What did you do in your orchard today?

[JanetMarie]

Picked peaches! Enough to put some in the freezer. First year for them. Contender is the variety.

 

[CrealCritter]

Picked peaches! Enough to put some in the freezer. First year for them. Contender is the variety.

Nice

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

IDK... What you all think? Leave or cut off?

This peach tree was whip and tongue grafted. I can see the outline of the graft. The suckers are growing below the graft, so potentially free root stock. If they continue to grow, if survive the winter, if some small animal doesn't find them tasty and if I can successfully air layer them next year. That's a lot of if's

I'm seriously considering taking some horticulture classes.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[Trying2keepitReal]

I would leave them, what can it hurt right?

 

[CrealCritter]

Picked pears with my grand daughters. They picked their own "way up high" with the fruit basket. But they are at school right now, You need to be quiet and pay attention to the teacher while at school.

Pawpaw don't you ever eat peary. I said when you get home, you don't want to leave peary out on the counter or your dad might eat it.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Can you gently bend the suckers out to the side a little farther away from the trunk and then feed them through the bottom of a pot? Fill the pot with dirt with some rooting hormone but leaving the top of the sucker sticking out, and add more dirt as it gets taller? Then in spring before the leaves start, check to see if it has grown roots in the pot. If yes, you should be able to cut the sucker off at the bottom of the pot and it will be a separate plant, to put into a bigger pot or plant in the ground elsewhere.

 

[CrealCritter]

Peach trees have a different pruning schedule. Peaches develop on 1 year old wood and are pruned in the spring, timing is very important. Here is a good guide on peach tree pruning.

How to Prune Peach Trees

Mature peach trees need to be pruned every year to keep them healthy, productive, and easy to harvest. Find out when and how to prune a peach tree.

www.thespruce.com

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

What fun grafting apple trees, I enjoyed myself. It's some delicate work with razor sharp stainless budding knife.

First select a branch this year's branch and cut it off where it meets the main trunk or main branch. It helps if it's about the same diameter as the root stock you're grafting. Then trim off the leaves but leave the leaf stems. Now you have what is known as a bud stick.

Potted rootstock and bud stick

Next select a good bud to cut for the chip. Take budding knife and cut across the bottom of the bud the cut the bud loose from the bud stick by gently slicing top to the bottom of the first cut.

Good bud pictured and the cut chip.

Next do the same cuts on the rootstock, to match the chip cut from the bud stick.

You know you did a good job when the chip sticks to the root stock all by itself.

Next wrap with parfilm to secure the chip to the rootstock cut and snip off the leaf stem.

Pretty cool I had fun. I chip grafted a granny Smith, red delicious, golden delicious and an unidentified apple from the original orchard.

Plus I did a "fruit cocktail" 4 grafts, plus the crab apple produced by the root stock just for fun.

We'll see in a couple of weeks if the grafts took or not.

I believe I'll go try and T-Bud graft a peach tree next. That is if the bark will slip it might be to late in the afternoon now.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

T-Budding the bark on this peach sapling is pretty thick. But with the nice rains we had last night and the cooler temperature the bark slipped (peeled away easy from the sap wood). This is a lot quicker and easier than chip budding but kind of the same. Cut a T in the bark with the budding knife down to the sap wood. Then use the brass non sharp bark seperator to gently peel back the top of bark to expose the camban layer (green). Then cut a chip from the bud stick same as for chip budding. Slide the chip into the T top to bottom and wrap with parfilm. Easy peasy.

Three T bud grafts about knee high

Wrapped with parfilm

Budding knife it's a good one with razor sharp stainless steel blade and brass bark seperator.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[CrealCritter]

I looked at all my grafts I did yesterday, the leaf stems are still green. I hope that's a good sign. I didn't remove the parfilm, it's biodegradable so there's no need to mess with it. I plan on giving the potted root stock a little fertilizer, since there potted and it's up to me to care for them.

I've posted a link to this video before. But If late summer grafting fruit trees interests you then this is a really good video to watch and learn from.

Jesus is Lord and Christ