04/05/2024
$3 custom-grafted Oregon heirloom fruit trees?!
This Sunday, the wonderful folks at the Agrarian Sharing Network will be here to expertly graft fruit trees, as part of their Lane County wide "Spring Propagation Fairs". Come and get up to 5 ready-to-plant fruit trees for ONLY $3 per tree.
How come the trees are dirt cheap? Well, the Agrarian Sharing Network is a fully-volunteer powered organization with the passionate mission to help grow, share, and preserve local fruit tree (and edible plant) biodiversity. In order to offer grafting services as affordable as possible, they bulk buy "root stock" (usually not available to the public) from commercial nurseries to be able to offer them for only $3 per tree. During the winter and early spring, they rally together a community of volunteers from all over Lane County (and beyond) to gather fruit tree cuttings (called "scion") from hundreds of beloved trees in home gardens and farm orchards. Many of these cuttings are rare varieties that do exceptionally well in our climate - and each of these varieties will be labelled clearly at the event with details such as fruit flavor and origin. All scion (cuttings) are free.
They offer their expert grafting services for free but accept donations to support their sweet cause. You can ask these wise folks any questions about fruit tree care. They hope to spark inspiration for folks to collect and share fruit trees (and seeds) that are special to them to strengthen our regional food webs. We'll have information at the event of how you can join in the effort and gather local fruit tree cuttings for next year!
Please come welcome the Agrarian Sharing Network to the "Oakridge Seed Swap, Tree Swap" on Sunday, April 7th, 1:30 - 4:30. Live plants will be outside and the seed swap will be inside the Methodist church!