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.
I don't want to be a whiner so I won't describe why my posts are less frequent other than using a word that haunts me from dawn until dusk and from dusk until dawn: pain. But there is hope. Daisy chain making, a meditation so idyllic, offers a dive into the pool of momentary pleasure that far surpasses any manufactured drug. Perspective is relative to a sibling of far more dire consequences. So fret not and see the hope. Enjoy the little daisies in life.
the cookies are from our local bakery that is always an inspiration for cookie decorating. they are the masters of cookies!
These are fallen petals of Viburnum bodnantense 'Dawn' from a recent bouquet on the kitchen table.
My old apron was getting pretty tired looking so it was time
I just looooovvvvve crocus,
I love new sheets! 
My sweet plants are emerging from their winter rest with color, texture and fragrance. I love the just emerging buds of the Cornus mas. Such delicate bloom has to be appreciated up close with the blue sky of a crisp cool day as the backdrop. These beauties (Viburnum bodnantense Dawn, Crocus, Cornus mas, Hamamelis Arnold's Promise) exhilarate me to no end.
© All rights reserved
