Grafting

I decided to try my hand at grafting. It was a little late in the season, but I think it will still take. 🤞  Ideally you want to graft early spring, before leaves and buds open up.

  Why grafting?   I have a couple different types of apple trees, a couple different peaches, and a couple different stone frutis.  But they are all compatible, apples and apples, all the stone fruits, and all the pears.  I LOVE my granny smith apple tree, but my sister gets  AMAZING golden delicous apples from her tree.  I took a few of her branches and put them on my granny smith, then the granny smith went to the Honey Crips, and that went to the Crunch-a-Bunch.  Now, if one tree dies, I still have that kind of fruit on another tree.  If my apricot tree dies  I can still get apricotes from my nectarine tree.

Grafting is also great for those with limited space.  If you only have enough room for one peach, one pear, and one apple, you can graft a variety of fruits onto that tree.  Why settle for just golden delicious if you only have one tree, when you can also get granny smith, honey crisp, Johnathan apples, and any others you can find and grab a scion from.

Also, grafting is pretty much free.  Most people wont mind you taking a small branch or two, especially if they are pruning already anyway.
This kind of graft is called a wedge graft and it's my favorite because it's so simple.
Here's a step by step guide with pictures if you want to try it yourself.

Step #1 Find a good scion. The scion in the branch with traits you want, I picked this one because it has such yummy fruit!  You want your scion to be first year growth and about the thickness of a pencil.  Now you need to find a good rootstock branch.  The root stock is the tree you are grafting your new branch onto.  The branch needs to be first year, like your scion, and about the same size. If your root stock is bigger you can work with it.

Step #2 Trim your scion into a wedge. Use a clean, sharp knif to trim off the top and bottom of the scion.  Step #3 Cut a slit in the root stock. Step #2 and 3 are interchangeable.  You need one wedge and one slit.  It's easier, in my opinion to have the wedge be the scion, but I did both.

Step #4 put em together! Gently insert the wedge into the slit.  Make sure the cambium lines up the best you can.  The cambium in the thin green layer right underneath the bark.  This is why you want the branches to be about the same.  If your root stock is bigger, but a triangel out of the side to slip the wedge into or, you can stick your knif down right behind the bark of your root stock and creat a little pocket there.

Step #5 Tape it up.  The final step is to use some sort of plant tape that stretches to keep the two firmly togehter.  Grafting tape or garden tape will work great.  Now you just wait, and let God and nature do their thing.

Happy gardening and good luck!

I am so sorry it's been so long, I didn't realize I neglected an ENTIRE year!  I was in the garden last year an average of 8 hours, trying to get in all the rest of the guild plants I want.  Now that that is done I will proceed more slowly to fill in gaps and use my garden plan to make some vegetable patches and share with you what I learn along the way. Here is one hard lesson I have already learned. I have good news and bad news, and then more good news!  This year it finally clicked!  I was able to prune my grapes without the help of a step by step tutorial.  I pruned them WAY back, they were getting a bit out of control.  I'm really happy with the way they turned out...mostly.

  Unfortunately, I messed up, big time.  I noticed last year that one of the grapes didn't grow any new branches.  I knew it needed to be cut out when I pruned next so this Spring when I got down to pruning (a bit late I might add)  I cut it was back and then went for a saw to cut it out.  As I was sawing through it I noticed some green, it was till alive!  Thinking I must have picked the wrong trunk I went to the one next to it.  This time I checked to make sure it was dead.  I peeled back the bark to look for green, scraped it and didn't see any so I cut it out.  Turns out there was green and a lot of new growth attached to it. Now out favorite grapes is gone!😭
Here's what I learned.  Old canes look dead and they reach a point where they don't produce new growth, that's why we prune back so severely.  I didn't realize that I wasn't pruning back enough and the old, dead trunk, wasn't dead, it was relying on canes further up to produce new growth and it was so high it looked like there was no new growth.  So if you think you need to cut out a grape, start at the top and prune back first, you will probably find that it's still alive.
Once I saw my mistake I cut some canes to root and replant.  At least grapes root easily.

   On to more good news.  As I was pruning my black berries I noticed that they had grown TALL and flopped over to root themselves in new places.  Some I left there and some I moved out of the walk way to replant in the back yard.  I planted 6 in the back yard and have three new ones in the front yard.  If I had realized what they were doing I would not have stopped them last summer, I would have encouraged it.  I saw them flopping over and burrowing down in, but I kept pulling them up, thinking the difference in the look was because they were rotting in the ground, not rooting! Happy dance for more berry bushes!!!

