Time of classes:

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9:00-5:00 Saturday and Sunday

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This year's fruit school will be divided into 4 sections over 2 days with a lunch break provided of homemade soup and bread with short breaks between sessions.

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Please arrive at least 15 minutes early to register for your first class and 5 minutes early in subsequent classes as they will start promptly at 9:00

 

THE CLASSES

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February 25th Saturday 9:00-12:00

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8:30- 9:00 (Coffee and tea)

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Orchard site analysis

and species selection- 

 

Get off on the left foot and the right brain with a different approach to observation, site planning, taking a good look at native and other hardy plants, and how to incorporate all this into an orchard design that will work best for you. This will be the foundational class for the series. Plus Planting, soil, and understory management: Starting from the ground up, we'll cover good soil health as a foundation to create healthy plants, food, and community.

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(Speaking of food) Lunch

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Afternoon 1:00-5:00

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Pruning I-

"Can you make the cut?"

New plantings to adolescent trees

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Mostly hands on pruning of younger trees so bring your pruners! We will cover establishing a young tree from planting to fruit bearing.

 

Pruning II- (If time allows) mature tree care

Follow up pruning of bearing trees and rejuvenation of mature trees.

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Saturday Night Scion and story Swap-

Details to be announced

 

Sunday February 26th 9:00- 12:00

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8:30- 9:00 (Coffee and tea)

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Propagation of plants

by seed, layer, rooting, and other people

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More on helping plants do what they want to do- propagate. Learning these skills are a key to affordably starting, growing and experimenting with plants. Heck, even learn to GMO your own plants and breed your needs! Every seed is a new variety that has never existed previously. We will discuss methods pioneered 140 years ago by plant pioneer Luther Burbank to develop new useful varieties of plants quickly and efficiently to better adapt to our sites, needs, and tastes.

 

(Speaking of tastes) Lunch

 

1:00- 5:00

Grafting and Cloning around

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Bench grafting

 

The whip and tongue graft is foundational and from there you can springboard into a vast world. In this class you will learn to build a tree with rootstock and scion* wood. The more comfortable you are with this technique ahead of time, the more quickly you will progress through the many advanced techniques in the succeeding class.

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Advanced Top work 

 

The "vast world" expands quickly, as well as, its advantages for you by learning to graft trees in "situ" (where they are already growing). We will cover bud grafting, as well as some of the more demanding grafts needed for hard to graft species like nuts. You will learn to the many benefits to top working, identify graftable trees growing in the woods or weeds, and choose the appropriate graft.

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* scion- a piece of first year wood from a desired variety of tree to be grafted on a desired rootstock