HFS Orchard Workshops and Events in August 2022

HFS Events in August 2022

	Wed 3 August, 9am to noon	Workshop at Pettys Orchard
	Sat 6 August, 10am to noon	Grafting and Tree Sales Day at CERES
	Sun 7 August, 9am to noon	Grafting and Tree Sales Day at Pettys Orchard
	Wed 17 August, 9am to noon	Workshop at Pettys Orchard

Workshops, and Grafting and Tree Sales Day at Pettys Orchard
1 Homestead Road, Templestowe (Melway 22 A11)
Meet at our big white marquee

Grafting and Tree Sales Day at CERES
Corner of Stewart Street and Roberts Street, Brunswick (Melway 30 B7)
Meet at the loading area near the CERES Nursery's west entrance

August is THE big month in the annual HFS calendar:

At the two Wednesday workshops, you can join our winter-hardy volunteers in:

Collecting scion/budwood and other preparations for our public Grafting and Tree Sales Days
Planting out new plum trees
On-going annual winter pruning
Doing checks on trees throughout the heritage block, including young plum, apricot and apple trees
In the HFS Nursery:
- Checking on status of trees and the irrigation system
- reorganising the nursery baths, including adding space for plum trees in larger pots
- extending the netting structure over the apricot tree collection
Mowing, weeding, whipper-snipping, hole-filling and removing blackberry plants
Painting labels on trees

At each workshop, ample time will be made for a chat over cuppas and home-baked wonders. Please bring your own keep-cup to avoid generating unnecessary rubbish. We hope to see you there!

Our two Grafting and Tree Sales Days are our biggest public-facing events each "normal" year are our public HFS Grafting Days in early August. COVID-19 has prevented us from running these in a completely open way for the last few years, so we're delighted to be able to run them again ... and no doubt many others will be too!

Our publicity poster for these events is accessible by clicking the mini-version of it (to the right this text) or at https://www.heritagefruitssociety.org/Resources/Documents/2022HFSGraftingDaysPoster.pdf . Please feel free to send this link to friends or other groups who might be interested.

At these Grafting Days, visitors can:

obtain scion (budwood) from many of our hundreds of varieties of apples and other fruits
request on-site grafting of apple scion onto suitable rootstock we provide (please note: ungrafted rootstock will not be available for separate sale)
purchase pre-grafted young trees, ready for planting out
observe experienced (and helpful and friendly) HFS volunteers as they graft up new trees
ask our knowledgeable volunteers about all aspects of the above
join a guided walking tour of the Heritage Block (at the Petty's Orchard Grafting Day only)

Scion and freshly-grafted trees will be sold at extremely reasonable prices. This is in line with our group's objective of making it easy for anyone to help in the preservation of unusual fruit varieties, as well as instilling an interest in this precious and remarkable field. The scion and tree varieties provided are primarily ones popular with attendees of prior Tastings and Grafting Days, and are ones which are typically difficult or impossible to obtain from any other source.

All this takes quite a bit of preparation. HFS volunteers have already begun collecting, labelling and packing scion (see the previous edition of this newsletter for a thorough description of what this entails), although there's a bit more of this left to do. On the Grafting Days themselves, setting up and dismantling our gear takes a bit of effort - but as usual, many hands make light work! So please help us out if you can: it's always rewarding and enjoyable to be a part of these events. Volunteers to help on the Grafting and Sales Days should notify us by email here, and plan on arriving at the venue an hour in advance of the event's published start time.

WHAT'S GOING ON AT THE HFS BLOCK AT PETTY'S

Weather: Frosty (see picture above): a bit uncomfortable for us humans, but often a sign of a good crop to come!

Free Grafting Workshops: We'll once again be running free hands-on grafting workshops during August/September (a little delayed this year, thanks to COVID). These are a fantastic opportunity to learn and practice this miraculous, fascinating and useful skill under highly experienced guidance. Details, dates and locations for these workshops will be announced soon, in a separate email similar to this one.

COVID-19 NOTICE

Most long-standing COVID-19 restrictions have now been lifted, but nonetheless:

If you are feeling unwell - even with only mild symptoms - please protect yourself and others by doing the right thing and staying at home and getting tested
All volunteers should endeavour to maintain social distancing at all times
Please feel free to wear a mask at any time