“One has less than a half inch between leaf nodes, another almost 2.”
I wonder if the seedling with narrow spacing might be a natural dwarf? Might be a good candidate for a rootstock.
“One has less than a half inch between leaf nodes, another almost 2.”
I wonder if the seedling with narrow spacing might be a natural dwarf? Might be a good candidate for a rootstock.
Yeah, I’m hoping they’ll sprout next year, if they don’t sprout this year. Or at least the year after that, if they don’t sprout next year! ![]()
I thiiiiiiiiink I know what I did wrong. I figured I’d plant winter crops in with the stratifying seeds, so the bed would be doing something over the winter, and there’d be mulch already in place in late spring. I put in winter wheat, peas, and blue mustard. I figured they’d make a nice polyculture. However, only the wheat came up, even though peas and blue mustard usually do great for me. This made me highly suspicious, so I checked online, and . . . yyyyyyyyep! Wheat has allelopathic properties! ![]()
So the wheat is probably to blame for why none of the tree seeds have sprouted. I really should have thought to double check, but . . . sometimes you learn lessons the hard way! ![]()
So . . . next time, I should clearly just put peas and blue mustard (and common mallow, and lettuce, and mache, and whatever other winter crops I want to grow at the moment) into the bed with the stratifying seeds. Winter wheat did great for me this year, so it’s clearly climate suitable, but if it’s gonna be a jerk to all the other plants around it, it won’t work in a polyculture, so it’ll have to go somewhere all on its own.
I think that has some correlation if I’m not mistaken. I’m excited to follow it the next few years to find out.
My seed grown apricot orchard started about ten years ago. I planted 3 sibling groups. One sibling group died entirely for lack of winter hardiness. One group produces really nice fruit. 11 trees remain of about 33 planted. One group grows reliably, but produces fruit I don’t like much. I graft other varieties on to them, including apricot and plum.
The second generation enters its second summer.
My seed grown plums grow well this year. It might take another year to three for them to flower.
Wow, those are gorgeous! ![]()
Grafting varieties you like onto seedlings with fruit you don’t like is a smart idea. Seed-grown rootstocks are bound to be climate-suitable, and I assume having scions you like making fruit for you means they give you more seeds to plant that are likely to make tasty fruits. ![]()