Apple Scion Auctions and Sales Open- New Varieties

It’s time again to ship little genetic packages out into the world to see if they have what it takes to spread and multiply. I’m talking about apple scion wood for grafting. Auctions are set up and scheduled to start and the webstore is open to the public after the past week of early access for Patrons.

This year I dropped a bunch of new stuff, a whopping 8 varieties actually. It surprised me honestly. But I have reasons for all of them, which you can read more about in the previous post and also on this page. I am quite excited about some of them. Others fill a niche that nothing else does in my little world here and probably can elsewhere as well. Several hint at new possibilities and directions, like Jellybean Cider, the dwarf juice apple and Musketeer, which it turns out probably tastes of Black Currant.

Auctions are much larger this year. I found myself with quantities of a number of varieties that were sort of right between store numbers and auction numbers. I figured let’s just put these bigger numbers on auction and find out what happens. Because there are so many, the auctions also overlap each other this year. There are a bunch starting late Saturday and another group on late Sunday, and ending a week later. Auctions are on FIGBID.COM You should see my auctions once they start by searching - skillcult - It is easy to sign up and use. Since I have a lot more wood listed, competition should be less stiff and prices lower. All auctions will be running by 10:00 pm ET on Sunday February 25th 2024 and all will be finished by 10pm ET on March 3rd at 10:00 pm ET.

The webstore is now open to the public after early patron access this past week. I put two new varieties for 2024 in the store because I just had a lot of them. Integrity is a solid late summer pie apple and Clarion I’ve been trialing for years trying to decide what to call it, so I’ve got a ton of wood for that one. There are other familiar older seedlings in the store now that may not have been in the past, and some in greater numbers.

Yesterday I went to our local seed and scion exchange, which was dedicated as a memorial to my late friend, colleague, teacher and fellow plant nut Mark Albert. It must have been over 30 years ago when I went to this same seed and scion exchange and learned about grafting from Mark, Pat Schaefer and the local crew. Those connections and a few others have obviously had some major ripple effects. Don’t underestimate how powerful mentoring and education can be. Anyway, got to take some of my new varieties to share and help inspire the next generation of new plant enthusiasts. Very graftifying :)

I hope that this scion season will go well, and that through Patron support, cactus sales and other miscellaneous incomes, I might have enough to get serious about looking for land by late summer or fall. Land prices have plummeted here in Northern California in the past half a year or so. I’m hoping that keeps up long enough for me to get the resources together and find a worthy spot to get busy on. I could get an okay mountain homestead for cash right now, but I’m holding out for something great that I can expand into and involve others in. The amount of stuff I can get done quickly on some flat farmland with plenty of water is much greater than if I’m scrabbling around on hillsides covered in thin mounatin soil.

Wishing you all a successful grafting and growing season <3

New Seedling Apple Varieties for 2024

It was an amazing year for apples! I got to taste some new things and re-taste others, many seemingly at their best. Here are the 8 new seedling varieties I will be making available this year.

Jellybean Cider

This apple has amazing flavor, like artificial fruit candy. I was delighted to find, as I had hoped, that the flavor comes through very well in the juice, even when canned. I’m not sure I have ever tasted apple juice that good. It is also a semi-columnar type dwarf! It is a cross between Maypole and Chestnut Crab. Learn more about Jellybean Cider

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Clarion

Clarion has been referred ot as Ice Princess for some years now, but I finally feel like I have collected enough experience with it to give it the right name and let it go. It is a long season apple with a very clear light flavor and a clean finish. I have eaten it off the tree from sometime in early to mid fall into the winter. It is an unusual apple and I’m a fan. Learn more about Clarion.

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Black and Red

This one is a cross of Rubaiyat and King David. The skin is very dark red, certainly in the category of what are commonly called black apples. It can look very striking on the tree. The interior can get quite red and tasty. It has the berry-like aromatics of some red fleshed apples. It is fairly tart early in the season. Striking appearance inside and out, nice flavor and well above average for a red fleshed apple. Learn more about Black and Red.

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Musketeer

Sorry, no photos yet. Musketeer is a cross between Rubaiyat and Pink Partait, two red fleshed apples. It does not have red flesh however. What it does have is a unique flavor that I have only been able to describe as “musky”. It is not just musky though, it is also very fruity. It is just weird, but it works. Those very different flavors seem to harmonize. I think I will be eating quite a lot of this apple in the future. Learn more about Musketeer.

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Hella Kitty

Born to be wild, Hella Kitty is a tart little Wickson x Rubaiyat cross with a true pink flesh. The day glow intensity of it has to be seen in person to be appreciated. If you commissioned a group of mad scientist little girls to make the perfect pink, they would probably come up with something like the color of Hella Kitty. But this kitty is not all unicorns and rainbows, this is an apple for the people that like sour candies, the people that take the lemon out of their drink and chew on it. For anyone that doesn’t know, Hella is colloquial for something along the lines of “Hell of”originating here in Northern California i.e. Steven grows hella apples, or I’m hella excited about Hella Kitty. Learn more about Hella Kitty.

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Red Winter Pie

This Grenadine x Lady Williams seedling was the very first of the 2011 trees to bloom in my trial rows. It has always looked good and hung well, and ripened late. It is not much for eating, though it is okay I guess when at its peak in the winter. The texture is somewhat “foamy” like Lady Williams. It is really good for cooking though, and at a time when options are limited. Or course you can use stored apples, but these are ready to use off the tree from around thanksgiving into as late as the end of December. This year I made pie with them on New Years day and the last two years for thanksgiving. It can grow quite large if thinned. Flavor is fruity, though not strong. Learn more about Red Winter Pie.

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Integrity

Williams’ Pride x Vixen. This is a new early pie apple. Like Red Winter Pie, it seems to be the best cooking apple on my place in its end of summer to early fall season. It is good and tart and holds its shape in cooking, thus the name. It is very pretty. Learn more about Integrity.

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Twang

Twang was fruited a while ago, and has been in assessment for some years. It is not much for eating, but at its season in August (as early as late July here occasionally) it is the best cooker going. Like integrity, it is tart (thus the name) and holds its shape in cooking. They are very similar when cooked and as Twang ends, Integrity begins. Most early apples are thin and watery, this is a solid apple. Also a very pretty apple. Learn more about Twang.

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I think that is all the ones I’m releasing this year unless I change my mind on something. I’m honestly surprised I decided to release so many. The reason is that most of these apples do things that other apples either don’t do at all, or nothing else beats them in their season. That of course is just comparing to what I have growing here, both seedlings and grafted varieties, but I have a pretty big collection. Also, the bar is set different for rare characteristics. If there is not a lot of competition, we want to distribute the best we have of a particular style or trait, especially to other breeders.

I think most of these will be on auction rather than in the store. I won’t know for sure until I cut scion wood, but most are in limited, to very limited supply this year. Clarion I have a lot of, so that will be in the webstore. As usual, patrons get early access to scion sales for about a week, then I announce here on the blog and on social media.

Once I get this first wave of apple seed orders out, I can start cutting and sorting scion wood. Look for scions in the store and on auction in early February. If you are new to grafting, check out the grafting series playlist below. Let’s just say it is quite thorough.

Happy Growing

Apple Seeds Now Available for 2024

Apple seeds are now available in the webstore. It was an exciting year for cross pollinating apples. I think each year is basically better than the last. I am still increasingly using more and more of my own seedlings in breeding. I also keep refining and clarifying my goals. I was really pretty blown away this year by my successes so far and I have only fruited first generation crosses. I’m also pretty blown away by the interest in this project and how many people are growing out seeds, both mine and those they have collected or pollinated themselves.

Judging from the results I’ve had so far, the number of good and interesting apples in the world is about to make a precipitous climb.

Check out this year’s seed offerings HERE. (if you want me to send seeds overseas, contact me using the contact link on this site and I’ll tell you what to do.)

New seedling varieties are coming this year as well. Scions will be cut mid January and probably listed for sale in early February.

New variety for 2024, Black and Red

P.s. the reason you may not have been getting blog post notifications is that my email handler disconnected my account because I had too many contacts. I guess that is a good problem to have. There are some posts on the blog page that most of you probably missed.

HAPPY GROWING :)

Long Hours Assessing Apples

I have been MIA for a while. Some of the few posts I published did not send out to the mail list, but I’m fixing that. I just published three videos taste testing apples. Two are on seedling apples and the third is on named varieties. I’ve collected some new varieties over the past 3 to 4 years and have to assess them. It has become quite a job to get through all of these fruits and keep track of what is what. This season and the next maybe are important as I have to decide what to take with me if I get a new place. I’m sort of looking forward to purging and taking just the stuff that I really am interested in for breeding, or that I like eating. I may at some point grow stuff I’m less interested in for scionwood sales, but at first it will just be the cream of the crop.

