the cookies are from our local bakery that is always an inspiration for cookie decorating. they are the masters of cookies!
Sunday, March 23, 2008
happy birthday my sweetie pie!
the cookies are from our local bakery that is always an inspiration for cookie decorating. they are the masters of cookies!
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Grafting
4-H is cool not only for kids but for adults too. Last night at our monthly club meeting the Peninsula Fruit Growers Association came by with root stock and scion wood to demonstrate how to graft fruit trees. I think it was pretty boring for most of the kids but the adults were enraptured.
We have a monster pear tree in our back yard that is a remnant of the old strawberry farm days. It seeded a baby pear nearby and that was the tree of choice to sandwich my four pieces of scion wood. Apparently there is one type of apple, Winter Banana, that can be grafted onto pear trees, so I grabbed one of those branches from the pile that the fruit guys/gals brought. The others were pears: Orcas, Concord, and something Angeline (I'll have to go check the name again). This morning off I went with my fishing knife, some electrical tape, a knife guard I made out of cardboard (so I wouldn't slice up my hand during the whittling process) to the little pear seedling by the fence.
In the past half dozen years I have been using that little tree as a source for chew branches for the bunnies. I was never intending for the tree to be anything more ornamental or structured. So today I had to look at the tree anew and prune it to a somewhat fruit tree shape before I started the grafting process.
Taking the scion wood out of my hunting jacket pocket I scanned the tree branches for the right diameter that would match that of the scion pieces. Finding pretty good matches I started the whittling on the scion and the tree branches (after trimming the tree branches back quite a ways). The cardboard guard was utilized once I needed to make that crucial slice partway through each branch and scion piece. Then these pieces slide together like a dovetail joint (not exactly, but more like puzzle pieces) so the layers of exposed biological matter lined up and became a new branch.
To seal the wound electrical tape was wrapped tight around the joint. Apparently in July I am supposed to slice through the tape and let it fall off on its own, assuming that the graft takes and the branch starts to grow. We'll see.
It should be fun to see if any of the grafts succeed. Then I will have lots of new varieties of fruit in a few years. That's nice, especially since I chopped down my huge Gravenstein apple tree last week. So sorry tree, but it was getting so huge, and I planted it in the wrong spot, where I needed easier access to the gate in the fence. The wood from that lovely tree is so buttery beautiful. It will be used to flavor barbecues this summer.
We have a monster pear tree in our back yard that is a remnant of the old strawberry farm days. It seeded a baby pear nearby and that was the tree of choice to sandwich my four pieces of scion wood. Apparently there is one type of apple, Winter Banana, that can be grafted onto pear trees, so I grabbed one of those branches from the pile that the fruit guys/gals brought. The others were pears: Orcas, Concord, and something Angeline (I'll have to go check the name again). This morning off I went with my fishing knife, some electrical tape, a knife guard I made out of cardboard (so I wouldn't slice up my hand during the whittling process) to the little pear seedling by the fence.
In the past half dozen years I have been using that little tree as a source for chew branches for the bunnies. I was never intending for the tree to be anything more ornamental or structured. So today I had to look at the tree anew and prune it to a somewhat fruit tree shape before I started the grafting process.
Taking the scion wood out of my hunting jacket pocket I scanned the tree branches for the right diameter that would match that of the scion pieces. Finding pretty good matches I started the whittling on the scion and the tree branches (after trimming the tree branches back quite a ways). The cardboard guard was utilized once I needed to make that crucial slice partway through each branch and scion piece. Then these pieces slide together like a dovetail joint (not exactly, but more like puzzle pieces) so the layers of exposed biological matter lined up and became a new branch.
To seal the wound electrical tape was wrapped tight around the joint. Apparently in July I am supposed to slice through the tape and let it fall off on its own, assuming that the graft takes and the branch starts to grow. We'll see.
It should be fun to see if any of the grafts succeed. Then I will have lots of new varieties of fruit in a few years. That's nice, especially since I chopped down my huge Gravenstein apple tree last week. So sorry tree, but it was getting so huge, and I planted it in the wrong spot, where I needed easier access to the gate in the fence. The wood from that lovely tree is so buttery beautiful. It will be used to flavor barbecues this summer.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Doodling with Petals
These are fallen petals of Viburnum bodnantense 'Dawn' from a recent bouquet on the kitchen table.On a visit to one of my favorite nurseries today I ran across a plant that seemed too good to be true. It is a climbing butter yellow bleeding heart called Dicentra scandens. It grows up to seven feet tall and blooms during the summer. I love bleeding hearts. I have a white one and used to have a pink one. Their delicate blooms are so charming in early spring but to find one that blooms in the summer on a climber, wow! This will be fun to try out, maybe climbing up my snowbell tree. Oh, the image conjured up is dreamy!
