October 17, 2012 Volume 8 • Number 42 50¢ Newsstand Price
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The fruit of labour: Brent Olsen’s orchard
It was Brent Olsen who introduced me to Silken someone else how to graft: “The guy showed us how apples. We sat on the back patio and the sun was to do it once and it’s simple enough that you can setting in the background. He took a piece take that and go try it on your own.” for himself and we savored together. His Paying it forward, Brent has passed comment between crunches, “It’s got this method onto five or six of his a very delicate flavour.” He is right. friends and he estimates about an 80 Then came the Summer Red, with per cent success rate. crisp white flesh that blushed The key to making grafting as it approached the peel, folwork? Brent says that timing is lowed by a Gravenstein, a important and points to the first Honey Crisand the old standweek of April as the surest bys, Gala, Macintosh, and opportunity because trees are RSOE - fr ear jan 25 2012.indd 1 Spartan. A veritable apple just coming out of dormancy. feast. Brent Olsen grows 22 varities All-in-all Brent has 22 variof apples on just three trees! eties of apples growing on just three semi-dwarf trees and in a good year he is harHe teaches, “It’s important vesting hundreds of pounds that the branch being grafted of apples off each one. Then in is more dormant than the there are the apricot and plum tree being grafted on because trees, with three types each, the you don’t want the buds to start two cherry trees, one hosting three growing before the healing starts different kinds, and a nectarine tree happening.” that has just been planted this past Brent then demonstrates how to year. make a wedge on the scion and insert For the past ten years Brent has made a it into a slit in the tree, lining up the inner hobby of grafting, taking branches (called scibark before tightly winding black electrical ons) from one tree and inserting them into a groove tape to close any gaps. “Then you should seal it up or slit in another, and has been eating the fruits of his labour with grafting paint,” he adds, but admits he doesn’t always ever since. follow that rule. “What I like about grafting is that I have only three mid-size trees Next year he’s open to trying some new grafting methods, so it is with all these different varieties that are ripening at different times likely that the nectarine tree won’t be growing only one variety for over two months, each with distinct tastes,” explains Brent, “I can long. But until then Brent will be waiting for mid-October when he have fresh apples for months and make apple crisp out of Braeburns can harvest his favorite apple, Mutsu, and enjoy a slice of it over in April…they keep that nice!” another sunset on a crisp, cool evening. It was a friend who originally invited Brent along to learn from Jennifer Sloan, freelance
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