When I placed my perennial order last fall, I hadn't planned on attending a grafting workshop.  So, in addition to a couple of second-generation hybrid hazels, another hardy kiwi, and a blueberry gift for Kayla, I ordered five pear rootstocks and eight apple rootstocks for the two of us to split.

You'd think those rootstocks would be going begging with ten newly grafted plants in a nursery bed, but I still had five pieces of carefully collected scionwood waiting to be put to the knife.  I remind myself that these apples will be going onto M7 instead of MM111 rootstock, so they can be planted a few feet closer together --- surely I'll be able to find them a home at this time next year when they're ready to leave the nursery bed?

One of the apple varieties I wanted to try this year is the chestnut crab, which I think might make the sweet, tiny apples I used to pick from a street tree when I was a kid.  A reader sent me some extra scionwood, and when I pulled the twigs out of their protective wrapping, I discovered that the bases had callused.  This enlarged white area is what often happens when a cutting is starting to root, so I figured I'd take the extra pieces and stick them in a pot of soil in my propagation area to see what will happen.  My understanding is that most crabapples don't get much bigger than an apple grafted onto semi-dwarf rootstock, and since crabapples can also be used as rootstocks for other apples, if these two cuttings root, I'm sure they'll have a use on the homestead.  (Yes, I am incapable of turning away from anything perennial that shows potential for rooting.)

On a final appley note, I pulled my Arkansas Black seeds out of the fridge a week or so ago and noticed there was ice on the damp rag I'd put in their container.  So I let the whole thing sit out for a few days and soon noticed little roots pushing their way out of the dark seed coats!  I carefully transplanted each sprouted seed into a depression in a pot of stump dirt and now the baby apples are opening up their leaves.  Yet another fun fruiting experiment in the making!