Grafting Workshop and Scionwood Exchange

It’s really starting to feel like SPRING!

Please Join our

7th ANNUAL Fruit Tree Grafting Workshop and Scionwood Exchange!

At Willow Crossing Farm in Johnson, VT

April 7     10am – 2pm     2018

(Thank you for sharing this with potentially interested friends and networks)

Join us for a day of hands-on fruit tree grafting!  We’ll begin the day in the classroom understanding the science of grafting, and practice bench-grafting apples, pears, plums, and other stone fruits.

Everyone will have the opportunity to graft their own trees to take home!

After lunch, we’ll go out and tour grafted and ‘multi-grafted’ fruit trees (including peaches grafted onto plums) and ‘top work’ multiple varieties onto pears, apples, plums, and other stone fruit. We’ll discuss some pruning basics, different grafting strategies for ‘fruit salad trees’, healing damaged trees, reworking new varieties, revitalizing old orchards, enhancing cross-pollination, and space considerations. We’ll also look at and evaluate both successful and failed past grafts.

We’ll contextualize our work in briefly telling some history of our farm and touring our incredibly diverse collection of nuts, berries, vines, nitrogen-fixing plants, and debt-free natural buildings.  We’ll also explore the incredible history of grafting, the range of grafting possibilities, and practice with professional grafting tools which make for more successful grafts by novices and experts alike.

Each attendant will leave with an apple or pear variety of their choosing on semi-dwarf or standard rootstock, or a stone fruit variety of their choosing on native american plum rootstock.

$60 suggested donation sliding scale includes cider and tea, and your own grafted fruit trees to take home. No one will be refused for lack of funds, but everyone must pre-register.

Visit the Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/468266296716690/

Due to the popularity of this event, you must PRE REGISTER HERE. There is a possibility of another event later in April, please send an email to express your interest.
Please RSVP by filling out the registration form and submitting payment via paypal (Keith@ProspectRock.org), Facebook Messenger (easiest), or sending a check to:

‘Prospect Rock Permaculture’

P.O. Box 426

Jeffersonville, VT 05464

We must get your email address from you, as the weather will determine where we park cars. and we will also send you some information about how to best collect scion wood if you want to propagate some favorite fruit trees.

The workshop will be taught by:

Nicko Rubin is the owner of East Hill Tree Farm, where he has been growing and propagating hardy fruits and nuts in the foothills of the Groton Mountains. He completed the master’s program for sustainable landscape design at the Conway School.

Dave Johnson is a timber framer with a passion for fruit trees. His competence with sharp tools and wood translate readily into many successful grafts and a legacy of multi-grafted old wild apples throughout the hills of Vermont.

Keith Morris has been collecting and experimenting with rare fruits, nuts, and medicinal plants since 1996, and is professor of ecological design at the University of Vermont. He’s slowly built his family’s farm debt-free with sweat equity and has contributed to creating resilient and diverse food systems on 5 continents.

Thank you,
Keith
(802) 734-1129

Willow Crossing Farm
Johnson, VT
http://www.WillowCrossing.org

REGISTER NOW for our 11th Annual Permaculture Design Certification Course: July 22 August 3, 2018.  Farm and Nature Immersion!  World Class Ecological Design Education and Portfolio Development for new and experienced practioners.  Full scholarships for income eligible Vermonters.  Available for up to 5 credits through the University of Vermont.

Our Fruit, Nut, Berry, Vine, and Medicinal Plant Sale pre-orders are open now! Plant pick ups begin April 23 and continue through May 22.

Fruit and Nut Tree Pruning Workshop- March 15

Hands on- Fruit and Nut Tree Pruning

A day long exploration of the science and practice of ecological tree crop management for diverse yields.

Willow Crossing Farm

Johnson, VT

Sunday, MARCH 15

(Please note- new date!)

10 am – 4 pm

Join VT’s Master Horticulturalist Zach Leonard and Tree Farmer Keith Morris for a day of hands-on practice with fruit and nut tree pruning, in a diverse permaculture forest garden setting.  Spend the morning in the large yurt learning the science and ecology of how trees lose limbs and ‘heal’, and explore the deep traditions of how humans beings observe and interact with this phenomenon.

We’ll synthesize a variety of pruning ideas, strategies, and techniques to help you develop your own philosophy, understanding, and confidence to go out and work with trees in your landscape in a regenerative and yielding way. After lunch and some hot cider we’ll go outside to explore one of VT’s oldest permaculture designed food forests- a reforestation of old pasture and hayfield in the floodplain of the Lamoille River.  We’ll briefly tour ‘Productive Buffers’, wildlife corridors, and stop to work in zones of Plums, Apples, Peaches, Pears, Berries, Vines, Hazelnuts, Walnuts, and more- driven by the group’s interest, and discussing pruning techniques for trees both young and old.

We’ll look at and evaluate previous years of pruning decisions and ensuing consequences, and explore some natural tree injuries and healing responses, helping participants to better understand the implications of our pruning decisions over varying periods of time.

We’ll finish the day practicing with different tools to cut wood cleanly- with an eye towards maximizing production, fruit quality, ease of future maintenance, and minimizing pest and disease pressure.  We’ll also set the stage for top-working, multi-variety grafting, species changes (i.e.. Peaches on Plum roots), and other forms of propagation, in preparation for our March 21 Grafting Workshop and Scionwood Exchange.

We’ll also prune mature, bearing Hazelnuts and manage black locust, walnut, butternut/ buartnut, pecans, and more for nuts, firewood, high-value lumber, succession, aesthetics, and other long-term aims.