I have some new seedlings that are either very interesting for further observation, or definite keepers. I’ll be talking about those more in the near future. In the mean time, I have three apples in the process of being named. In most cases, I end up with numerous good names and have to choose between them. I will also strategize a little for the future sometimes, by using the most obvious names that someone else might snag early or saving a name for the perfect apple. I already named one Muskmelon this year and then found out there is already an heirloom apple by that name! Damn. That is one of the most interesting fruits to come out of this project for sure. Distinctly musky, but also fruity, crisp, fine grained and juicy. Some suspect a few might hate it, but no doubt others will love it and find it intriguing as I do.

The thing I’m really doing different this year is marking trees for culling. I’m finally taking out a significant number of trees in the trial rows. Some will be removed completely to make space for what remains and some will be cut to the ground and grafted over to multiply the best varieties and provide scion wood. One reason I’m antsy to move is that I need to get a lot more of the best seedling varieties in the ground producing fruit, so that I have fruit and plenty of scion wood to send people. I am sending apples to two people this year for their projects documenting and testing, but I really barely have enough. But going forward, think reviewers of various kinds, food bloggers & chefs, big garden and orchard channels etc. It is a good way to get some attention and make a real impression.

Everyone asks how property hunting is going. I’m not looking too seriously yet, until I can save more for a down payment. Prices are still dropping, so timing may be just right. I have two main jobs right now, improve my health and save money. Everything else is secondary to those and a lot has to be put on the back burner.

Don’t Preserve Foods That You Don’t Actually Eat

My friend passed away recently and his wife gave me some jars because they had so many. She says he was a hoarder and indeed there is a lot of stuff, including many jars of very old home canned foods that never got used. Their huge chest freezer is also stuffed with all kinds of bags of old frozen stuff. It reminded me to write this blog post I’ve had in mind for a while.

There is a common phenomenon in canning and preserving, where people preserve things they don’t actually end up eating. I have been through this issue myself. It is an ongoing process to figure out what I am and am not going to actually end up eating and how much, but I have a pretty good idea now.

Canning is actually kind of expensive. If you use gas for fuel, there is that expense. It adds up boiling big pots of water over and over. Then there are those stupid disposable metal dome lid/seals that most use. Those things are not cheap. Then there is the storage space that the goods take up for years if you don’t actually use them. Eventually you have to empty the jars and wash them, and all for what?

There is a psychology that if there is food and you don’t preserve it, it is wasted. If you can it then don’t eat it, you not only waste the food, but also the time, energy and materials involved. Giving it away may not be any better. If you aren’t going to eat it, whomever you give it to might not either! I never give away canned goods that I don’t want to eat myself, that’s not gifting, it’s foisting. The concept of waste is a little different in gardening and subsistence anyway. Stuff gets cycled back through the compost. You can give extra produce away to a food bank or to neighbors and friends if you have too much. Get chickens or pigs, they can dispose of a lot of extra food.

Here are the foods I will eat if I have them, with links to any content I’ve made on them. Some I can use a limited amount of and some I can use more than I can ever manage to produce.

Canned tomatoes and sauce: I usually put up whole canned tomatoes instead of sauce, but either way, I end up using them and wishing I had more.

Canned tomatoes wih a fresh basil leaf and a piece of roasted pepper are a staple. It is hard to make anywhere near enough of them. I can open a can and just eat them they are so delicious. Canned tomatoes and sauces from the store are just sad by comparison.

Frozen tomato salsa: I can eat a lot of salsa if it is good. I don’t can tomato salsa, because it just isn’t that good. I’d rather wait until tomato season comes back around. I may someday try to figure out how to make the one tomato salsa brand I like out of a can, Herdez.

Tomatillo salsas": I make two kinds of tomatillo salsa, one brown with dried California chilies and the other green with roasted green anaheim peppers. I can use quite a bit of both. Those I heat can even though they are better fresh. There is only so much freezer space.

Marinated artichoke hearts: these are canned. I will use a lot in a year and they are appreciated as gifts. It’s hard to make enough, let alone too many.

Canning artichoke hearts is a production. A years supply is a significant investment in time, but worth it.

Berry jams: Raspberry, blackberry, any berry, they are just good. On toast or mixed into yogurt.

Apple Saffron Jelly: Red fleshed apple jelly with saffron is amazing. My own original recipe. I can eat a lot of it. Hungry just thinking about it.

Looks amazing, tastes delicious. This is a marketable product for farmers markets and farm stands. One taste and they will come back for more. Hoping to put up a lot of it this year. A couple of crepes filled with this stuff is a perfect before bed snack.

Apple butter: Traditional apple butter keeps on the shelf without canning for years. My oldest test batches are 7 years old now and still fine, sitting on a kitchen shelf. It is delicious and makes a great gift if you are willing to part with it.

Hot sauce: I can go through a lot of my fermented hot sauce in a year. It is not super hot, so I use gobs of it.

Pepperoncini: Fermented pepperoncini is another one I can eat a lot of. If I have a lot, I eat a lot. Hard to make enough of them.

Fermented ripe “pimentos”: I don’t use these in nearly the quantity that I use other preserved foods, but I like them and make some when I have enough peppers.

Kimchi: I sometimes will grow Asian cabbage and make large batches of kimchi. I prefer to keep it in the refrigerator, so I don’t make a huge amount at one time anymore. I hesitate to put it down here since, like saurkraut, it’s more like a food I make than a think I preserve out of the garden for later. If I could store it the way I want to though, I would make a years supply every season.

Fermented dilly beans: Green beans ferment very well. Add a little dill, peppercorns and coriander. They can be kept without refrigeration or canning if managed correctly and usually stay very crisp.

Frozen roasted peppers: In a good pepper year, I will roast and freeze half cup jars of roasted ripe and green peppers, cut up and ready to use. They are good in sauces and stewed meats of various kinds, as well as fried up with meat for tacos and burritos.

I will usually roast peppers for salsa. I also put a small piece in each jar of canned tomatoes. Any extra get frozen in small jars.

Olives: I make several kinds of olives and can eat a lot in a year in salads, out of hand, on pizza and in a few recipes.

Dried chilies: I can use a ton of large dried chilies for chili powder. I also use a lot of small dried hot chilies, preferably Chile Arbol. I basically can’t grow enough of either one. I like paprika a lot too, but rarely grow enough peppers to make it. If I had the resources, I would grow a lot more peppers and dried chilies.

Dried tomatoes: I can use a fair amount of these if I’m in the habit of cooking with them.

Tomatoes are easy to dry in hot sun with the skin side down.

Jerky: I can eat a lot of jerky if I have it, usually venison. If I can get two deer this hunting season, I will likely dry about a deers worth of it.

Dried wild mushrooms: Some dry well and others taste bad when dried. My favorites are Porcini (king and queen boletes) and Black Trumpets. I can use gallons a year of those, more than I can ever manage to gather and dry.

Frozen fruits: I use these mostly for smoothies. Peaches, pineapple guava, any kind of berries, cherries. I don’t freeze apples much, just a few for smoothies, but they are not the most useful or delicious frozen fruit. Someday I hope to have a much larger freezer and more berries in the ground.

Dried prune plums: I can eat quite a few of the small french prunes that grow in this area. I slice them in half and dry them. They taste like red licorice sticks. One of my favorite dried fruits.

Dried Persimmons: Whole dried persimmons are the gummy bears of dried fruit. They can be challenging to make, requiring both warmth and air circulation, but they are worth the effort.

Dried Oregano

Dried Basil

Coriander seed

Saffron

That is what I can think of that I actually preserve and eat. I don’t end up throwing out anything except extra herbs when I dry a new batch. I don’t give anything away just to get rid of it. I also don’t usually take a surplus of any random thing, like zuchinni, and try to make something out of it just because it is there. I mean I’ll do that once or twice to see if I’m going to like it and eat it, but I try to take the hint if it ends up sitting around forever. I prefer to spend more time and energy growing and putting up the stuff I use the most of instead.

I think in some cases, it is a failure of creativity, or failure to adapt eating habits to what is available, but that only goes so far. And there is still the bottom line of whether you end up eating it or not, regardless of why that is. For instance, I just threw out a big bag of artichoke hearts that I froze last year. I did the same thing the year before. They are delicious, but I forget to use them and there are not that many places where I have figured out to use them anyway. I thought I could make tapenade or something like that, but I never did it. Both years I had to deal with this huge bag of unwieldy lumpy things, finally realizing artichoke season is at hand again. I won’t do that again. I might make tapenade and freeze that if I can’t can them all, but no more big bags of them taking up space.

Best wishes for a good harvest and canning season.

Some Updated Info on Pollinating Apples for Breeding

I’m in the peak of apple pollination season right now and feel the need to update information on pollination just a little bit. I’ve been doing this for 12 years now this spring’ and pollination is the thing that I have changed the most and continue to evolve.

