The years of effort, waiting, work, waiting, sweat, labour, waiting, inputs, waiting, are, if the weather cooperates, going to result in some reasonable quantity of fruit this harvest season. A survey of the main orchard found at least 51 apple trees with fruit blossoms. Several varieties and all three root stock types (bud9, m111 and antonovka) have fruit buds. Last year, for comparison, we could count on one hand the number of trees with fruit buds, and we harvested all of 6 apples. Some of the older trees in the nursery bed, aka the Strawberry Patch orchard, also have fruit buds, for the second year. Those trees produced a few hundred Hewe’s Virginia Crab apples.
Category Archives: 63rd Street Farm
312 apples grafted, and counting!
We’ve got 200+ trees grafted for 63rd Street Farm, to be planted out later this month. Also, a few for giveaways, and maybe 50 Malus sieversii grafted from scions received from USDA in Geneva, NY. There are about 15 Antonovka rootstocks left to graft … most of these will be grafted with Malus sieversii.
2016 grafted apples.
Are you interested in a Malus sieversii tree for Spring 2017? Let us know if so!
The Andrus Orchard is ripped and disked
63rd Street Farm has ripped and disked between the rows of the orchard on the City of Boulder OSMP Andrus property. The property was used to produce hay for many years, and the soil is fairly compacted. This ripping and disking will disrupt the dense roots of the hay grass, loosen the soil and improve moisture penetration/retention. It will also ease the planting and growing of the cover crop, which we are still discussing. The ripping/disking is cross slope, so surface water moving downhill will be captured and move into the soil. The flags in the image indicate tree locations. Photo taken looking WWS.
Grafting has begun …
We’ve started grafting some of the 200+ trees for the 63rd Street Farm orchard, to be located on the City of Boulder’s Andrus open space property just across the road from 63rd Street Farm. We planted out 50 Antonovka rootstocks at the farm last year in a nursery bed, and a few stray M-111s at home, and are starting to dig them up and bench graft them. First up: Golden Russet.
After grafting, our trees are ‘heeled in’ and covered with most sand or soil, in the shade of the north side of a building, to await healing over of the graft junction between scion and rootstock. It’s still early to be grafting, and we will probably need to protect these trees from freezes. Apple grafts heal well at 40-50 F, but severe cold would likely ruin them.
There are symptoms of an early spring out there (70°F today), and buds on some of the scion wood cut from around town are starting to swell. Not to say we won’t still have some tough winter conditions, but it’s better to graft, heel in, and protect the small trees than it is to try and graft with scionwood that is emerging from dormancy.