Someday, when I create a farm calendar, the months will be: January, February, March, Apple, May, etc…and happily, as of today, bench grafting of apples (and some minor amounts of other fruit trees) is complete. Below you will find Elsie’s photo tutorial of how to make a whip-and-tongue graft. First, you practice by making hundreds of slices to hundreds of scrap twigs until you can produce the perfectly angled, oriented, and flattened cut with a single-bevel grafting knife.
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| Then you make these cuts on two identical thickness pieces of wood: one side is the rootstock, which is a baby tree that you’ve lopped off about eight inches tall, and the other is the scion wood, a two-inch section of a young branch from a desirable variety. That’s the “whip” part. |
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| Then you cut matching slits into each piece of wood, slits that go parallel to length of the scion and rootstock. You push them together, with their “tongues” interlocked. I guess you could say they’re French-kissing. |
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| Then you bind them together with parafilm grafting tape, and hope for the best! |
Our greenhouse is rocking out, and getting ready to have another similar-sized one constructed right next door. The spinach I was hoping to would supply our needs turned out to be a little too copious, and we’ve been selling it off the farm to much acclaim. You may have seen it if you’ve been shopping or eating at the Belfast Co-op, Fresh off the Farm, the Natural Living Center, or Shepherd’s Pie.
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| Yum |
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| Newly seeded alliums |
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| Alliums are up! |
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| Fresh new wood on the barn, now covered up with typar, awaiting new windows, trim, and cedar shingling. |
