If all goes well, we’ll have 9 new fruit trees for the coming year to add to the orchard/food forest. After an endless summer of RIDICULOUS heat and verging on drought, the main thing that was learned is that those northern heirloom apples might hate life (and might benefit from some shade), but the southern heirloom apples are trucking along. We’re in the mountains of NC, around 2300 ft, so we’re cooler than the piedmont and lower elevations, but not as cool as the higher elevations, such as Boone. Did I mention this summer was brutal? So we’re looking at focusing on the southern and heat tolerant heirlooms. As usual, V is pretty obsessed with the rootstock, and is currently excited about G. 969. We bought him a grafting tool, since that’s the direction his life appears to be heading in.
What we have requested:
Apple - Blacktwig on M111
Apple - Grimes Golden on M111
Apple - Horse on M111
Apple - Keener Seedling on M111
Apple - Black Limbertwig on M111
Apple - Red Rebel on M111
Apple - Sops of Wine on M111
Apple - Williams Pride on G.890
Pear - Magness on OHxF87
M111 is a BIG rootstock it will make BIG trees. It’s not one that I’d particularly prefer, but OTOH the trees will be vigorous, which will mean that there will be plenty of future scion material. He also ordered 250 rootstocks for grafting. We’ll see what everyone actually has in stock though - most of this list comes from Century Farm Orchards, the last two come from Cummins Nursery. Fingers crossed!
We might be running out of room. We’ve planted all the easy to plant areas, and are heading into the lower section which is deep into our frost pocket, rocky soil, and far from hoses. We’re trying to keep our woods as intact as possible.
