Springtime is here. It’s a sweet and fleeting time here in California – green growth tumescing all around us, succulent weeds growing tall. Really a great time to lie listlessly on a meadow or, alternatively, to tear one up and make it into a garden. My front yard is now ready to be fecund.
Another great thing about spring is that you get to see your grafts popping out.
Lapin cherry
"Red Ace" plum is popping out of this cleft grafted wild plum rootstock
whip grafts on wild plum rootstock
Inca plum on wild plum rootstock
In case you are curious, these vigorous wild plums grow like weeds all over the Bay Area. They can be found in ruderal interstices as well as seemingly very natural environments surrounded by oaks and bays (I imagine birds drop their seed all over). They work very well as a rootstock for all kind of selected plum cultivars, as well as apricot (I believe).
Grafting isn’t that hard — you just mash two pieces of wood together and wrap them in parafilm tape. The wound heals and sap flows from the stock to the scion. People are already starting to graft onto ‘fruitless’ ornamental street trees (like ornamental plums or pears). In the future we’ll probably just cut these trees down and topwork them with an abundant variety we know and like. It’s a lot quicker than planting a new tree because of the massive, already existing root system. So yeah, learn to graft, it’s a fun and free way to get food.
May 3, 2010 at 2:12 am |
Hey nice. I haven’t checked this site in a while. I should learn grafting. It looks pretty simple. I imagine disease is probably the biggest concern; that or getting suckers from the rootstock. Seems like that would especially happen with your method where you cut the native down to the base, then graft from there. If you graft in the winter how does it fuse together? Seems like it would just be an invite for contams until spring came.
Can you help me set up a laundry greywater system at my parents’ this summer. I’m re-doing part of the front of the house. The two mature loquats are staying, but I pulled a bunch of ornamental weeds out. I’m thinking: Moringa, Bananas, Katuk (still need to find a good source for that), Babaco papaya, Butia capitata, malabar spinach, chayote, air potato (is that really edible?) and maybe a guava if there’s room. The laundry greywater system can empty out into a mulch bed surrounded by a banana circle. A lot of it would just be home-grown plants.
I have a bunch of nursery stock at home under the orange tree. Not sure how it’s doing, but I hear your tipus are doing really good.
March 19, 2011 at 10:48 pm |
You probably already know about the California Rare Fruit Grower’s Association. If you don’t, check out
crfg.org
Especially, check out the scion exchange:
http://www.crfg.org/chapters/golden_gate/what_is_a_scion_exchange.htm
It’s a great way to get ahold of budwood for new varieties.