Someone commented on my last post that I should add photos of the air prune beds setup, so here it is. I took cinder blocks to keep the boxes up off the ground. The actual boxes are made from 1 2x8x8 each. Cut each board into two 1 foot and two 3 foot pieces. Underneath I have hardware cloth stapled on with some supporting scrap would helping hold it on with screwed in pieces. The soil/compost was falling through the hardware cloth so I added normal insect screen above it this year, hopefully that doesn’t impact the roots much.
First image, left, front to back: the heartnuts (maybe 10?), hybrid chestnuts (only got 2 of 5 sprouting), and apricots (like 13). In the right box this is just black walnuts.
Second image, front to back: PawPaw (took forever to sprout, I think July even), schisandra I think, honey locust.
Fourth image same beds in May/June: pawpaw haven’t sprouted yet in first bed, chestnuts/heartnuts on the left and apricots on the right, black walnut forest in last bed
For propagating I got most seeds from either Sheffield’s seed co, Etsy, or locally if available. In my city thornless honey locust are planted by the city everywhere as ornamental trees so easy seed source. I didn’t process the seeds at all though so germination was poor, just left them outside all winter and stuck in where I had space. Black walnut was also local from a massive tree in a cemetery. Literally removed husks, washed, and stuck in the box. Note I did have hardware cloth on top of that box during winter and you can see the cage I made just in case of squirrels too. At our old house this didn’t seem to be an issue so I removed it so the plants could grow unimpeded, but already since moving the squirrels dug up any unsprouted black walnuts from last year.
Apricots needed a warm and cold stratification, the first year I tried keeping them on a heating mat for seedlings along with plum, peach seeds. These almost all molded and did not sprout. With my leftover apricot seeds (all the others were gone), I just planted them outside in July, letting nature warm then cold stratify. This worked great and was way simpler. The chestnuts, pawpaws, and heartnuts were cold stratified in the fridge using damp peat moss in a yogurt container with holes poked in the top. I got about 60% success on these so pretty good results. PawPaws take forever to sprout and only grew 4″ so I won’t transplant them until next year.
I have also planted apple seeds with no success at all, my seeds probably dried out or something. Seaberry is another one I did last year and it was so simple, probably had 35 plants, with the biggest being 15″ tall. They didn’t transplant great and my soil sucked bad (solid clay), but a couple plants were big enough to transplant again to the new house (will see if they live).
