Life Without Anchovies: Fruit Trees, Grafting, Seeds

Day 248

Grafting

This is an Espalliared Plum rootstock that we bought 2 years ago from the rare fruit Society. The graft did not work so we were left with a very vigorous very spikey tree. Apparently plums do very well in this environment, so it is a good rootstock, however, you can only graft plums or apricots onto it. Neither of which I particularly wanted in the garden now that the village farm has so many plums and apricots; (We chose this before the farm orchard was planted) so I asked the rare fruit experts for grafts that will give me something unique. Above is a pic of my first ever graft, a double header - Mystery and Plumcot - Interspecific plum x apricot. These are a cleft graft mainly because I could not get the grafting knife I bought from Green Harvest to cut (very disappointing) so I ended up using my trusty stanley knife. This was the best cut I could manage, also the rootstock is very large, so I bodged it really, but I did make sure that the cambium layers of the rootstock and the scion were aligned, (aren't you impressed with the jargon) and because there was so much trunk exposed, I decided to spray the exposed areas with steri prune just for good measure - to keep out infection. (the black stuff).

This is another 2 year old plum that I cut back and grafted with a yellow fleshed plum - Coes Golden Drop. Grafted the same way.

Here are the two cuttings I bought at the Rare fruit Society a - Fig - Preston Prolific (amber flesh) and a Grape - Himrod Seedless - pink flesh. Hopefully they will have grown some roots by Spring, and I can plant them out.

Here is one of the three bare rooted fruit trees I bought at the Rare Fruit Society for $6. I bought a peach, quince, and a nectarine. They don't look like much at the moment.

While I was taking the photos I realised that the poor olive tree (To the right of the insulation) has actually survived the constant attacks by the weevils. These small shoots were protected by the yoghurt container, and out-lived the weevils (I think they die off in winter) I am inpressed by the tenacity of the tree!

I also discovered this proof that the insulation barrier does work - see the weevil hanging on to the left hand side of the cuff. It looks like it got stuck in the fibres but maybe the cold killed it??

Seeds