Notice how fresh and perky it looks in the morning. It's growing!



I'll tell you the size of the rootstock that I received this year really caught me off guard. The last time that I grafted, (12 or 15 years ago?) my rootstock was about the thickness of a pencil and about 15 inches long. I also planted that batch in Mom's backyard, for one summer. I planted them 10 or 12 inches apart in a row. As well as I remember they were 30 inches tall, give or take, at the end of summer. When I dug those trees out to transplant, I dug them out with a regular ditch shovel, I'd take one tree out and the next one would almost roll out. When I planted those trees I only needed a hole the size of a 12-quart bucket.

This batch of trees are going to be harder to dig out, some of them are planted 12 inches deep. And they're going to need a bigger hole.

One of the trees that I grafted before is in Mom's back yard, I'll guess it at about 20 feet tall now, around 10" at the stump. It's a good looking tree. That's good soil. I'll get a picture next time over.

When I replant them I'll space them about 20 feet apart.

You sure got a green thumb there kiddo. What you're doing is looking really nice. My mom used to have that same green thumb thingy. She could bring back sick plants, and grow just about anything. They say some people talk to their plants. I think my mom used to yell at them! I used to kid her that she could probably stick a toothpick into the ground and it would sprout in a couple of days. I miss her.

Frank.

The tree on the right is one that I grafted, forget what year? The bigger tree was planted in 84 or 85?







No, I don't have a green thumb, Mom sure did, and so did her father. He's the man that first showed me how to graft, a long time ago. Above I posted a picture of one of his grafted trees. I grafted from that tree, they're growing.

Above we were talking about different trees growing together and such. When I was a kid, Granddad Poppie had a variety of just about every type of fruit tree that will grow around here. Plus grapes. Pears, cherries, peaches, plums, he had a mulberry tree and the only quince tree that I've ever seen. Just about all of those trees are dead now or on it's last leg.

Just thinking about it now, there wasn't much fruit that went to waste. It was canned or made into jelly or dried. I remember that quince jelly was good stuff on a hot roll.

I'll add this about my Mom. Notice where she made me plant my row of apple trees, right along the yard fence. That's all she would let me have.

We have a garden out on the farm. When it got to be too much for her to drive out there everyday, she wanted a patch here in town. You'd be surprised just how much stuff Mom grew in that little garden. Mom loved to work her flowers and garden. Her tulips bloomed a couple of weeks ago, the pink dogwoods are in bloom now. She had a beautiful yard. And houseplants like nobody's business. But you know, as much as I miss her, I'm very thankful that I had her as long as I did.

Here's the potted Red Delicious that I gave to a friend. We'll plant it outside this fall or next spring.



Six or 8 years ago my brother said he was thinking about building a "high tunnel" or hoop house. I recommended against it. But you can see what's going up on the farm. It's 30' x 70'. If you look at the pasture field around it, Dad told me that years ago it was an apple orchard. My brother and I both can only remember 1 apple tree growing in that field, and it died years ago.



I think it's supposed to give a feller another 4 to 6 weeks of growing season?

I checked the trees in the garden today, it's been a month since I planted them, and a week since I looked them over. I need to put that "weed block" mesh stuff down before the grass takes over.

This little tree is in the back corner, I trimmed off the 2 weaker sprouts today and treated it with the black spray wound sealer. If more than one sprout grows, usually the highest sprout will be the strongest, fastest growing. The second sprout down outgrew the other 2 on this little tree. It should take off now.



Here's the little tree in the pot out back, it's growing. It's in a clear plastic FireBall tub, no bigger than a gallon jug. I can't see where any of it's roots have touched the plastic yet. Only keeping these trees for one growing season before replanting, pots might be the way to go. It sure would save time if you could just load up however many trees you'd want and take them out and plant them.



Here's the best looking pear on apple rootstock, this isn't the same tree that was the best looking one. And another pear/apple rootstock circled behind. All 5 are looking ok.

Here's a look at one month of growth, both of these trees are in pots.




Notice the holes in the top right leaf, bugs are already after them. I've got a bag of bean dust, guess I'll need to dust them from time to time.



In this thread we've been talking about apples, a little bit about pears. Cherry trees can also be grafted, not positive but I'd think that a wild cherry tree would accept a graft from a tame cherry.

Our wild cherry trees usually don't amount to much around here, they were in bloom a week or so ago. I was out the other day and found a dozen or so wild cherry trees, about 2 feet tall. If I can find someone with a tame black cherry tree, I'm going to give them a try.

Did you know that there is such a thing as a tame persimmon? There is, my buddy John has one. He grafted it to a wild persimmon tree. I've never eaten the fruit, but they'll get twice the size of a wild persimmon.

Finally had a chance to put the weed guard stuff down this morning. As far as I can tell, looks like the trees are still 15, 15 and 13 per row. That's 43 plus 2 in pots. 45 total.



I've been looking at the yard fence, think if I patch one little hole, it'll be rabbit proof. Easier to patch that hole than build another fence around the trees. Otherwise the trees are looking good, no sign of bugs eating the leaves.

Notice the one grafted tree, it's grown over 10 inches. 45 grafts are doing good.

Saaaweet! I really appreciate your pics. I've got a dinky garden next to my house on the south side. Still too cold for my plants to barely survive, much less grow. Got up to 80* this morning. Then the cold front came through. Is currently 54* and foggy. Geez man, it's warmer up north at camp than here. Keep them sunny pics coming!!

Frank.

Here's an apple that I trimmed back in February, this picture was taken a month ago. It's apples are about the size of a big marble now, it's loaded.

You know, just out of town the temperature dropped down into the high 30's the other night.