news and sentiment from the Scion Exchange

Yesterday was the California Rare Fruit Growers Scion Wood Exchange in Berkeley. I got there early with Tree, and our friend and fellow tree enthusiast, Sara, so we could set up a little info table for PttP, the Free Farm Stand and the Free Farm. This also meant we got first dibs on some of the scions, before the chaos, yes CHAOS, that is not an overstatement, ensued.

I had no idea so many people were so excited about grafting fruit trees. I mean, it really was the place to be if you had any interest in it, there were tons of varieties of just about everything, and there was root stock for sale and onsite grafting onto said rootstock, plus little demo workshops, and of course tables with great folks like Greywater Action, the Permaculture Guild, and Alemany Farm. It was quite a scene.

I got a handful of scion wood, not too much because I know I'll never get to it all, but I'm excited to work on my grafting technique in our tiny mini orchard at home as well as a few friends gardens. I also felt really inspired by two women that were at the last CRFG meeting I went to who have been guerilla grafting fruiting wood onto some of the flowering plum trees that are rampant around San Francisco.

Everything together made me think about utilizing pre-existing resources and our ability to create abundance with a little ingenuity, time, and capable hands. It made me really embrace dormancy and growth cycles and the calm that I feel when it starts to rain and the energy that I feel when the rains pass. Like the dormant season and the prime time to graft, the scion exchange happens once a year, so if you missed it this year, you'll have to wait til next winter, but trust me, it'll be worth the wait.