Last season was the organza bag revolution. These are sheer nylon bags that I use to cover flowers, anywhere from one flower cluster to 18 inches of branch. The bags are applied to sections of branch with no flowers open. If any are opened, they are removed before bagging. This was a huge improvement and makes pollination much more efficient.

I started making mass pollinations of branches by wrapping in mesh and clothespinning it together. Organza bags made it easy to bag large numbers of branches and flower clusters. Every size of bag I use is represented in this photo.

My organza bag method also introduced a new problem though, cross contamination. If I take the cotton swabs I was using pick some pollen up out of my pollen packet and start applying it to opened flowers, I’m also picking up pollen from those flowers. In the past, that was not a problem, because I was opening closed blossoms which were not releasing pollen yet, and pollinating those. Occasionally a closed blossom will be releasing some pollen, but it is not usual.

The contamination was with pollen of varieties I use in breeding anyway. I don’t mind some contamination, because it makes interesting crosses that I might not otherwise make and who knows. But I realized that in situations where I had very little pollen saved and had to try to make it go as far as possible, it may very well end up that I was pollination more with other things than what I was intending to use.

Part of the problem was the cotton swabs I was using. They are big and hold a lot of pollen which works it’s way down into the cotton ball end, so I could not afford to throw them out and start a new one. This year, I ordered some micro makeup applicators and they solved that problem. These are small plastic sticks with a tiny microfiber fuzzball on the end. I can pick up some pollen with one of those, pollinate one variety and then toss it and use a new one for the next variety. The only way I will get contamination is if I double dip, which I sometimes do and sometimes not, depending. I can flick most of the pollen off and dip again in some cases. In other cases, it will stick too much and I might choose to use a second swab for the same variety.

These micorfiber makeup applicators are also a game changer. I wish they were black to show pollen better, otherwise they seem to work great.

Overall, I may be using less pollen than I used to, because I don’t have these cottonballs on a stick sucking up all my pollen and holding it. The downside is that it is much slower to apply pollen to the female parts of the flower with a tiny swab than it is to brush over it randomly with a bigger swab. But I have a partial solution for that now too, I think… This year, I am waiting longer until most of the blossoms are open, then pollinating a branch once and re-bagging it. That saves a ton of work, since I just have to bag it, open it once, pollinate and then tie it off and leave it. We will see how that works out in terms of pollination efficiency. I think some of the blossoms are ending up aging too much to take pollination, but most look fresh and probably fertile.

Varieties vary a great deal in whether they all open in a short period, or very gradually, so in some cases, it may very well be best to pollinate more than once. For instance, Pink Parfait blooms early, but it has a long bloom season, where the flowers are opening gradually. Gold Rush just blows out completely in a few days. I am often pollinating while there are still a few blossoms closed too. If they look like they are big enough to open soon, I’ll open them and pollinate them.

I think this basic approach is going to work. It doesn’t take too terribly long to pollinate a branch with these tiny brushes and it’s very acceptable if I’m only doing it once in most cases. I recommend both the organza bags and micro brushes. I ordered three sizes of brush, but I think I’ll be using the smallest one almost all the time. Any of them are better than cotton swabs. For organza bags I use 4 sizes 6 x 9, 8 x 12, 12 x 16 and 16 x 24, and I use them all in different situations. I had a ton, but I use so many that I just ordered another 130. They do break down in the sun, but in most case, I think they will last for at least two seasons. The bags not only protect from pollen contamination by insects, they also protect the fruit from munching insects, hail and birds with one application. They are not 100% protection from birds, but if there is a lot of other fruit, they will not try to peck through a bag. I also don’t have to label fruits before they fall, and if they do fall, they stay in the bag. When it is time to harvest, I put the apples in the bag with the label from the tree until I process them.

Last year I bagged a lot of control blossoms to see if they would self pollinate. I only got fruit and seeds off of one, Flaxen, which is one of my seedlings. I am growing the seed out to see what happens, so far I have two survivors. In most cases, apples are not self pollinating, but if you want to be sure, bag a cluster of blossoms before it opens and find out.

One last issue to talk about is old pollen and how long it keeps for. This year I used quite a bit of 2022 pollen. In the past I’ve used pollen that was 2 and 3 years old and it seemed to work, but I was also not isolating blossoms. I hope still this year to makes some experimental pollinations with older pollen I have sitting around, but the season is well along, so I better get on that. I feel pretty strongly that pollen will last a year, especially if stored carefully. I store it in the freezer now. I make sure it is very dry, seal it in a jar with the dessicant packs from vitamin bottles, or some toasted rice, let it sit out another week, then freeze.

Next year I will probably make a good updated video on pollination. I think I will learn a lot this year to inform that project.

I’ll add links to the swabs and organza bags to my amazon store page. I would not be surprised if the swabs are available at drug stores, but I have not looked. If only doing a few pollinations, the 8x12 inch size organza bags are probably a good choice.

Exciting Results From the Daffodil Breeding Project

Pollinating Mallee, a variety I picked up for breeding purposes. In this case, I’m adding pollen of a red rimmed poet type, in hopes of getting a red rimmed double.

In 20210, i started making cross pollinations between daffodils and planting the seeds. it’s been a slow process, becasue I have not taken very good care of the plants, but I’m finally getting enough results to really matter. Here are some of the blooms and a link to a video I just made about the project.

Most seedlings are nice looking enough that most people would probably want them growing around the homeplace and never question their origin. If I were to grow just my best seedlings right now, I could easily sell these flowers at farmer’s markets, or anywhere really. Of the rejects, most are split cups that don’t split evenly and have a generally sloppy appearance. While the average seedling is just fine, it’s a different criteria to propagate and name something though, especially when I will eventually have hundreds, maybe even thousands to sort through and assess. For instance, there are a a lot of very nice pink cupped daffodils. Those used to not exist at all, until someone cracked the code on getting a true pink corolla. Now I have a bunch of them that could grow alongside nice commercially available varieties, but how many of those do we really need? A flower has to distinguish itself in some way.

Speaking of distinguishing itself. Look at this crazy looking thing. I haven’t seen anything like it before. Next steps, propagate and flower it to see how it performs year to year.

As flowers appear extra promising, they will be moved out to better conditions for further observation. In the mean time, they will make more bulbs to further propagation. Eventually, some of them will be available either through me or a catalogue, or both. That is a long road though. If I get something that I think will justify the expense, I can have it propagated through micropropagation. One of my patrons does that and has reached out about propagating apples and daffs by that method. Even so, assessment alone can take some years, as they need to be flowerd at least a few seasons to see how consistent they are etc.

A rose-like double seedling that develops a pink rim as it matures. One of the best so far.

This smallish pink cupped flower is a little different than the average.

Last year, this was the most promising daff I had flowered to date. This year its one flower is disorganized, with lots of tangled elements and notched petals. Otherwise, it is stunning, so hopefully the average flower will be very nice, with few messy flowers like this one.

I like this one. It has a lot of movement with the wild and wavy swept back petals and a nice big trumpet with good color.

Front view of the pink rimmed double.

Interesting one with nice rim effect.

While many of the split cup offspring come out looking messy and disorganized, I already have a handful of promising ones. I like the idea of breeding with a white split cup like this to try for a red or pink rimmed effect.

They can’t just look good, they have to perform well too, preferably without too much pampering. This one has 4 flowers already and is dividing well. Others may divide very slowly, or produce flowers sporadically or even start failing to thrive and dying out in less than ideal conditions.

Thats the report for this flowering season. there are more promising flowers that I didn’t get photos or footage of, but that is a good representation. Next year, a new wave of blooms will come out. It is a pretty fun project in that regard. A little anticipation is good. I remember checking several times a day for the very first daffodil seedling to emerge from a flat where I had planted them. My youthful enthusiasm is somewhat tempered now and for the better. Waiting for new blooms to open though, and the feeling of success when something good comes along, is something worth experiencing.

If breeding plants interests you, go for the plant that captures your imagination. The best plants for easy results are those that throw high variation. It helps if they hybridize readily with closely related species, as is the case with apples, iris and daffodils. If you look through photos on the web of different varieties and you see a large variability, then you can be sure there is a great range of possibility to be taken advantage of. More regular people should be breeding plants. It may not make you rich and famous, or immortalize you, but it is engaging, life affirming and gives us something to be invested in and look forward too. And who knows, that one small act of making a first pollination and planting the seeds may turn into something big and propagate some positive ripples out into the world.

Apple Crosses I'm Growing Out This Year

First a note on content. I’m an obsessive person. I have every intention of writing content that does not have to do with apples and orcharding again in the future. But I write about what I’m doing and thinking about, and right now it’s apples and orchard stuff. I hope to eventually be doing more on homesteading, tools, axemanship, primitive skills, materials and their properties, practical philosophy, plants and more. I know not everyone is on this blog to hear about this stuff, but the people who are, are very enthusiastic and appreciative of it.