I'd like to pretend that I've been flying under the radar while working quietly on a huge reveal or a big surprise, but the evidence speaks against me. 😅  The truth is that this summer was rough and I got very little done.

Once school started and we fell into our favorite rhythm of being home and doing school I found myself with more time and energy.  Homeschool is so restful for me, I love it so much.  I'm taking advantage of the fall to try and get in some last minute work.  During our Sabbath week I worked out in the garden almost 6 hours a day.  I pulled up all of my sunchokes and moved them, put up the frame for the girl's grape house, planted the last of the trees, we now have 25, and I'm only waiting for one more to come in the Spring.  Elizabeth helped me put in a flower bed I've been wanting for years and I finally finished my plan and got it all mapped out.  It's not exactly to scale, but it will give you an idea of what the finished product will look like.

I've been stuck on guilds.  I'm not sure where to start or how to start.  My trees are all very small right now, so if I plant on the drip line then I will have to move things every few years and I don't want to do that, but I also don't want to plant things out in the space that will eventually be the drip line 6 feet away.  I went with a few friends to tour an established permacultures yard in the hopes of getting some tips.  I got TONS of tips and inspiration as well.  I decided to make my guilds themed because that will give me an idea of what to plant and also make it more fun when people come over. So far we have guild plans for a cut flower garden, a tea garden, a kitchen herb garden, a medicinal garden, a chicken garden, three sisters gardens, and a vegetable garden.  Does the pumpkin patch count as a guild?  Since many of the plants we want fit into more than one guild we will have a lot of repeats and I like that because if a plant, like rosemary, doesn't thrive in one spot, it is likely to thrive in another.   I think I'm the most excited for the chicken garden.  It will be filled with food for them to eat, and us of course, and herbs to help them stay healthy and mite free.  It will be back by the chicken run so that it will be easy to give them their food.

The grape house is the first thing we are building to add a bit of magic to the yard.  Elizabeth and Abigail really wanted a sunflower house, which didn't work last year, but we will try again.  The grape house is the compromise because I can't plant something soft and green under the grape harbor.  There will be a small creek that runs through the grapes soon and they won't be able to lay under there and read.  So we put up the grape house, marked our favorite red table grapes and this year when I prune I will propagate the red grapes and plant them around their grape house.  We will put a bench in there and plant something soft and green, like microclover that they can lay on to read in the shade. There is even a space for a window.  They also want to line the path with flowers.

I Still have so much to do, but I feel like I am close.  Now that I have all of the trees in and the paths marked out I can start laying down plans for planting.  I am going to plant some of the flowers and herbs in the fall, they know when it is the right time to grow, I don't know why I wait until I think it's the right time.  The wild sunflowers were a foot tall before it was the "right time" according to the package.  I am really looking forward to starting the guilds, now that I have a plan for them, and I am also very excited that I will have a vegetable garden with fresh tomatoes and carrots, green beans, and kale.  Here's to hoping we have another fantastic, wet winter, and hoping the time passes quickly so I can get out there and plant!

Rough summer

I realize it hasn't been that long since my last update, but it feels so long ago.  This has been a really rough summer and I have spent most of it sick.  I have a chronic illness and it's been kicking my butt.  Yesterday I was full of energy and I did great and then in the evening it hit me and I needed help to bed.  Today I have had to spend most of the day resting.  It's all so frustrating, I have so many plans and things I want to do and I find myself unable to do most of it.  The weeds in the back yard are totally out of control.  We were going to hire someone, but I decided not to because I'd rather save that money to buy more food to plant.  I bought 4 dwarf trees, two apples that are supposed to be really great for storage and two donut peaches because they just looked so fun!  It's gotten too hot and dry to plant anything without worrying it will die so I am saving my plant budget to spend all at once in October when it cools down and I'll be able to keep things alive.  I've also decided that fall is the best time to plant so the seeds have all winter to soften and begin to pen.  They will grow when they are ready and do better than the ones I plant later in the year.  A prime example is the sunflowers.  On the seed packet it says not to plant until the threat of frost is past, for us, that's May 15 so I kept telling my girls not to plant.  It was silly, though, because the sunflowers the birds planted had already come up and they were fine.  Now my girls' sunflowers are almost knee high while the self seeded sunflowers are 8 feet tall!

 

Let me tell you about some other really fun things going on in my yard.  My elderberry bush exploded with growth this year!  It's probably twice the size it was in the Spring and the flowers are HUGE!  They are stunning, don't you think?  I planted a second one, since elderberries need two for pollination, and I'm excited to watch the new tiny one grow.  It might be 2-3 years before I get elderberries, but that's ok.  Gardening is teaching me to be patient.    

