I ordered 10 seeds of most of the ones I ordered, and 5 each of Lady Williams and Pink Parfait. I planted them all – about 100 seeds total – in an area of about 4 feet by 10 feet. Seeds were spaced roughly about two to three inches apart, in rows roughly about a foot apart.
Too close? Yep, probably! But see, I figure this gives me the opportunity to see which ones thrive best among competition. Those are the ones that should have the deepest roots, and that’s something that’s really important to me. (Since we have arid summers.)
I’m thinking I’ll probably lose a few in each row to bugs eating the seedlings, and I’ll probably lose a few more to the seedlings not being well-suited for my hot, dry summers. So by the end of this year, I’ll probably have about 2-3 seedlings in each row. Those survivors will get the privilege of our nice, easy winters (for apple trees) – zone 7, with lots of water. I expect them to all survive the winter (and if any of them die, they’ll be ridiculous divas that I’m glad to be rid of).
So next year, I will probably have about 30 or so one-year-old whips planted roughly a foot apart in that space. That’s still close, but not bad. They can live that way quite comfortably for a few years. Around the time they start needing more space, I will hopefully have fruit from most of them, and be able to evaluate which should stay and which should go.
As for grafting them, I have a specific plan. I want to keep their central leaders intact (for reasons I’ll explain below), so it seems to me that the ideal way to do that is to start training them the way Steven Edholm (Skillcult) recommends . . . which involves removing buds in places where you don’t want branches.
If I remove those buds carefully, I can use them for bud-grafting that seedling’s genetics onto an older tree! And the seedling will have been disturbed very little.
When their central leaders get taller than I can reach standing on the ground, my plan is to bend the tip of the central leader over to become a new fruiting branch, rather than cutting it off.
Here’s why I think that’s a good idea. Stefan Sobkowiak (Permaculture Orchard) says in one of his YouTube videos that a tree that keeps being pruned is a tree that thinks it needs to put extra energy into growing new wood. The more you prune a tree, the more vigorously it’ll grow back. If, however, it feels comfortable and secure with the wood it has already, it’s more likely to focus most of its energy on reproduction. This leads to it staying smaller and needing less pruning, fruiting more productively, and possibly even fruiting more quickly.
Will this work? I don’t know, but I’d like to find out! I’m hoping to test the hypothesis with my seedlings.
). An apple that tastes like it already has dessert spices mixed in would be neat. A perfectly crisp, juicy strawberry-flavored apple would rock. Basically if it’s a flavor I like, I’ll probably be interested.
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