Peach Bud Grafting

Phil did a dump run Tuesday. He filled the truck, but was only able to fit the building debris: trimmings of insulation, packaging materials and such. We'll do another dump run soon. It is good to clean up the property.

I transplanted comfrey on Tuesday. I dug up more large roots and transplanted them into the orchard. All 101 spots are now filled, and hopefully they will all grow well. I tried planting an extra one, but the ground in the orchard was hard and rocky enough, I think I'll wait until Phil can help me with the backhoe before attempting to expand the orchard planting.

Phil and Isaiah went to do laundry today. That's always a heavy task.

I suddenly remembered this afternoon that I needed to try grafting the peach trees today. I haven't actually seen the peaches since about April. I gave up weeding them almost immediately: they were so small, it was challenging to spot them, and the spacing was off from the apple orchard. So though it's fenced off from the dogs, it's been virtually abandoned.

With their teeny diameter and complete neglect, I expected to find maybe 30 of the 60 struggling along, barely alive.

One by one I uncovered six plants in the first row. The spacing wasn't very regular, and I couldn't remember how many were in each row: I figured that was six living and four dead.

In the second row I uncovered six more. And the third row. And they were all in line with one another.

Did I really lose not a single tiny tree? It was almost beyond belief.

Bud grafting peaches was not as simple as the apple trees. Smaller trees and smaller buds meant that I needed fine motor skills par excellence. And I had a niggling suspicion that I had heard somewhere that peach trees were a bit different from apples, that their buds are different. Finally I found the tidbit I was looking for: a single bud is a leaf bud, but two or three buds are flower buds. Don't graft flower buds.

I kept weeding the patch and the sun kept setting. Some of the trees were very challenging to spot. After seven rows, I made duck stir fry for dinner. Then back, in the dusk, to finish the final three rows. The dark came fast, but I finished.

Done on a fruit day, during the period of the waxing moon, during the warm days of August (though mid-August would have been better, perhaps): somehow I managed to hit the timing exactly right.

In the end, there were two trees that had died back on the top, so only two inches were growing. I grafted them anyway: maybe they'll take. And one tree was just gone. Ninety-eight percent of the trees yet living.

That almost makes me cry: have we had 98% survival of anything?

And in this case, when the trees survived without any input, it is just a gift.