[Sca-cooks] A trick for growing period apples & note for person who has healthy tree but not preferred variety

[Sharon Gordon]

One neat thing about apples is that you can graft many different kinds on to
the same tree.  A three year old tree has room for about 5 different grafts.
Over time you could have 40+ different kinds on the same tree.  It's really
neat when it blooms as the flowers look different on various branches and
then again as the fruit ripens.  An advantage is that the fruit can ripen
over several months instead of all at once.

For the person who was thinking of cutting down some healthy neglected old
trees and planting period ones instead.  Please don't!  ...For two
reasons...
1) One is that a healthy old neglected tree is a good source of grafting
stock for other people who would like to grow organic apples.

2) The other is that you can remove grafting stock for others and then graft
on period scion wood for yourself.
You will then usually have some apples from that new graft the very next
year rather than having to wait 3-5 for a new tree to grow up and produce.

Most local extension services will have a spring saturday morning grafting
workshop if you would like to learn how.  It's not hard, and you can also
learn from drawings in books.  If you live within driving distance of
Decorah, Iowa there is an apple orchard with several hundred heirloom apple
varieties and a couple hundred heirloom grapes.  You can arrange to get
scion wood from them.
It's at the Seed Savers Exchange farm.  If you can go
the 3rd(or so) weekend in July for their big meeting, you can also  meet the
guy who is researching heirloom apples and has a huge database of
information on old varieties of apples.  I think it's at 8,000+ varieties
now.

Sharon
gordonse at one.net