Today was the MOFGA webinar on grafting (specifically, apple trees) that I had been waiting for. The rootstock had arrived in the big carton that FedEx brought to Newton, and I brought the rest of the supplies which had come earlier. I went out and cut down several sticks of scionwood from the tree that Jim Leamon had told me was a Heritage tree; since I haven’t ever seen that listed among apple varieties, I think he just meant that it was some heirloom variety. At any rate, it’s not doing well, I liked its apples when it was producing well the first few years we were here, I don’t know how to buy another of the variety, so I want to propagate it. I also have scionwood from Fedco for six other heirloom varieties: King David, Esopus Spitzenberg, Gravenstein, Westfield Seek-No-Further, Spice Sweet, and Cox’s Orange Pippin. I admit, some of those I got just because I liked the names, but some are listed as “Explosion of flavor!” or “Best ever for pies” or something else that appealed to me. It’s the Spice Sweet and Gravenstein that are recommended for pies.
I did do six grafts by the end of the two-hour webinar.
We dug a hole for a hazel bush up in the area where I’m planting hazels. There are four there, two each two and three years old, and we had previously dug two holes for more. I ordered five from Fedco this year to stay on track with a two per year planting plan — last year I had ordered and paid for two, but couldn’t get them because of the pandemic, and Fedco has a “buy 4 at regular price, get a fifth for 25%” deal on them.
We went up to Oxford and bought several flats of pansies at Smedberg’s, as well as two bags of container garden soil and three of compost, then to Ocean State. We lugged the compost up to the hazel area, and by the time we were finished my pedometer app said I had logged 7700 steps for the day.