TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today Cammy, our friend Bill and I planted our newly-grafted trees in the nursery. We have about 120 of them of 40 varieties. We grafted them in early-mid April then packed them in damp sawdust - about 30 trees per 5-gallon bucket. We let them callous and grow for the past five weeks, first in our living room and later out on the porch to harden off. During that time the trees grew about two-four inches. We had two varieties that did not take, but for both the scionwood was poor so we weren’t surprised. Everything else was close to 100%.

Before we planted we dug trenches and fertilized them with compost from our heaps and a composted chicken manure product we purchased. We planted the trees about 9-12” apart. It was the perfect day for transplanting young grafted trees: overcast with occasional brief periods of light rain. We finished up at about 5 PM as the rain began to intensify. Hopefully we’ll have rain all night.

Cammy and Bill also potted-on our peppers and tomatoes while I was prepping the nursery site. We celebrated with a trip to John’s Ice cream. En route we saw several more bobolinks. They’re definitely back!