We’ll pass around, demonstrate, and allow you to trial favorite tools, including pruners, saws, pole saws, etc.; speak to their selection and maintenance, and discuss hygienic practices to promote orchard health and reduce cross-contamination.

This workshop kicks off our series for 2015!  

Please enter your email in the box on the right hand side of the page, or ‘like’ us on Facebook to get the calendar and details for our other offerings such as:  fruit tree grafting (March 21), nursery plant sale, compost toilet design/ build workshop, natural beekeeping workshop, nut production, diverse understory planting, spring development for gravity fed irrigation, natural building, compost heat, season extension, earth oven construction, stone masonry, and more. Our Plum Flower Festival and Nursery Plant Sale is scheduled for May 3.

Our 2015 Permaculture Design Certification Course will be offered June 20- July 2 OR July 19- 31, and they are filling quickly.

We have full scholarships available to income-elligible Vermont State residents, and are presently fundraising for gender and diversity leadership scholarships for out of state residents- please be in touch if you would like to make a tax-deductible contribution.

Applications for our Advanced Permaculture Design / Build /Grow / Teach internship, and APDC guided portfolio development are accepted on a rolling basis.

Event is $60 suggested donation/ sliding scale, including warm or cold cider during lunch and a round of hard cider tasting (21 and over) afterwards.  No one will be refused for lack of funds.

*We are looking for photographers or videographers to help document the event, or create a short educational video.*

Please pre-register, and dress to spend the day outdoors.

REGISTER HERE!

We’ll need your email address if you’re planning on coming because the weather will determine where we’ll have people park.  Feel free to bring your *clean, sterile, and sharp* pruners and saws.

Apple Blossoms at High Hopes Orchard

Zach Leonard is a master horticulturalist and was farm manager of Elmore Roots Nursery for over a decade.  He and his family have created High Hopes Farm, a diverse, off-grid homestead, where they preserve heirloom apples, sheep, and more.  He runs High Hopes Tree Care, Vermont’s most experienced orchard restoration and maintenance service specializing in Organic Management.

Felco’s F 13s- the pruner of choice for large hands, or thick branches

Keith Morris has been collecting and experimenting with rare fruit and nut trees for 14 years, and is professor of ecological design at the University of Vermont.  He has worked to help create resilient, diverse, socially just, and economically viable food systems around the world since 1996. Please spread the word to potentially interested friends and networks. Thank you for your support of our work!

Thanks,

Keith and Crew

Willow Crossing Farm

www.willowcrossing.org

You can view some photos from last years event and share this via social media HERE.

Happy Spring! Grafting Workshop, Scionwood Swap, and Plant Sale!

Hi Friends!

Hope you’re enjoying the nice long days and melting snow!  We’re getting ready and have been working with the trees- while the orchard is still under feet of snow, it doesn’t look like it will last through this next week of warm weather that’s finally arrived…

Happy to announce that our 3rd Anual Grafting Workshop and Vermont Scionwood Swap will has been rescheduled for Sunday April 13!  Here’s to hoping for nice weather and not too much mud!

We hope this date works for as many of you as possible!  All participants must register!  We’ll need to provide some details and parking information just prior to the event.  If you registered for the previously postponed date, please confirm whether you’re still coming or your plans have changed.

DETAILS HERE!   Direct Link to REGISTRATION FORM.

 

 

Our Spring Plant Sale and Plum Flower Party will be held Saturday, May 3!

While final list and prices will have to wait until we can get through the snow and start digging some plants, we know we’ll have our favorite, VT-proven varieties of Hazelnuts, Hardy Kiwis, Sea Berry, Walnut, Apricot, Plums, Apples, Cherries, Pears, Grapes, Medicinal Herbs, Blueberries, Currants/ Gooseberries, Strawberries, Asparagus, as well as Rootstock for Apples, Pears, and Prunus (Plums, Peaches, Apricots, etc.).  Stay tuned for more details to be announced in the next few weeks, and please email me if you’d like to reserve anything in particular.  Last year we sold out early, we will most likely only be open at the farm for pick-up of pre-ordered plants.  All proceeds support Permaculture Research, Education, and Productive Reforestation.

 

And finally, we’re excited to announce a few open spaces in this summer’s Permaculture Design Certification Course– the nation’s leading Farm and Wildlife Immersion PDC.  Centered on Design and Practice- join a diverse group of students from around the country and the world in collaborative design for Real-World Community projects, hands on at Vermont’s most diverse permaculture farm, research center, and wildlife sanctuary; and gain professional support in developing Designs for Your Own Property!  Participants range from total ‘newbies’ to practicing architects and landscape architects; sustainability and conservation professionals; farmers, chefs, ‘foodies’, extension agents; activists; homesteaders; and design, ecology, and food-systems students.  Facilitated by a diverse, talented, and most experienced teaching team- we provide a solid, science-based foundation for experiential and experimental ecological design education while cutting-edge information, cross-disciplinary techniques, and 21st Century Integration and Systems Thinking provide new territory for even the most experienced practitioner’s to explore and co-learn with professional peers.  REGISTER NOW TO HOLD YOUR SPACE.  As the only fully-accredited Permaculture Institute in Vermont, Vermont State residents are eligible for a full scholarship.  This PDC can also be taken for 5 fully transferable credits from the University of Vermont.

We’ll begin announcing more open houses and farm tours starting in May!  Look forward to seeing you all this season!

Best,

Keith, Family, and Team

Willow Crossing Farm- Johnson, VT

Prospect Rock Permaculture

Vermont’s Original Permaculture Design and Education Institute

www.ProspectRock.org