Asian Plums are Blooming. 3.24.15

Crimson Sentry Plum.  3.24.19

Flavor Supreme Pluot.  3.24.19

Hollywood Plum (cutting grown).  3.24.29

Most of the Asian Plums are in almost full bloom. Pictured ate:

Crimson Sentry.  I need to check pn the name. Ornamental and fastigiate.  I like the flavor of the plums although there isn't much flesh and they are small.  It is usually first to bloom.  I like it as a potential pollinizer for early blooming plums.

Multigraft.  Branch in bloom is Hollywood..  3.24.19

Nadia Cherry Plum Hybrid.  3.24.19

Flavor Supreme (or Flavor King?).  Second year, blooming now.

Hollywood.  Full bloom.  A few years from growing from a cutting.

Methley and Shiro not open yet, not pictured.  Starting to bloom.

Seedling, grafted onto Hanska, was first.  I've been cutting blooming branches from Cromson Sentry and Hollywood and placing them among the branches for pollination.  This tree just got new grafts of Black Ice and Beauty plums.

 None of the Euro plums are blooming yet.

This Year's Orchard Additions & Changes. 3.19.19

During the winter, I ordered some new fruit trees, scion, and rootstocks.  Some varieties were lost in 2018 as well.  Plus I like to experiment.  Despite saying I want and need to slow down and have less to take care of, which is true, I still find it hard not to try new things.  These changes are already in place, with plantings spread out over the past 3 months and grafting spread out over e past 3 weeks.

 New trees.

Persimmons - Coffeecake (Nishimura Wase) and Chocolate (Maru).  These are planted at te opposite end of the property from my other persimmons  to redice pollination of those (Saijo, Nikita's Gift, Yates).

Shan  Xha (Chinese Haw, Da Mian  Qui)  Red Sun

Jujubes - Li and Winter Delight.

Apples - Redlove (TM) Era (R) Redflesh Apple, Columnar "Urban" Apples Tasty Red and Golden Treat.

Figs - I planted Lampeira Preta from my friend Ram. This tree is fenced and in my main fig row, should do great there.

Grafts onto Existing Trees

Plums - Beauty, Black Ice

Kiwi - Hayward Fuzzy (to pollinate female Kiwi)

Quince - I made a multigraft from the resurgent growth of my young quince tree that I ran over with a lawn mower by accident, in 2017, I think.  Smyrna, Aromatnaya, Crimea, Limon.

Apples - I added grafts of Prima, Honeycrisp, Bill's Redflesh, William's Pride.

Pear - Rajah Asian Pear.  This will replace the last major branch of Maxie Pear, which was hard and not flavorful.  There are still some spurs and small branches remaining in case it is better thisyear.

I grafted some scion from my Northpole onto purchased Bud-9.  Some of these might be container trees.

The new apple trees went into a protected bed, so other than more watering the first year, no extra care or protection needed.  The Jujubes went into one deer cage alreadynset up and mulched.  The persimmons got temporary small cages but I need to make larger cages.  Those come from fencing I just removed from another garden.  The new grafts won't need care beyond normal puttering, removing binding when appropriate, and pruning / tying that I do for the trees anyway.  The auince may need a larger cage, but wasn't much harassed by herbivores this year despite being taller than its existing short cage.

So despite a long list of changes now, during the off season, I dont think much extra care will be needed during the main grow seasons.

Trees that died - Sweet Treat Pluerry, American Plum grown from seed.  I think both died due to canker.

More Grafting. Making Small Dwarf Columnar Apple Trees. 3.18.19

I decided to try grafting Northpole apple onto a more dwarfing rootstock. I like this apple for fresh eating, pies, and apple sauce. However, my tree is too vigorous.  I don't know what rootstock it is on, but I'm guessing it isnt very dwarfing.

I supect that the tables describing how dwarfing a rootstock is, are not quite appropriate for columnar trees.  I think the dwarfing effect may reduce total scion biomass, which would mean smaller conventional varieties compared to columnar types, which are sort of 1 or 2-dimensional, almost, compared to conventional variety's 3-dimensional shape.  I decided to try Bud-9 which is among the more dwarfing types.

