top buttons to return you to the 'Forum List' (think category index) or the 'Message List' (posts within a category). Breadcrumb navigation shows where the current page is located within the forum hierarchy, should you want a quick means back to any starting point.

Staying on topic . . .

Our forum differs from other list-serves in that we desire to hold a topic thread to task. People will go off on tangents, yes, and a degree of this is actually to be encouraged given that so many orchard concerns overlap. Still, an effective category index requires that we avoid veering wildly from the topic-at-hand. Please consider when a shift in subject deserves a posting of its own. The advantage of a new thread in its own right is that more growers will see it and subsequently discuss it. The site editor has abilities to pull any discussion back on track . . . we merely ask you do your part to minimize the need to do that.

Just Talk

We have a section of the forum dedicated for divergent discussion. Conversation in 'Just Talk' should still maintain some relevancy to the network and/or orcharding, but in truth, if you want to talk about 'hostels in Istanbul' so be it. Know, however, that once the thrill is gone, these threads will not necessarily remain posted for the long haul.

Quarterly News

We encourage everyone to get on our mailing list for breaking news about fruit growing, along with a free subscription to our Community Orchardist newsletter.

Privacy Policy

We take our privacy, and yours, very seriously. If you need to know more, here's our explicit privacy policy.

Phorum Software

Our discussion forum exists thanks to the generosity of those who developed this fine software. Learn more at the Phorum!

Formality

You're among friends. Plus you're automatically identified on each of your posts by your real name. That means we can forego the formalities of saying hello and goodbye every time in a message in order to keep our conversations that tiny bit more compressed on the screen. We ask you set up a signature to identify yourself in posts. Keep these simple by providing your orchard name, growing zone, and geographic location. Orchard names will be linked to grower profiles (a membership perk) to help readers to take into consideration another grower’s reality.

Keeping Up

We recommend checking in regularly by making the portal one of your browser's home pages—most of us will find this to be entirely effective. Every thread offers a ‘Follow Topic’ option if you desire direct notification of any response to your own posts. You can also personalize account settings for ‘Forum Subscriptions’ in the Control Center to automatically receive email notifications of all posts within chosen categories. Whatever it takes . . . we want you to come back often and chime in when motivated to do so.

Control Center

This button in the upper right corner of forum pages takes you to your personal account information. Here's where you create a signature for messages, personalize settings, manage followed topics, and maintain your contact information.

HTML coding

Menu buttons to add HTML coding (to make certain words appear in bold font, for instance) are fairly straightforward. Each user will find the choices available to enhance a message laid out across the top of the message box. We highly recommend using the preview feature before actually posting. That's an opportunity to spell check yourself, see that HTML designations worked as envisioned, and apply useful hyperlinks. Keeping posts relatively free of enhancements will generally be a wise choice.

Editing Chutzpah

Any user can edit his or her posts, anytime. This presents a chance to refine one's thoughts for the long term. (And spell a word like 'achieve' correctly.)

The site editor can edit any post, anytime. This will primarily be done to clarify the words chosen to define a topic subject. Such a name change is intended to keep the category index as accessible as possible. Other potential edits include adding a helpful link, correcting egregious spelling of orchard terms, and removing statements that clearly have no place in a fruit grower’s forum.

All editing activity will be noted at the bottom of an edited message. The site editor can review any and all changes made should there be questions. Forum moderators promise not to interfere with the core intent of any post. We are all creating running commentary here on numerous orchard topics that will be useful for many years to come.

Private Messages

You can contact the writer of any post by clicking on the letters [PM] beside that grower's name. Often, what's personal is best done directly. Be sure to click 'Keep a Copy in my Sent items' each time you write if you wish to track outgoing mail.

Member's Corner

One section of the forum is reserved for full-fledged members of the Holistic Orchard Network. Budget realities are discussed here and growers can weigh in on network initiatives. Needless to say, this special forum will be hidden from public view.