Hello fellow members!
(1) I’ll start with a little introduction:
Our family has a hobby farm in south-central MN in growing zone 4B. One thing about “Maggies Farm” is we never did anything small. When we got chickens we got 500. When we got pheasants we ended up with 10,000. For many years our focus lay on poultry, but as the kids got older and the farm got quiet; our priorities changed to wildlife planting.
(2) The good the bad and the ugly:
We faced a constant battle of felling invasive trees and nuking bittersweet for several years. It was a battle that still to this day we feel like we are falling behind. One day I started on the edge of the property where some old unknown variety apple trees lay choked by invasive trees and bittersweet. The following year the crop was massive. I was more than impressed with the crop, as was the wildlife! My first introduction to the benefit of fruit trees for wildlife.
(3) The Planning:
After spending many hours researching trees, I stumbled upon grafting. An intimidating voyage for a novice grower (of anything). With some help I thought it was a voyage worth taking as the cost of yearly food plots was nothing to scoff about. Luckily, we still had our flight pen intact which would act as a nursery.
(4) The Fun Begins:
After spending hours (days?) researching varieties and soil types I made the best educated and stubborn guess on successful variety I could think of, as well as some recommendations from family! The scions came from Cummins, however, the B118 rootstocks came from Willamette.
These are the scions I ordered:
Blue Pearmain
Chestnut Crab
Empire
Gilpin
Golden Russet
Haralson
Honeycrisp
Hubbartdston Nonsuch
Liberty
Northland Crab
(5) Two Cuts, some Tape, and a Prayer:
In the middle of march we received our trees and were very eager to begin right away. The method my mom and I decided to use was bench grafting. A method to me that seemed friendly for novices such as myself. As we grafted the trees we almost rolled our eyes thinking that we were missing something important. Bing, bang, boom, and the trees were propagated to the best of our abilities and set to heal. Unfortunately I wouldn’t be present to palnt the trees in the flight pen for the summer. As summer work began I migrated to Alaska and said my prayer that weather and care would be enough to get a 50% survival rate.
(6) Rain, Clay, and a little LUCK:
Lone behold, would you believe it’s a lot of work? Maggie’s Farm experienced a lot of rain this year. Below our black dirt was clay in the flight pen. My negligence of testing the soil was biting me in the butt. Our trees were drowning and there was nothing I could do about it as I was 3,000 miles away. My parents did the best ability they could to give consistent watering and pruning to the best of their knowledge. The survival rate of grafts remained around 70% midsummer.
(7) The Return:
As the summer neared it’s end in Alaska the project back home lay restless. Originally, with the intention of leaving the trees in the ground over the winter I was excited to come check out our project! However, I didn’t realize the extent of stunted growth that had happened. We decided it was best to move them in the fall to a more suitable growing area. Time to read about deer protection.
(8) Blood, Sweat, and Cages:
Unfortunately most of our chickenwire and fence wasn’t reusable to our expectations. We bought 5 ft fencing, cut 6 foot sections and wrapped the bottom two feet with chicken wire as to prevent baby rabbits and mice from getting in. Luckily for us we had a bunch of t-posts leftover to use. The smaller cages were our short-term plan and as the trees are so small they’d provide adequate protection and in a couple years we could add a section to make it wider. I do intent to add another post or two in contingent on next years growth.
(9) The Trials of Transplant:
As I set the leftover posts in the marked locations I began to see the dream I thought of one year ago when ordering. Wildlife planting had been a priority in the past for us so we had some practice the past few years with around 800 pines, spruce, and wild plum trees. However, my obsession with success led me back to the forum. After hours of pounding stakes and pre-digging holes the trees were ready to be set. Two days later and I was happy with the work we had done!
Honeycrisp:
Harallson:
Golden Russet:
(10) The End if often the Beginning:
I’m amazed that in a short timeframe I could go from ordering trees for deer to ordering trees for us. We’ve added an additional 60 trees for next years order expanding Maggie’s Farm to peaches, pears, and more plums.
(11) A Special Thanks:
Without the help of this forum I would have never taken on this endeavor. So many of you helped me in this journey and will continue to without knowing! I hope you enjoyed the read! Would love some recommendations!