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.

Heeled-in apple bench grafts in the shade of the north side of the house.

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.