These are the apple crosses I'm growing out this year, with some brief notes on why. This is by far the most exciting year of crosses yet, with quite a few of them using my own apples or even two of my apples crossed together. Also, as more stuff fruits I get at least a little bit of an idea of what parents might be more likely to throw good offspring, like William's Pride.

I originally saved 725 seeds this year, which is just not doable right now. By going through several times I got it down to about 350. Still, that is a lot of seeds. It is a big risk to plant them at all, since I may not have a place to move them to for a while. If need be though, they can just stay in the ground for years and be grafted out any time down the road. The seedlings that were from seed pollinated in 2021 are cut in the fridge waiting for some bud 10 rootstock to show up in the mail. Those are going into a nursery row with grafted trees of the best of my seedlings that have fruited so far, so that I have copies to take with me that are already close to flowering and fruiting. Those trees will not likely hold well in the ground past 2 or 3 years. So, that is my timeline to try to buy and establish a new place. Priority though is to get a good place, not just any place, so if there are some casualties, so be it.

New Red Fleshed King David x Rubaiyat cross, open pollinated. ( I almost never plant open pollinated seed, but I don't want to wait to use this in breeding. It's that good.)

Amberwine x Wickson (sort of a backcross, since Amberwine's parent Vixen is from the etter savory line. Given the great similarity between vixen and wickson, they may even be seedlings of the same cross. Or equally plausible, one is an offspring of the other. Anyway, reinforcement of the savory flavor trait is the goal, but with the excellent attributes brought into the mix by Williams' Pride)

Appleoosa x Pink Lady (An attempt to mesh late hanging genes from Appleoosa's parent Lady Williams, with LW's other descendant Pink Lady. Also Pink Lady is a higher quality apple in general. AND both have a lot of flavor. I should probably make this cross more. It is probably better made in the opposite direcions PL x App')

Appleoosa x Viking (two very high flavor apples, one Red Flesh. I think Viking has a hint of pink in the flesh, but I can't remember for sure)

Black Winesap x Appleoosa (testing the idea that there may be a synergy between RF and the very dark red skinned. "black" apples)

Black Winesap x Black Strawberry (I've only fruited Black Winesap once and it was no good here. But I'm just too curious what two "black" apples crossed together end up making)

Centennial x Wickson (seems like a no brainer. two of the best dessert crabs)

Cherry Crush x Black Strawberry (Dunno, just seems inevitable)

Cherry Crush x Pink Parfait (Seems like a no brainer)

Cherry Crush x Sweet 16 (Two cherry flavored apples, SWT 16 is disease resistant and higher quality over all)

Chestnut x Golden Russet (I would call chestnut a russet leaning apple. It is hard to imagine these two apples coming together and not making some delicious little, richly flavored nuggets of goodness. Seriously, someday ya'll will be like "steven prophesized the amazingness of this apple cross yo's")

Chestnut x Wickson (As much as I've always thought this was an amazing cross to make, I somehow never ended up with many of them, if any. Hoping these 10 seeds make it.)

Flaxen Self Pollinated (I bagged some apple blossoms to see if any would self pollinate. Flaxen was the only one out of half a dozen or more that produced fruit and seeds. I wanted to grow them just to see if they will grow and keep growing or eventually fruit and what the fruit would be like.)

Golden Russet x Ashmead's Kernel (two the most highly respected quality russets. Golden Russet is the best of the best Ashmeads very good+ and much better grower than GR. I just think the best russets should be crossed together, period.)

Golden Russet x Wickson (Instinct or intuition or something, tells me that savory russets are going to be amazing. I suspect this is the better direction to make this cross, but I made it in both directions)

January Russet x Golden Russet (Chasing a high quality, super late russet! This is the very top cross I would think to make for that purpose. It is possible that January Russet has GR as a pollen parent already. That could be a good thing.)

Musky/watermelon flavored Rub x PP cross x Hard Candy Cider (Again, trying to synergize high flavor genes. Also, three RF apples in this crosses heritage, but neither parent expresses RF)

Pink Lady x Appleoosa (This is a good cross. Trying to get red flesh in a late hanging, high quality apple. Plus, there very well may be a synergy between the complex flavor of both)

Pink Parfait x Appleoosa (trying to carry Appleoosa's excellent qualities forward into a higher overall quality apple, and hopefully late as well. PP lacks in the intense red flesh and berry flavors, but the genes to synergize with appleoosas RF traits are likely there)

Pink Parfait x Black Strawberry (Trying to take some of the best of BS and leave the less desirable traits behind by crossing it into the excellent PP)

Pink Parfait x Lady Williams (Two of my latest apples. PP is better overall, but LW brings plenty to the table with high flavor potential, and it is later)

Pink Parfait x Musky/watermelon Rub x PP cross. (Back cross to Pink Parfait, hoping to bring in some unique traits. It's a gamble since that one parent has not been assesed thoroughly, but i just have a feeling it's going to work out)

Pink Parfait x Pink Lady (Same reasons as PP x LW above, but probably a better cross)

Pink Parfait x Pinker lady. (I've only tasted strawberry flavor in 3 apples, PP, Pinker Lady and Black Strawberry. By far, PP is the weakest, but it is still there. also, two high quality apples with pink flesh, and while Pinker Lady is not late like PP, it's parent Pink Lady is)

Pink Parfait x Whitwick (Attempt to bring more flavor genes into PP, plus Whitwick is somewhat late, so offspring are likely be be late November and later)

Pink Parfait x Williams' Pride (this has to be good, in both directions)

Pink Parfait x Cherry Cox (chasing cherry flavor in a pink fleshed apple)

Pink Parfait x Wickson (Why not. I mean, my motto is pretty much cross wickson with everything)

Pinker Lady x Appleoosa (Higher overall quality pink fleshed seedling (Rubaiyat x Pink Lady), with more intensely pink fleshed seedling (Grenadine x Lady Williams) full of intense flavors. Also, there they have the same late hanging genes in their ancestry)

Pinker Lady x Cherry Crush (had to be done)

Pinker Lady x Pink Parfait (No brainer here. Two very good to excellent pink fleshed apples of good size)

Rubaiyat x Cherry Cox (Trying to get cherry flavor in an RF apple. I suspect that cherry flavors lurk somewhere in many of the RF apple genetics. I hope so anyway)

Rubaiyat x Pink Lady (Chasing late hanging, higher quality RF apples with lots of complex flavor)

Rubaiyat x Whitwick Pippin (shooting for synergy between whitwick's high flavor and rubaiyat's berries and fruit punch thing, plus, obviously red flesh)

Sunrise x Cherry Cox (chasing cherry flavor in an improved apple with some good modern traits)

Sunrise x Rubaiyat (High quality modern apple that could use some pizazz and red flesh)

Sunrise x Muscat de Venus (high quality modern apple with umami bomb)

Sunrise x Wickson (trying to bring savory flavor into a high quality, well behaved modern apple)

Vanilla Pink x Pink Parfait (very interesting Pink Fleshed apple with unique flavor traits, crossed with higher quality pink fleshed apple. Another step in carrying forward the best traits of Grenadine into better dessert fruits)

Viking x Whitwick Pippin (Two high flavor apples with complex fruity flavors. It really had to be done)

Whitwick Pippin x Rubaiyat (flavor synergy and RF)

Wickson x Appleoosa (same vein as Wic x BS and Wic X Rub)

Wickson x Black Strawberry (duh)

Wickson x Golden Russet (the less interesting direction to make this cross when chasing a russet apple, but I am growing a few anyway.)

Wickson x Rubaiyat (I originally saved 50 of these, but pared it down to 20. That was painful, but it had to be done. I will no be surpised if 33% or higher of these are worth growing and grafting. We'll see. So far this cross has yielded Cherub and Tomboy)

Williams' Pride x Appleoosa (WP expresses a small amount of RF and throws excellent offspring. Appleoosa has amazing quality, but could use some refining influence from someone like the exemplary WP. Also WP, has disease resistance genes!)

Williams' Pride x Black Strawberry (Again, attempting to elevate BS to a higher quality desert apple, with the near flawless WP)

Williams' Pride x Centennial (two excellent very early apples, with little else in common. I don't know man, I'm pretty sure this is going to work!)

Williams' Pride x Musky/watermelon flavored (Rubaiyat x Pink parfait) seedling (This is a gamble crossing an apple I think is going to be unique and very good to excellent, with one of my best parent apples. Will the musky flavor persist? will it be passed on? oh the suspense!)

Williams' Pride x Pink Parfait (This has to make some great apples)

Williams' Pride x Muscat de Venus (chasing the success of WP x Vixen crosses which produced Amberwine and a couple others that are under further observation. MDV= UMAMI BOMB)

Williams' Pride x Wickson (trying to expand and follow up on the success of Williams Pride x Vixen crosses)

When I first decided I had to move, I thought I might pause this project until I got a new place. Well, that didn't work. I didn't get this far by being sane and cautious :D

Seedling Scion Auctions are Live

Scion Auctions for some of my seedling varieties are live on http://FigBid.com. Half of the auctions, Hard Candy Cider, Tomboy Crab and January Russet, end on Saturday 5 minutes apart starting at 5:00pm pacific/8:00 pm Eastern.

