Create Your Own Orchard: Make Fruit Trees by Grafting

Create Your Own Orchard: Make Fruit Trees by Grafting
April 5, 2025 9:30 at WEI’s Amador Hill Farm and Orchard in North Branch

Have you ever wanted to grow fruit trees in your own backyard and harvest home grown fruits or start a small orchard? This class will give you the skills and hands-on experience to learn how to hand make your own fruit trees, repair damaged trees, and add on different fruits to existing trees to save space.

Grafting is the ancient art of how to attach a specific desired cultivar of fruit onto a rootstock to make a customized fruit tree. Students will learn the reasons for grafting, the skills and materials needed to dormant graft, bud graft, and summer graft, and how to nurture trees to maturity. Basic biology of the tree, and why this works will also be covered. Resources also will be given that will help you find desired rootstock and scionwood for the specialty tree of your choice.

This class is about two hours of instruction, an hour break for lunch, and then hands-on practice afterwards. Each student will take home two apple trees that they themselves have made.

All are welcome – WEI classes are open to everyone.

Instructor Bio: Dan Sheild is the co- owner of Stone Creek Farm, an orchard that specializes in stone fruits, including plums, apricots, and peaches. With organic practices, Dan developed a system that would allow sweet and juicy peaches to grow and fruit consistently, as well as manage his orchard and farm for commercial fruit sales and research. Dan is on the board of the Organic Fruit Growers Association, has memberships in Land Stewardship Project, Minnesota Fruit and Vegetables Growers association, and NAFEX, North American fruit explorers. Dan has grafted most of the 1200 trees on his property.

WEI has an annual scholarship fund to support cost-accessible programming. Please see scholarship application instructions in the class registration form.