Grafting

Our apple trees are getting old and will not be with us many more years, so I have today tried a craft my father was very good at, grafting.

There is a lot of information on the internet including several very instructive videos that I have spent several hours studying. It is a long process starting mid-winter when it is time to cut the branches suitable for grafting. They must be selected very carefully from the kind of apple tree you would like to get apples from. In this case, it is a special kind of apple that grew where I was born and no one seems to know the proper name of. It is an apple that you can eat directly from the tree when ripe and tastes just fantastic. I have a few wild apple trees that I have selected as the mother trees.

You do not need at a lot of fancy equipment to do grafting. A sharp knife, a special kind of wax to cover the wound you have to make and some very strong and elastic tape to cover it all up so that the birds don't eat the wax.

I am happy and consider it a success if one out of four survives and will not be too disappointed if this year's attempt is not successful. Living is learning and learning is living !