Sugarwood, Vanilla Pink and a couple remaining Appleoosa scions end on Sunday, 5 minutes apart at 5:00pm pacific/8:00 pm Eastern.

These are varieties that I have in very limited quantity for various reasons.

https://figbid.com/Browse?FullTextQuery=skillcult

Scion Wood is Available

Grafting season is here and scionwood is available in the webstore. Along with the usual named varieties, I have several new seedling releases this year, Amberwine, Tomboy Crab, Vanilla Pink and Dutch Master. You can click those links to read about them.. Some of my seedling varieties are in the store and some will be auctioned on http://Figbid.com next week. Assuming all goes smoothly, the auctions will start on Tuesday and end on Sunday, 3 minutes apart. Varieties that will be on auction are Vanilla Pink, Tomboy Crab, Sugarwood, Hard Candy Cider and January Russet. I also have a few table grape varieties in the store and basket willow cuttings for planting.

Pollen gathering season is just around the corner. I will announce here and on social media when pollen is ready. Instagram @skillcult

Apple Seeds Available, Scions Coming

Apple seeds are available in the webstore. Usually patrons pretty much clean them out by the time they become available to the general public. This year I increased pollination efficiency and just spent a lot of time making crosses, so there is quite a bit of good stuff left.

And there were so many interesting crosses this year! Every year it gets more interesting as I increase the number of crosses I’m making with my own varieties. Quite a few are even crosses between two of my varieties. I went through the seeds and sorted out what I want to grow. Really, I wanted to save more, but I tried to be conservative. I don’t even have a place to put them in the ground yet. I counted up what I saved out and it was a whopping 725 seeds! If those have just a decent germination rate, I’d have more seedlings this year than all the previous 12 years I’ve been doing this combined, ughhh. But they are so good and so promising. I went back through to see if I could pare it down, and put back 10 seeds lol. I’m going to have to try that again. The seeds are all dried this year, so I can keep them til next year, but by then there will be new seeds and new crosses that are horribly tempting. I guess it’s a good problem to have, but I really am not sure how to proceed. I simply can’t plant 700 seeds this year.

Scions are coming soon as well. I’ll have at least three new varieties debuting this year, Tomboy (Wickson x Rubaiyat), Dutch Master (Grenadine x Goldrush) and Amberwine (Williams’ Pride x Vixen). I will have increased numbers of scions for most of the stuff I have already released, much of which will be available in the webstore this time around, instead of on auction.

Simple Leaf Duff Mulch Collection System, Multiple Benefits

I use quite a bit of leaf duff mulch collected from the forest. While I also use other things, there is nothing quite like it. I posted this short video today on a simple system for concentrating and encouraging it’s formation for harvest, but here is the low down.

Video URL: https://youtu.be/jrk6rcplVPk

So, why leaf duff. I use leaf duff mostly on seed beds. Leaf duff is not just shredded leaves or any organic matter. One trait it has is that small flat pieces are efficient at surface coverage. Why cover the surface? To keep water in and protect the soil. Almost any mulch can protect the soil for losing water. It also protects the soil for the hammering effect of rain and watering, which can pulverize it and destroy it’s structure. Most agriculture systems use cultivation for a reason, it breaks up soil crusting. compacted soil wicks away moisture faster by capillary action. Loose soil can act like a mulch, greatly slowing water loss. Crusting also inhibits the penetration of water into the soil, so we not only have rapid loss, but less infiltration.

Lets say I plant a bed of carrots. The seeds are very small and they take a long time to come up. If I don’t cover them at all, as soon as I water, the soil begins crusting over. Each time I water, it will become worse. Once crusted the water I do add will not penetrate the tight soil surface as easily and what does sift through will leave faster. Adding amost anything from coffee grounds to saw dust, to compost will help alleviate this problem. Leaf duff, sifted through a half inch screen, if applied carefully and sparingly, efficiently protects the soil, but will still allow the seeds to come though. If I don’t cover the bed with anything, my carrots are going to be harded to keep moist enough for good germination. Since the take a long time to come up, and are planted shallowly, I can’t intervene by breaking up that crust. I plant carrots on an either 2 inch or 3 inch grid pattern, so even when they do come up, cultivation is very difficult. I usually mulch lightly to get them up, and when they have all emerged and grown a little, I sift more fine mulch over the bed.

I usually sift duff through a 1/2 inch screen Sifting not only gets out the big stuff, which I still use as mulch on larger plants, but it also breaks up the material for easy and even application.

Leaf duff also adds microbes to the soil. Forest duff is teeming with organisms established for ages in the forest ecosystem to make use of and recycle organic matter. People go out and collect these organisms from forest duff and grow them in a starch solution to add to garden soil.

so I get soil protection, mulch, add a few nutrients, add organic matter and add beneficial microbes without having to buy anything. Go through the alternatives that perform a similar function and the properties they possess to compare. Forest duff is good stuff.

The system is simple. Going out and collected a lot of this stuff over the years, you notice that it is deeper where divets are created in the landscape. Leaves move downhill quite a bit and accumulate in low spots or behind dams that create hollows. So I set up some logs in strategic places accross the landscape when out doing forestry work. I think the steeper the hillside, the more, or faster, leaves will collect. It takes a few years to gather enough and break down adequately, but it’s a simple intervention and you can revisit them over and over once set up. I’ll definitely implementing this idea a lot at my next place if the environment is suitable.

Leaf dams are not rocket science. Just lay something across slope under a tree that makes a lot of good leaves and wait about 3 years. I will also be trying out shallow trenches and laying the soil into a berm downhill. These hollow areas in the landscape are also good places to lay down brush for cleaning up debris while creating some small animal habitat.

Another idea I had was to try innoculating Blewit mushrooms into these spots. They really like growing in deep leaf mulch. I’ve piled up leaves in spots and had them just show up. Whether you could still harvest the duff and keep the mushrooms I don’t know, but I suspect you could. Either way, it could be a great system for growing blewits too.

Fruit Tree Training Progress, Real Life Results Using Superior Methods.

Here is a video I shot while out training some fruit trees. The value of this offering is that is shows and explains the real life results I’m getting and how I set trees up for the coming growing season.

The short story is that the common recommendations for training fruit trees go back hundreds of years. They rely mostly on heading cuts and then selecting your branches from whatever happens to grow back. These methods are imprecise and slow. By working just a little with the physiology of the tree by using disbudding, notching and less cutting back, results are much faster and more accurate. Being able to choose exactly which buds you want to grow out into limbs and secondary branches is pretty great.

Below is a playlist with more videos and further more detailed explanations on tree froms and training techniques.

Lucy Glo Apple Review/Comparison and Related Stuff

I finally got a hold of some Lucy Glo apples to try. This apple and it’s sibling, Lucy Rose, seem to be the first major RF apples to hit the market. I’ve known for a long time that they are coming and there has been a race to marke them. I also suspected that the first varieties to be released would fall a little short, because of the rush to get to market first. From what I tasted here, that is the case.

I had heard that Trader Joes carried the apple, so I went out of my way to find it there. The batch of apples I had to choose from was rather sad looking. Lots of bruises and flaws, very uneven surfaces and the coloring in general of this apple is kind of unappealing. None of that would matter much if the apples are really good, but it just looked like a subpar batch of apples.

I picked out the best couple of specimens I could that were not too beat up and had quite a bit of pink color to them. This apple looks a lot like pink pearl or Grenadine, two pink fleshed apples that show their color through the translucent yellow skin. In that case, more color on the outside, means more color inside.

In short, tasting this apple was disappointing. The texture was average to below average. The flavor had very little berry and a lot of banana. It took me til the next day when I tasted it again to nail the flavor. It tastes like an over ripe banana. I mean past just the ripe banana phase to the funky phase. Given that I don’t like banana flavor in apples at all, that’s a real deal breaker for me. I can tolerate a little if there are other flavors and it is otherwise a good apple, but over ripe banana is a no go. After tasting it again, I had to rinse my mouth out after about 15 minutes, because the flavor was still lingering unpleasantly.

Now I’m sure that these are poor specimens of this apple, and I’ll be on the lookout for better ones. But this highlights a major issue with apples in the current industrial food paradigm. Varieties have to be able to perform consistently and get to market in good condition. I suspect that red fleshed apples will be particularly problematic in this regard. My observation is that RF development takes time and typically accelerates a lot in the later phases of ripening. Commercial apples are picked under ripe, typically stored, then ripened and distributed. It may be a real challenge to breed up RF varieties that can perform and develop good flesh color and flavor consistently in that scenario.

