Branching out
Friday July 10th 2020, 11:09 pm
Filed under: Garden

Two days ago there was the first sign of what appeared to be a new branch on my apricot seedling. Now there are two, and I could see a definite difference between this morning and this evening. Go little tree go!

I put it in a much bigger pot two weeks ago–I can still turn it around to keep it balanced re the sun, but barely–and was surprised at how big the root system was on such a tiny plant.

Clearly it’s very happy about its new digs.

I’m trying to picture how high off the ground that first branch will be someday when the tree is really planted, and failing. I have no idea. But for now I’m keeping its young leaves out of snails’ reach.

I do know I gave the more vigorous seedling to my friends so that they could have a payoff faster, and because I’d prefer my tree to be naturally dwarfed, which by comparison it seemed to be.

However it turns out. There’s going to be a lot of satisfaction in watching this one come into its own.

John Driver, the guy who traveled Silk Road countries, sometimes in war zones, in search of what an apricot should be, brought home 1500 Dept of Agriculture-approved kernels and developed the Anya and Yuliya varieties from them,  naming them after the women who’d shared their best fruit with the interested American.

It appears he couldn’t make a living selling his apricot trees to commercial orchards, doubled Brix counts or no, and he ripped those out and planted almonds. It’s clear to me that it was simply that nobody knew apricots could be that good and the market didn’t catch up in time. He did preserve some for his family, and I kind of feel like it’s the Bradford  Watermelon all over again. (I have two of those growing this year.) But let’s not wait 170 years for them to be rediscovered.

I’d rather buy a tree from him because he earned it, but that is not an option. Yet. One can hope. I sent him a note that if he wanted to sell to individuals, the rare and great with a great story like his behind them and a high price will always have a market that will seek for the unique and best.

Said the art dealer’s daughter.

But this is what I can do.  So for now I watch my Anya-parent seedling grow and wish it all the best–and saved every kernel from the ones I bought from Andy’s two weeks ago. They’re in the fridge.

I came across someone’s comment that they refrigerated theirs for a month, (me: that’s all?) took them out and sprouted them and grew them under lights through the winter and on into spring, and boy did they get a jump ahead on mine!


1 Comment so far
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Look at it grow! Wonderful.

Comment by ccr in MA 07.11.20 @ 1:20 pm



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