My Globe willow is looking a bit like a bush, it has put on so much new growth this year.  I will need to prune it, but I'll wait until fall so that it can get the maximum amount of energy from all those leaves.  Can you see how big the sunflowers behind it are?  Those are over my head!  They were all either self seeded or helped out by the birds.  They are shading the honey berry and forsythia bushes I planted in May and they are very happy about the shade.  One little honey berry is without shade and it's kind of struggling and needs a little more TLC.

I found a cicada!  I've heard them across the street, but this one sounded closer and sure enough, here he is!

My grapes are also putting on a show.  We are going to have a massive amount of grapes this year!  Only half of the tunnel is full, but I planted the last few vines to fill it in and it should be completely filled in my next year.  My girls really want me to plant something soft and green for them to lay on, I'm thinking micro clover. Of course, that means I have to figure out how to reroute the stream we were going to have run under the grape arch starting next year.  Clover doesn't always handle foot traffic well though and we walk under the arch a lot, so they may be better off with soft green things under a shade tree or in their sunflower house.  I am determined that one will work.  If we had planted the seeds last year and they were 8 feet tall now they would be in heaven.

At this point I'm back in the planning stage.  Since it's too hot to plant I'm just dreaming.   We have decided where to put the last 4 fruit trees we want.  We want two more cherry, an apricot and a plum.  That will put the total number of trees on our little quarter acre food forest at 21...if the fig survives.  If not I'll buy another tree to put there.  Abigail wants a cut flower garden so that she can make bouquets all year long, Glen wants a tea garden so he can make his own herbal tea mixtures, John wants more berry bushes back by the sunchockes, and I want more asparagus.  I also want a specific area for tomatoes and green beans because I want to plant a bunch of those next year in a vegetable garden.  Some things I can just put wherever there is space, like pumpkins and corn, but for anything that needs to be harvested frequently, like green beans, tomatoes, or zucchini, I want it close.

Cross your fingers that I can get everything planted this year so we can do our grey water system next year.

It's done! Sort of. 😅

As I sit here typing I am listening to the sound of thunder and rain, and the slow breathing of a sick little girl.  There is so much peace in that.  I need to remember to slow down more often and feel the peace I find in the life I chose.  I let myself get too busy doing all the things that I lose sight of what I really want, to be with my kids and my plants.  

This update was supposed to come weeks ago, but the planting party I planned was rained out and some health challenges have forced me to slow down.  I've finally finished the front yard though!  Sort of.  I have the frame work down and while I will be adding more it will be more slowly.  I do want to add more flowers, of course.  As the tree guilds grow I will add plants as needed.

My bottom berm has garlic, raspberries, and black berries.  I want to add some flowers to it. In the back is a fruit tree with flowers planted underneath.

Here we have two more fruit trees and between them a willow tree.  Under the fruit trees I have flowers, mint, and horehound planted.  The horehound isn't happy, but I'm hoping it will pull through.  I have tried twice to seed clover, but the birds keep eating the seeds.  I'll have to start a bunch inside and then move it outside.

My top berm has a profusion of sunflowers re-seeded, with the help of birds, from last years sunflowers.  I also planted 4 honey berry bushes, and two forsythia bushes.  I would like to add some herbs and low growing flowers in between the bushes.  You can't see it, but my rose bush is very happy.  I have some rose buds getting ready to bloom.  Under the rose bush I have creeping mint, lupine, nasturtium, and strawberry mint. Along the wall of the house I have a sage bush, three lilacs, one full sized and two dwarf boomerangs, and two mountain bluebeard bushes.

As you can tell, there is still a lot of open space that I need to plant, but a lot of that will be taken up as the trees grow because the guilds will grow with them.  I'll add a little more here and there, but for now It's time to move to the back and get started there.  I have four more dwarf fruit trees on the way and I'm going to the nursery this week to buy four semi dwarf.  Our goal is to plant every available space with food and flowers.

I'm back!

     It's finally Spring in Utah!  This has been a crazy winter and a crazy Spring.  We got so much snow over the winter that some areas are flooding.  Reservoirs are filling up quickly though and that's very good news.  We are also having a very wet Spring with a lot of rain.  I have not had to water anything more than 2-3 times, even direct sow seeds that need to stay moist. 
     The wood chips are doing their duty!  As you can see they are not completely keeping out the weeds, especially where we forgot to overlap, like this nice line here.  You can see how the carboard and wood chips have helped immensely though, otherwise my whole property would look like that line. Yikes!  In addition to discouraging weeds the wood chips are also holding in the moisture and have already begun to make a difference in the soil.  It's darker and breaks apart easier than ever!  I have pulled up mallow and dandelion and gotten all of the roots. The wood chips are fantastic! 
     We have finally finished planning our plan.  Maybe it was crazy to start without a plan, but it was starting that allowed us to create a plan.  The way I figure it, we are in year three of five in our permaculture plan. 