Of course I want to compare my own RF seedlings to this and any other RF apples I come across. It is hard to conclude much, since these seem to be poor specimens but mine seem to compare very favorably. I kind of expected this apple to raise the bar on red fleshed apples. I’m not sure how much it does. As they are right now, my seedling Appleoosa, which still has some issues I’d like to fix in RF apples, is better eating. I think if it were developed optimally, it would at least give Lucy Glo some competition even at it’s best. My prediction is that given all of them in prime condition in a good year, Appleoosa would compete and my new, as of yet unnamed, red fleshed apple would probably beat both handily.

My newest red fleshed apple ticks a lot of boxes. I actually have several potential, excellent names, but I have work to do on that front before revealing. Given this apple and Lucy Glo, both in peak condition, I predict that this apple would win most taste tests. Of course I am biased though.

I have been thinking about options for my new apple, regarding possible patenting, or alternatives to patenting and protecting it from exploitation. Tasting this apple and being so disappointed and being so sure that my new apple would blow people’s minds if it could be gotten to them in good condition, brings a lot of food for thought. Tasting this now is good timing.

If nothing else, I think my new seedling should be used in breeding over Arlies or any of the other Etter apples. It is a serious improvement. I think this success is due to my choice of parents. Whether it could ever be brought to market in consistently good condition is somewhere between questionable and maybe leaning more toward doubtful… but then again, what if?

I DID IT! I Bred The Red Fleshed Apple I Want To Eat!

In 2011, I set out to breed improved red fleshed apples. While I have had some success already in that endeavor, most have been lacking in some department. This week, I finally got to taste real victory. It appears that I’ve fostered forth from the genetic pool, the red fleshed apple that I want to be eating.

While there are many questions to be answered yet about this apple, it shows no serious quality flaws and has the characteristics that I want in a red fleshed apple. By all appearances, this year anyway, it seems to be a first rate dessert apple. I’ve often found myself anticipating the day I’d have a truly improved red fleshed apple to eat, kaching!

In 2013, I crossed King David and Rubaiyat in both directions. That means that I put King David Pollen onto Rubaiyat flowers and Rubaiyat pollen onto King David flowers. Now it is often asserted that King David is a triploid and therefore sterile or at least weak in the reproduction department. Good thing I don’t believe anything I read lol. I’m more inclined to just try things, especially if you tell me I can’t do it. I mean the risk was low, so why not? I’ve found the same with other alleged triploids, like Ashmead’s Kernel, so don’t let those assertions stop you from trying to use them for breeding. They may be nothing more than internet rumors. Anyway, I have a number of crosses with these two apples that are starting to fruit now. A couple others have been worth keeping an eye on and one seemed promising. This apple however is just great right out of the gate.

While not all of the apples showed this level of red flesh development, it obviously has the potential to be solid through. It is also closer to red than most RF apples that are probably more accurately described as pink fleshed.

The tree was planted on the end of the 2011 row, so those older trees shade it a lot. It is only about 5 feet tall if you straightened it out. But it’s not straight, it is bent over almost touching the ground. It is even bent toward the shade side, not the sunny side! Seriously, this thing barely gets any light. Yet it produced about 5 or 6 apples this year, including several that were pretty good sized. All of which is to say that the impressive results are even more impressive. Once this apple gets grafted out into some good sun, it will probably be darker red on the outside, larger and quite likely sweeter and more flavorful. Then again, it might also get sunburn.

The other night I just could not fall asleep. I kept thinking of getting up and eating a piece of this apple. I only had one and a half left. I figured I’d just eat a quarter of the half. I like to keep new apples kicking around on the counter or in the fridge, cutting off bits to eat now and then. That way I get to taste it repeatedly instead of just a few times. At 3:30 AM, I finally got up and went to the kitchen trailer and got it, as well as another seedling apple, Appleoosa (Grenadine x Lady Williams). Long story short, I ate the half apple all the way down. The only reason I didn’t eat the very last bit of core in the center is that I wanted to save the few seeds left in there. I just didn’t want to stop, it was so good.

The flavor is compelling, with a good helping of berry like flavors that are often associated with red fleshed apples. I always want even more of that flavor, but this apple is quite satisfying in that department, and we can work toward breeding ever more flavor in further generations. I’m pretty sure we are going to have apples from my project eventually that are pretty mind blowingly intense in flavor. That is certainly a goal.

The flesh is medium coarse, but pretty crisp and quite juicy. It is a very satisfying eat. There is a good measure of tartness and plenty of sugar, which is one of King David’s strong points. The appearance is quite lovely, red, with significant russeting around the stem well, a little flattened, with an even outline. Size is probably medium, though likely it will be considerably larger on a healthy tree in the sun. It seems just right off the tree in early December, but could probably picked a little early and ripened. Ripening time may also shift a little in either direction with maturity. I haven’t found it to have any of the negative traits commonly found in red fleshed apples. Fruits often get better if anything as the tree matures.

There is very little scionwood this year. I need to make a bunch of grafts, and maybe send a couple to important apple friends. But I will definitely be on top of getting grafts out toward increasing scion wood production. This apple might be good enough to patent, but if I ever go there, I’ll try to figure out a way to allow for propagation for personal use. I won’t likely go there though and favor social solutions over legal solutions. Most likely it will be released into the public domain with the rest and likely by next scion season.

Appleoosa is quite good this year and proved itself an apple worth growing. It has some of the issues of it’s parent Grenadine, thick skin, higher tannin, texture issues, but all much less so. Overall it appears to be something like an improved Grenadine. The skin is more red, actually being red in color, unlike grenadine where the redness is from the flesh color showing through. I have eaten a lot of them and enjoyed them and I fed some to visitors and they were mindblown by the intense fruit punch flavors. It is more uniform than Grenadine and quite pretty. With a little edge of tannin, pink flesh and the very high flavor, it might be a good candidate for cider making.

Appleoosa is certainly a good candidate for breeding and I suspect that the next generation will produce some outstanding dessert apples when crossed with more refined fruits. Some of those crosses are actually already grown out and awaiting maturity and fruiting. I’ve also made many crosses using it this year. One cross I think will make an insanely high flavored, good quality dessert apple is Appleoosa and Whitwick Pippin.

I tried to grow quite a few Appleoosa scions this year. last year scions auctioned off for over 100.00 each! I think we can bring that down this year lol.

This year Appleoosa showed pretty light red flesh development. I have seen a few this year with almost solid through color, but most look like this. But history shows it is capable of being colored all the way through. Typically greater flesh color development equates to increased flavor. This thing is extremely flavorful, even at this level. Of all my grenadine seedlings, this one probably has the most of grenadines fruit punch flavors, and exactly the grenadine offspring I was hoping for to pursue further breeding.

Special thanks to my patrons for making it possible for me to pursue this and other projects. Expanding patronage will probably be critical to getting the new property, expanding this project and getting other projects off the ground. I have new enthusiasm to continue this project for a number of reasons. I got to taste several other intriguing seedlings this year that will almost certainly be keepers, and I am naming another one, a small desert crab called Tomboy. As important as the apples, is how many people I hear from who are starting their own small plant breeding projects with apples and other fruits, inspired by this project. Future plans with apples are to keep breeding to pursue a variety of categories of apples and hopefully discover new novel traits, as well as providing seeds, pollen and scions. I hope to expand in all of those areas eventually.

Key to expanding and continuing this and starting or expanding other projects will be getting help. I will probably start holding one or two work parties a year to get caught up on stuff and start propagating trees for when I eventually move. Once I move, the faster I can move trees and put in new projects the more I’ll get done in the working time I have left. A very good friend and inspiration to me is very sick right now and may not be with us much longer. Makes you think. From this point forward, it’s a war to get as much done as I can that will send positive ripples out into the world. I know now more than ever that the potential exists to quickly populate orchards with novel and varied apples, some of which may put smiles on literally millions, if not billions of faces. Like they say, when you die, you don’t take your toys with you. I’m inclined to think that when reflecting on my life in the future that I will not be thinking a lot about how much time I spent in self serving pursuits. The crowning achievement of this project will not be the varieties themselves, but their offspring and the way it engages people, in life and breeding apples or anything else, and just because it is a noble undertaking in service to our human family.

Does Axe Handle Grain Runout Matter?

Sorry for the lack of illustrations in this post, but I just can’t take the time. It’s all in the video.

I have been seeing more discussion lately of grain runout in axe handles, and whether it matters. Today, I want to discuss this topic and answer the question does grain runout matter? In short, Yes, but how much runout, what piece of wood, who is using it and how?

What is grain runout? Grain runout refers to the grain of the wood being cut across. Wood has fibers running up and down the tree. The wood can be split apart along those fibers more easily than it can be broken in any other way. That’s what we do when splitting wood. The run of these long fibers is the grain of the wood. The “out” in runout, means that the fibers poke out the side of the handle or board, instead of running all the way through end to end.

