265. It's grafting season . . .

March means it's grafting season. So, every few days I take a few scions (6 inches or so of last year's growth, pencil-shaped) out of the fridge, march down to the tree nursery, dig up a few rootstocks and then ensconce myself in the shed.

Only a little swearing and blood-loss later, I march back up to the house with my whip-and-tongue grafted new trees to do a little waxing on their exposed areas. The grafting wax is in the pan and gets painted on with a small brush. See video:-


Then it's back down (marching of course) to the tree nursery to plant them.

This year I tried a new experiment on rootstocks; last March I simply stuck in the ground any unused top ends of rootstocks (which I cut off to graft them). I was told that 50% would start rooting. And so far, that has been the case. See photo below for example:-


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