Grafting workshop July 2021

When our group visited Steven's garden in January of this year and we saw his wonderful variety of fruit trees, the idea was born for a grafting workshop. Steven offered to provide it, and then Food Garden Group member Alistair offered to do it with him. So we had two people with grafting expertise to guide the group with a mix of theory, demonstrations and practice.

Alistair on the left and Steven on the right

The morning started with a little bit of theory by Alistair. He is a botanist and was a horticultural teacher in his professional life. His sense of humour told us that he enjoyed being back in front of a class. Alistair has a property at Sandford and is grows a lot of fruit.

Steven, who until three years ago had a property with lots of fruit trees in Adelaide, has decades of practical experience in all aspects of growing fruit. He loves anything to do with fruit trees and berries. With Alistair and Steven providing the workshop together we had a great combination of backgrounds.

Both had brought a lot of 'tools of the trade', and we got a clear insight in what works when grafting, and what doesn't work, because both of them have been there, and learnt along the way.

We talked about the various types of grafts and what they are used for.

Everyone had brought a grafting knife, and after a few demos, including how to sharpen a grafting knife,  people were given a good amount of time to practice whip and tongue grafting.

Everyone learnt a lot, gained important practical experience, and had a great time. Many thanks to Steven and Alistair for providing this workshop!  Thank you, also, to those who brought morning tea!  It was much appreciated.

You can't become good at grafting by reading a lot of blog posts and watching a lot of YouTube videos. To learn it, you need to do it! Once you have the hang of it, grafting is fun. Grafting will give you results that you can't buy. Seeing that your first graft is successful is a real joy. Those who attended the workshop gained valuable experience on their way to making their first successful graft!

I hope to persuade Steven and Alistair to repeat this workshop next winter.

To find out more about grafting, including what was covered in this workshop, please read Food Garden Group blog post A Look at Grafting.

Happy grafting!