My existing Northpole needed some corrective pruning, I removed all of the vigorous shoots, leaving flowering spurs in place.  That was fairly drastic.  We'll see if the tree blooms and produces this year.

Meanwhile, I selected shoot tips to graft onto Bud-9 rootstock, which I boight mail order from Burnt Ridge nursery.  I used whip-and-tongue grafting method, with 1/2 inch strips cut from freezer bags as the binder, then parafilm to wrap the rest of the graft to reduce the risk of dehydration.  I planted these in potting soil in 1/2 gallon nursery pots and watered well.

Planting More Potatoes. 3.12.19

 I planted another row of potatoes.  I may not be allowing them to grow long enough stems while chitting, but I think they will be OK.  The other uncertainty is with timing.  I need to check the ground temperature.  However, this is actually later than last year so, again, I think it is OK.

This time I planted some Red Norland.  Good for potato salad , new potatoes, and potato soup. 

I also added some organic 5-10-10 to the bottom of the trench, and hoed it into the underlying soil using a narrow garden rake / hoe.  I have not fertilized potatoes in the past.  I did so this time, after reading that yield and size might be improved.

Last year, this bed contained zinnias and cosmos.  The previous year, it was sweetcorn and onions.  Before that, it was a large, impenetrable blackberry bramble of uncertain age.  So no potatoes have grown in this bed before, which is a good thing.

I like the trenches better than planting more shallowly and hilling up.  I think the hills dry out more quickly, and I don't want to water more than I need to. 

Grafting. 3.12.19

This is the first step of wrapping the graft with plastic strip.  Knot tied.

The strip is flattened, wrapped tightly up, then down, and tied again.

Finally, the scion is wrapped to avoid dehydration.  I used parafilm this time.

Today I grafted new scions onto a number of pre-existing apple trees.  I'm comfortable with whip and tongue grafting, so that's what I do.  These trees are young but starting to have some size.  They are dwarf or semidwarf size trees.    For one, a large, mature  branch of Pristine broke due to graft failure, so I'm not grafting Pristine back onto that tree.  There is a small "water sprout" branch near that location, so I grafted a new variety to that branch as a replacement ("Bob's red flesh, a small apple with red flesh throughout).

I thought I would show my current method.  It's much easier than the older methods that involved grafting wax and string, or sticky tape.  I use strips, about 3/4 inch wide, cut from gallon-size "Ziplock" plastic freezer bags.  After experimenting with stretching, I can get a good firm tight binding, without breaking the strips.

The cutting and fitting of the scion and understock is as usual.  I didn't do as fine a job as last year, but apple is fairly forgiving, so I think they should take.  Once the whip and tongue graft scion and understock are fitted together, I tie a strip of plastic strip below the graft, with one end being short and the other long.

Then I flatten the strip, and wrap up, then down the graft.  I pull the plastic strip as firm as I can, without stretching to the yield point where it loses it's stretch and tears.

Then I tie the end of the strip back to the original knot.

I wrap the scion with either a thinner plastic strip, or this time, parafilm.  The goal there is to prevent dehydration but allow the buds to grow

This method gave 100% take last year.  I'm hoping for a good result this year too.

I grafted -

That "Bill's Red Flesh".

A local crab apple variety from an HOS member, "Hi Jack".

Pristine.

I also bought some Bud-9 rootstock at the HOS show, and grafted Northpole apple onto that rootstock.  I want to see if I can better limit the height, and make a much more compact columnar apple tree than I have with the original Northpole.


And quince varieties, to the quince tree that I'm reworking, adding Limon and Crimea Quince cultivars.

Also, onto a plum branch, I added one branch from an ornamental, fastigiate red plum (Scarlet Sentry?) from elsewhere in the yard, for pollination purposes.  That goes both ways - I'm curious to see if those plums are larger or better set, when pollinated by more proximal plum varieties.