If we violate those fibers so that they don’t run all the way through the handle, we make a piece of wood weaker when it is bent. An ideal tool handle would have grain running straight through from end to end. That is almost strictly theoretical. We will violate the grain in making a handle, so that the ends of the fibers stick out the side in places, especially on a curved axe handle. But we could violate it a lot, or very little, or anything in between.

Trees are not perfectly straight. When run through a saw mill, a bent grained tree will produce boards with more runout than those sawn from straight wood. It is often claimed that items made from split wood are superior to those made with sawn wood. People say that because in a split piece of wood, the split usually pretty much follows the grain and you can tell exactly what you are dealing with. In a board sawn from a log, you may not be able to read the grain well, depending on the wood. Of course if you split out a piece of straight wood and make a curved axe handle with it, you will still violate the grain. All splitting really does is tell you what the grain is doing before you start shaping your item from the split blank.

So, one really important factor is how bad is the runout. What this question is getting at really, is how short is the distance that the grain runs from one side of the board or handle to the other. Or, if the fibers only run out at one end, how steep is the angle they rut out at.

Imagine cutting a board from the end grain of a huge log, so that the grain ran perfect perpendicular 90º to the board length. That is the shortest possible distance from one side of the board to the other. Remember that the wood fails most easily by splitting the grain apart, so this is the weakest possible grain orientation. Just looking at that model, we can say that of course grain runout matters.

As we increase the distance that the grain runs from one side of the board or handle to the other, the runout becomes less severe and less weak. Very long, gentle runout, can be fairly inconsequential, but the shorter it gets, the weaker it is.

There is another factor however, the intrinsic strength or toughness of the wood. What we are really talking about is how tough the wood is along the grain or maybe better said, how well knitted together is the wood along those grain lines. Some pieces of wood are just very tough that way and resist splitting. Others pieces will be weak and split along the grain easily. Unfortunately, you can’t look at a piece of wood and know if it is tough or not, at least I can’t. So, it is still best to avoid runout when possible. That is the safest. Grain is less of an issue with a tough piece of wood though. This is a good point to know, because we might see someone beating up a good piece of wood with runout and claiming that maybe runout doesn’t matter that much. In a piece of wood that splits more easily, it could matter a lot.

How severe the runout is, and how tough the wood is, are unchangeable factors any any given handle. Design clearly plays a part here too though. Whatever piece of wood we are working with, more than likely, a curved handle will have more severe runout and therefore it will be less strong than a straighter handle made from the same piece of wood. That is one reason I don’t like strongly curved handles. It doesn’t mean though, that every curved handle is a deal breaker. It doesn’t even mean that strongly curved handles are not going to hold up. And there is one last major factor, which is how we use the tool.

Even the best axe handle can be relatively weak when you attach a heavy piece of steel to the end. having an excellent handle is no guarantee against breakage. How we use an axe has much to do with whether our handles survive or not. Some mistakes, like overstriking, where you basically miss something and smack the handle, just happen occasionally, especially in splitting. Many breakages though, are caused by heavy handed technique. These breaks will often be blamed on the wood or handle design, because users think they are just using the tool normally, when they are actually applying a lot of unnecessary stress to the handle.

Heavy handed technique can involve several mistakes. One is just going at the work very hard and gung ho. Swinging an axe can be hard work, no doubt, but it does not have to be super hard if the tool and user are dialed in. A good user is graceful and efficient.

Another factor is how hard the axe is gripped. Most of us when we are just starting, will take a death grip on the axe. Taking that heavy grip will just wear you out faster, and both the handle and you will be under greater stress. Watch this video below on how to break an axe handle for more on how this actually happens and how to avoid it.

Finally, mistake of mistakes, along with the death grip, is trying to push the axe through the work after it hits the wood. Efficient chopping involves very little, if any work, after the axe hits the wood. The work is really done before it hits, by gaining momentum. It is very inefficient and stressful on both the user and the handle, to push the axe handle after it hits the target.

To summarize, while grain runout matters, it is not as simple as the angle degree or type of runout, because the nature of the particular piece of wood it is made from also matters. Either way, learning to use good technique can save out a lot of otherwise vulnerable handles. Good technique also saves us a lot of extra phycial effort. Heavy handed technique just wears us out and increases the chance of stress injuries, without acheiving much in the way of extra work done. Make no mistake, runout does create vulnerability, but understanding all these things can help us select better handles, and dial in our skills to stack the odds in our favor when using any handle.

Making Authentic Pepperoncini To Eat All Year

I love me a pile of delicious sour pepperoncini with my sandwich. Or just to snack on during a hot summer day. I usually drink all the juice as the jar too. Lets talk about growing, fermenting and storing the delicious, wrinkly little things.

I just posted this video on making pepperoncini, but I have articles on the subject from way back. I didn’t know when I first decided to grow and process my own that I would be in for such a learning curve. This was in the early days of the internet, perhaps going on 20 years ago. I first tried recipes using a vinegar pickle, basically, some salt, vinegar and water followed by sterilization in a water bath. That was a huge disappointment and not even worth eating. Clearly, the pepperoncini I was buying were not made that way.

So I decided they must be fermented. At the time the internet was barely hip to fermenting anything. I know, it is crazy to think that now, but seriously, you could find a few saurkraut recipes, but that was about it. Now fermentation supplies are sold widely and blog moms and health nuts have spewed forth a whole internet subgenera of fermentation content. I was lucky to find one Hungarian sun pickle recipe and adapted that to fermenting my peppers. Bingo, they were delicious, this was the key.

Well, they were pretty delicious, but the first few varieties I grew were not quite what I wanted. So, I began looking for seeds and testing varieties. Seed varieties were not that prolific on the net yet either though. I had to hunt pretty hard to find a handful of varieties to try, and they were mostly foreign imports. I learned that shishito peppers, in spite of the appearance, are not like pepperoncini at all. Most of the others were ho hum. I eventually settled on two varieties, Stavros and Sigaretta di Bergamo.

Stavros is a Greek variety that is crunchy and a little bit hot. It you insist on crunch, this is a good choice. To someone that does not like hot foods, these will be too hot. They are blunt and wrinkly, just like the pepperoncini you can buy in jars.

Sigaretta di Bergamo, which I usually shorten to SigBerg, is a long, skinny, pointed variety from Italy. This variety is my favorite. When pickled, they are very tender. They are not soft or mushy, just tender and delicious. The ones I have grown are not hot. I have tried several batches of seed trying to find the original strain that I had. The ones I ordered recently from a Swiss seed house seem to be the closest and I plan to save seed this time! A similar variety is Lombardo, though they haven’t ever seemed quite as good to me.

I’m quite sure there are many more great varieties out there. We now have a lot more options for finding many vegetable varieties from all over the world.

In general, pepperoncini are all extremely productive and easy to grow. Just keep up with water and fertilizing through the season.

Time of harvest is pretty important. I like them to be about full sized, but still immature. If they are too young, they can be bitter and too old they will be tough and not as tasty. I look for full sized peppers that have not plumped up yet. At the right stage, they still have a lean look to them, where the wrinkles are not filled out yet. Older peppers look more smoothed over and often more glossy, with thicker fleshed walls. It is a subtle distinction, but an important one. Getting them at the right stage can mean picking about every 3 to 5 days.

I'll leave processing instructions to the video, but I’d like to talk about the fermentation system and storage. You can only eat so many of these at a time and if you have 6 healthy plants, you could end up with a couple gallons of finished peppers, coming in over just a few months. Heat canning them just ruins them and besides that, you kill off all the beneficial bacteria. Canning is just another unnecessary step anyway. Instead, I use the carbon dioxide produced in fermentation to protect them from spoilage during storage. I have stored them for over a year on the shelf and they usually come out the other side perfectly good. Sometimes you will get a bad batch, but I think that has to do with what organisms make it into the ferment and which dominate. That war goes on during fermentation, not after, so if you open a jar and it’s bad, it was probably bad when you put it away.

Most fermentation systems do not allow for that blanket of protective carbon dioxide. All method probably have their pros and cons, but this is an essential function to me, becasue it allows for long storage without refrigeration. My goal is to have pepperoncini through much of the year. If you let air in and then put them in the fridge, they will keep much longer than they will at room temperature, but not long enough. They will still spoil, just slower. Besides, what serious fermenter has room for all those jars in the fridge?

To acheive this effect requires a small degree of management. I start ferments with a very, very light turning down of the lid, just to where it barely starts to catch. This light lid pressure allows the gasses to escape easily, without building up pressure that is going to cause a lot of spill-over, yet it still prevents the entrance of air. That airlock effect prevents any kind of scum from forming on the top of the ferment. Later, when fermentation is mostly over, I will snug them down just a bit tighter, then crank it down hard before storage. If the jar is opened after fermentation is completely over, air is allowed in, which will allow spoilage organisms to grow.