     Year one was digging swales and creating berms.  If I could go back the only thing I would change about that year is wedding and planting those berms ASAP.  They haven't eroded, but the ones I DID plant don't have nearly as many weeds as the ones that were left bare for two years.  That being said, I'm not sure I understood enough about guilds and what I wanted to be able to plant them well yet.
     Year two was laying down cardboard and woodchips.  We got two pallets of cardboard at the local super market.  By pallet I mean hundreds of pounds of boxes bound together with metal ties.  They had to lift it onto our trailer with a forklift.  It was a gamble because many of the boxes weren't the best and some were tiny candy bar boxes good for very little, but it gave us enough to finish  almost our entire yard.  The cardboard has helped immediately to keep down the weeds.  I know it isn't a perfect solution, nor is it permanent, but I think it will do until things are growing well.
     So here we are in year three.  This is the fun year.  The year I get to go hog wild and buy more plants than I ever thought I would and then plant them!  This is the year of designing and planting.  Just today I went out and bought enough plants to almost entirely finish all of the guilds, berms, and planting beds in the front yard.  I wanted to start there because it's smaller than the back and so that people driving by can stop asking what the crazy wood chip people are doing.  We bought a trailer full of good soil that we are putting right on top of the wood chips in a thick layer to create planting beds and provide good soil for what we plant.  That way the cardboard will still help to keep down the weeds and the wood chips will help to provide water as they soak it up, kind of like a hügelkultur.  As they break down they will help create great soil underneath as well.  In each guild and bed I am making sure to have a nitrogen fixer, a ground cover, a smelly herb to keep away bugs, a miner to bring up nutrients from deep below, and a Spring, Summer, and Fall bloomer for the bees.  I'm not super creative with designing so I've enlisted the help of some fellow plant addicts to help design and pick plants.  I want to make plant markers for everything so that when I give people tours and walk throughs they can identify plants, like you would at a botanical garden.  I always love those little signs.
     Year four is going to be our water year.  We will be setting up our grey water system, planting a marshy area to help filter the water, digging a creek, two ponds, and creating a small waterfall.  I am very excited for that next year, but there are still some problems we need to figure out.  I am just so stinking excited for the marsh, creek, waterfall and ponds!  I am going to need a couple of tiny bridges and I want a bench right by the waterfall.  That waterfall will be tiny, but if I can make it happen it will also be a bit of magic in my little corner of heaven.
     Year five will be watching everything grow, filling in gaps or fixing problems, paving paths with stones and groundcover, and making signs, painted rocks, and other little touches to make our garden magical.  I might make a few signs for the front yard this year.  I really want to make it look nice.  
     Tuesday I am having some fellow permies over to help plant the front yard, so stay tuned for an update!

Autumn is here

    Autumn is here in full force.  We actually got our first snow a week ago, just a few days after that adorable picture of the kids playing in the park.  That's how Utah is.  That day was nice, then snow, and now it's nice again.  The snow made the the netting roof of the chicken run collapse, but they hated the snow and didn't try to escape.  Now that it's nice they are hopping the fence to eat everything.  It guess it's ok though, all the plants are done for the year and will come back in the Spring.  The only bad thing about it is that our new puppy who is four months old likes to chase and chew on our while leghorn, Angel.  So far she hasn't been hurt, so I think he is just trying to play.  Still, we can't have a chicken eater so he needs to learn not to chew on the chickens.

        I don't plan to write again for awhile. Winter is for garden dreams, not garden work.  My girls and I are planning a sunflower house they can use for their secret hideout with friends.  They helped me harvest sunflower seeds.  I don't know why, but most of the seeds from our mammoth sunflower were empty, no seed in the shell!  It could have been drought, poor pollination, or poor nitrogen in the soil.  It put a wrench in my daughters plans to make millions selling sunflower seeds at the local market. :'D

        I love autumn.  The harvest.  Winding down for the season, like the Earth needs a rest as much as I do.  Preserving the harvest, mine and what others give me, knowing I'll use it.  This week my kids and I spent all day Thursday bottling apple sauce.  We got 17 bottles of applesauce, plus two bottles of grape juice, 4 bottles of peppers pickled and one bottle of beets pickled.  I'm disappointed I didn't get any peaches this year.  I just can't wait until my peach trees are big enough to give me a good harvest to preserve.  I can never get enough peaches!

        I hope you have a lovely winter. I'll see you in the Spring!