Event / Community Calendar

Create Your Own Orchard: Make Fruit Trees by Grafting

Apr 26, 9:30 AM - 2:30 PM CT
North Branch, MN | Women’s Environmental Institute | $
Have you ever wanted to grow fruit trees in your own backyard and harvest home grown fruits or start a small orchard? This class will give you the skills and hands-on experience to learn how to hand make your own fruit trees, repair damaged trees, and add on different fruits to existing trees to save space.

Grafting is the ancient art of how to attach a specific desired cultivar of fruit onto a rootstock to make a customized fruit tree. Students will learn the reasons for grafting, the skills and materials needed to dormant graft, bud graft, and summer graft, and how to nurture trees to maturity. Basic biology of the tree, and why this works will also be covered. Resources also will be given that will help you find desired rootstock and scionwood for the specialty tree of your choice.

This class is about two hours of instruction, an hour break for lunch, and then hands-on practice afterwards. Each student will take home two trees that they themselves have made.