Upcoming workshops
Looking to the Internet and books to learn hands-on skills can be overwhelming! Here are some upcoming in-person opportunities to learn from me. I love teaching in-person workshops - relaying information and techniques is so much more effective, and they are a great way to meet new people and build community.
In addition to what is posted below, I'll be posting other workshops for later in the year, mostly on pruning and grafting.
Saturday February 15, 1-4 pm, at Ignatius Farm's Community Orchard: Winter Pruning and Fruit Tree Care. Hands-on opportunity to learn pruning techniques and strategies, and a presentation on how pruning affects tree health and productivity, ideal branch structure, holistic pest management, and more. Free to attend. Note: This workshop has reached capacity. If you're still interested, go ahead and register via the link, and if there is enough interest we will hold a second workshop at Ignatius.
Wednesday March 12, 1-4 pm, at the University of Guelph Arboretum: Restoring Fruit Trees. Have a fruit tree in your life that you'd like to care for? With a focus on restoring older fruit trees, this hands-on workshop will use several apple trees at The Arboretum to demonstrate how to prune strategies, how to train new trees for early productivity, and how pruning integrates with other elements of fruit tree care. $65 early bird before March 4, $75 after.
Saturday March 22, 10-11 am, at Guelph Seedy Saturday: Best Practices for the Home Orchard. This workshop will address ideal species and varieties of fruit, nuts, and berries, tips on spacing, siting, rootstocks, pollination, branch training, and more. Free to attend, part of the larger Seedy Saturday event (fun fact: I helped organize Guelph's first Seedy Saturday in 2008!).
For example:
A bud of a chosen variety is spliced onto rootstock.
The bud is sealed with a special tape and an elastic to hold it in place and allow for cellular fusion.
Next spring, the bud leafs out and grows up into a new tree.
Varietes available for custom order:
Apple: Sabina, Gold Rush, Roxbury Russet, Florina, Akane, Mutsu, Cortland, Empire, Tangowine, Patten Greening, Macoun, Jonagold, Milwaukee, Liberty.
Plum: Mt. Royal, Shiro, Burbank, Toka, Brookgold, Damson, Italian
Peach: Harrow Diamond, Reliance, Frost
Sour cherry: Evans
Sweet cherry: Windsor
An example of topworking:
Here a damaged pear tree was cut to below the damage, and two new pear scions are grafted; the one that grows the best will be selected as the new tree.
Two months after grafting, the scion's top bud has put on 2' of growth. It is well on its way to becoming a new tree.