May Day and a Multi-Grafted Fruit Tree

A New Edition to Our Mountainous Yard

I've been dying to get some fruit and nut trees planted; since they take so long to produce anyway I want to send them on their way to fruit ASAP. Because we don't have a ton of yard space, I wanted tree varieties that are self-pollinating, and one option was multi-grafted fruit trees. This means a bunch of different varieties (could be of the same fruit type or different) are grafted onto the same root stock so you get multiple kinds of food in the space of one tree. I'd looked online and everyone was sold out. I'd prefer a local nursery anyway, but the ones we'd gone to didn't have one. 

Until yesterday, when we discovered Reilly's Summer Seat Farm. They only had a few options left, and we went with a 4-variety apple tree. It seemed very expensive to me (140$) but I need to remind myself that I'll have Jonagolds, Galas, Fujis, and Pink Ladies!! I also need to remember that after a few years, I won't really have to buy apples anymore if I take good care of the tree. I'll supplement this tree with tinier, cheaper fruit and nut trees in the next few weeks. Wahoo for the budding food forest! Now I need to read up on how to keep fruit trees pruned and manageable.

Oh, and: there is one rhubarb emerging and one tiny potato vine! We're heading out of town on thursday and everything is primed to grow leaps and bounds while we're gone. I think I'm going to miss the peonies blooming too. I'm a bit annoyed, but it will be so much fun to check it all out when we return Monday. Also, we're headed out to a good friend's wedding in San Diego, so it's not like we'll be moving bricks in a prison yard all weekend.