POW held a workshop on Budding last Sunday 21st February. We couldn’t do the budding as promised as the rootstock used for the budding hadn’t grown enough. It was a good learning point – to get your saplings to grow, they need a full day’s sun, water, and keep a watch on them getting rootbound and re-pot them. Anyway Richard, POW’s resident heritage fruit orchardist, is well practiced, and had a sapling suitable to do the budding. The plan is to run a grafting workshop in winter, and then another budding workshop next year.
Here’s some information Richard has collected about the fruit harvesting time for some of the varieties he is growing.
| Variety | COLOUR (yellow/white) | STONE (freestone/clingstone) | 2008/2009 | 2009/2010 |
| ORION | Y | F | 20/11 – 8/12 | |
| SPRINGCREST | Y | F | 4/12 – 20/12 | 7/12 – 20/12 |
| LE VAINQUER | W | F | 11/12 – 24/12 | |
| CROYDON ANZAC | W | F | 14/12 – 10/01 | |
| FLORDARED | W | F | 20/12 – 6/1 | |
| FLAVORCREST | Y | F | 29/12 – 3/02 | |
| SUNNYSIDE | Y | F | 1/01 – 8/01 | 26/12 – 5/1 |
| CORONET | Y | F | 4/01 – 14/01 | |
| REDGLOBE | Y | F | 11/1 – 18/1 | 8/1 – 23/1 |
| SMITH | W | F | 12/1 – 12/2 | |
| RED NOONAN | W | F | 16/1 – 5/2 | |
| BLACKBURN ELBERTA | Y | F | 23/1 – 4/2 | 7/1 – 12/1 |
| J.H.HALE | Y | F | 24/1 – 10/2 | |
| FANTASIA (NEC) | Y | F | 26/1 – 24/2 | |
| FRAGAR | W | C | 28/1-3/2 | 22/1 – |
| MONROE | Y | F | 31/1 – 3/2 | |
| GOLDEN GEM | Y | F | 17/2 – 22/2 | |
| SUMMERSET | Y | F | 8/3 – 17/3 | |
| GOLDEN QUEEN | Y | C | 13/3 – 22/3 | |
| O’HENRY | Y | F | 18/3 – 10/4 |