Pruning and Grafting workshop at Willaston
Local Willaston residents, and Transition Gawler members, Andrew and Miriam had been wanting to learn how to prune their fruit trees and also try their hand at grafting some different varieties of stone fruit onto some young fruit trees which had grown from seed from their compost.
Ian Tooley (another Transition Gawler member, local Gawler resident and Deputy Mayor) offered to show off his “graftsman” skills, and share his self taught knowledge and skills in pruning and grafting to enable Andrew and Miriam to also learn how to undertake these tasks.
In true “Transition” fashion, Andrew and Miriam decided to turn the afternoon into a “workshop” extending the invite for others to attend and learn, and even have a go themselves.
Ian explained the tools that are needed (a sharp knife and grafting tape, and occasionally a candle to provide melted wax covering) and where he sourced his materials from (being the local hardware store), and the methods he has found are the easiest and most effective, he then gave a hands on demonstration, letting everyone have a go themselves
All up there ended up being 21 grafts onto 4 trees, with all attendees having a go at at a number of grafts themselves, resulting in them heading home armed with the confidence to be able to do it themselves, so watch out for “ornamental” street trees, which may soon turn in to multigrafted “productive” on a road verge near you)
Remember “Transition” is all building a resilient community and about finding the answers ourselves, rather than waiting for others to come up with them for us. So if you want to organise something in your local community which works towards this goal, be it a workshop, and event or a gathering, take the plunge and do it, and if you don’t know where to start, feel free to contact us, or ask on the Transition Gawler Chat Group on Facebook.
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