Many fermenters expect there to be a white film of stuff growing on the top of ferments. This same growth, will eventually produce off flavors and spoil a ferment, even in the refrigerator. I propose that if people in the past had the technology to prevent this scum completely, that they would have used it. Now we do, so get with the times and exclude the air these spoilage organisms need to survive.

So, if managed correctly, we get no scums to skim off or affect the flavor, we have very little to no spill over, and a protective layer of carbon dioxide for long term storage. Using canning seals is not ideal. They rust eventually and any small amount of rust that makes it into the jar will change the color and affect the flavor. I plan to work on an improved system at some point, but I have used canning seals with plastic lids to good effect, for probably hundreds of jars of food now.

Watch the video for details on processing pepperoncini or other whole peppers. The same brine and method can be used for other pickled vegetables.

Tasting Seedling Apples Mid September 2022

I continue to add seedling applles to the list of fruits that can compete with the best heirlooms and modern apples that I’ve collected here. When I started growing apple trees from seed about 13 years ago, I was optimistic, but I didn’t think it would be quite that easy. Not to say there are not a lot of duds, there are. But I think it’s just not that hard to grow some great apples, given that we plant a reasonable number of seeds, and use good parents. Here is my latest tasting video, revisiting a couple from last year and talking about some August seedlings and what’s up and coming this next month or so.

These results are of course in stark contrast to the common myth that apples from seed will almost always suck. I think we are well on our way to putting that myth to bed.

Daffodil Lust V: The Blooming!

Many years ago now, I became obsessed with daffodils and started breeding them. I will actually hardly take time to appreciate them, or “stop and smell the flowers” as they say. I’m just not that person. It’s really about the adventure and discovery for me. What is compelling to me is the anticipation, the thrill of the bloom season showing out new results, what can be done that hasn’t been done yet, and the next best-flower-ever always being just over the horizon. I like to say that with plant breeding, the process is as as valuable and compelling as the results. Being engaged and excited about something, the anticipation and investment, are all great things, regardless of the outcome.

My interest in this project slacked off somewhat for a while as I waited for the seedlings to bloom and show what kind of results I could expect. Earliest results were somewhat encouraging, but now that they are blooming in quantity, the results are very encouraging. I plan now to chase after the types that I want to breed a little more intentionally, and this year, I preordered some new bulbs for breeding stock. I’ll show you some promising new blooms and talk about plans and goals, but let’s get straight to the good stuff first!

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I really like this flower. It is quite large and in my experience, pretty unique. It has an ethereal quality, translucent, pale and ghostly. The name will be something supernatural/paranormal like Spirit, Ghost, Apparition, Spirit Box, Ethereal etc. Photos do not do it justice. The color is graded and changes over time from yellow, fading into whitish or cream with a yellow rim and other yellow highlights, but the overall appearance is translucent and pale. (see second photo lower down the page).

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This thing has attitude, crazy frilly corolla bits, with deep wrinkles, like some kind of tutu. But what really gives it the attitude is the swept back petals. In this photo it almost appears to have only three petals, because the others are swept back so far. I’m not sure I’ve seen a split cup appearing to have this much forward momentum. It’s a wild child. That might be the name, or Yellow Attitude or Party Girl or something edgy anyway. This girl can’t wait to fly the coop and leave her stodgy home town garden bed for good times broad! Good bulb division and producer of abundant flowers so far. Substance is a little weak compared to some modern heavy substance flowers, but it’s good enough.

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This is a strange, ethereal and huge flower. It has to be seen in person to rub off right. It’s just weird. Translucent, large, kind of awkward but graceful, like some kind of giant organism that drifts through space living off stardust that happens to float into its corolla. Not sure if this space jellyfish will make it off the homestead, but it’s a keeper for the home place at least.

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This thing is pretty epic, a very large and substantial split cup, with a very pleasing form and interesting subtle color grading. I was showing my friend Erin around the place when we ran into this for the first time, and we were both like, wow! (picture by Erin Kirschner) I was immediately thinking, “I would buy that from a catalogue”. If it shows to have good performance and consistently high quality blooms, I might pursue patenting and distribution through a large company. Who knows, maybe it will help pay for the new home place. I thought of calling it dominator, but would you believe it, there is already a daffodil by that name! I know, weird, but there are thousands of daff varieties and someone had to name all of them something. Dominatrix is available, but it just doesn’t sit right. Sorry ladies in leather, but as a spanker, not a spankee, I like to send a certain message wink wink. I might have to bust out the thesaurus and go for some other dominating name, like conquerer or conqueress. Seriously, this thing can compete with or beat most of the commercially available split cups I’ve flowered here. Maybe I’ll just call it “The Competition” But it still has to prove itself to perform, divide and flower well, and also show consistency in form. The color does not show well in photos, with yellow fading toward pinkish or peach in the center.

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This one is just a very nice, very symmetrical simple yellow flower. It distinguishes itself for those qualities. I’m not a huge fan of these simple yellow daffs usually, but I have two that have stood out of the pack and this is one of them. I don’t have a picture of the other, but it’s very nice,with large forward facing flowers on a super tall stem. I showed this one to a girl that was visiting when it was blooming the first time and she said “It’s perfect”.

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Here is a crazy psychedelic thing. This is a pink rimmed split cup. The reason it looks messed up is that it bloomed this first time in a weedy, sad bed in the field. Double flowers take a lot of resources, so if the plant is not growing under good culture, they just will not develop all the way. Hopefully with a better position in life it will develop evenly and completely. I thought I was really onto something new with this one, but I looked it up and there is one pink rimmed double out there in bulb catalogues already. It looks pretty similar to this actually. Even if this one doesn’t pan out, I know its possible now, so I’ll definitely try for more of them.

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This is a really nice one. It almost appears to have a double center, but it’s just very frilled and folded. My friend Melissa suggested the name Marylin’s Skirt, which is the perfect reference.

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A nice pink split cup. Certainly not like your Grandma’s daffodils! When selling daffs at farmer’s markets, exotic flowers like this get people’s attention.

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One of the parents of this is hillstar. I have a few very similar seedlings, all pretty nice. I think this one has the most white/yellow contrast going on.

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I have quite a lot of these pink rimmed types. That shows the power of building on previous work. Good pink rimmed daffs used to be very rare. With all the good breeding stock now, they can be improved further. Most of them are just adequate or similar to what is already out there, but at some point, one might really distinguish itself.

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ghostly pale one as it looks when matured and faded, frilly attitude one and perfect symmetrical yellow. And a bee.

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This project is very low input, but it turns out, maybe a little too low. I’ve lost a lot of young bulbs to things like late planting, weeds and just general procrastination and neglect I guess. I don’t need to up my game that much to have much better results though.

My usual approach is to go out in the late morning, pull off some anthers with pollen from some flower that I like, then go rub it on the girl parts of other flowers that I like. I don’t label anything. I go out and look for seed pods before they open and mix all the seeds together and plant them in flats during winter. After a couple years in the flat, they go into the ground. I’ve planted some in garden beds and some in the field. Field planting can work okay, but I’ve lost a lot to planting too early, or not controlling weeds and water. I know I’ve planted well over 1000, but I’m down to some many hundreds now. The part I need to improve the most is that flat to field transition.

It really starts with good breeding stock. If you want to breed good plants, stand on the shoulders of those who have already laid the groundwork for you. Chief among these for me is daffodil breeder Grant Mitsch who released many superior varieties in his lifetime. If you have to pay 10.00 or even 30.00 a bulb for breeding stock, but it will make all the difference in results, it’s worth it. Don’t start from the bottom, or even the middle if possible.

I am also increasingly chasing specific traits, so I’ll be making more pollinations for those. Chief among them is pink or red rimmed split cups. I have never seen one, though it is hard to imagine that no one has chased after or actually bred such a thing. Daffs with red or pink rimmed corollas are very common. The split part of a split cup daff is just a split corolla, so I can’t see why it wouldn’t work. I’ve been making a lot of crosses for that result for a while now, so I probably already have some new bulbs that will produce such flowers, but which have not flowered yet. I’m also going to try for more pink rimmed doubles. There is one commercially available already and that looks quite a bit like mine. I ordered it this year as much to compare to mine as for any other reason lol.

Once a good variety flowers, it still has to be propagated to make more. People already want them just from pictures that I’ve posted on instagram or in videos on YouTube. I want to make a lot of bulbs however, I really have to keep them all for a long time. Division is exponential of course, but still slow when you are starting with 1 to 3 bulbs! This year I will move the most promising seedlings that have flowered into protected, clean, well cared for beds to grow and divide. Every year or two, I can dig them and spread them out to keep them dividing as quickly as possible. There are other tricks to increase them faster, such as splitting the bases to produce quantities of bulblets, but I haven’t tried any of that yet.

I’ll also put the best varieties I have for breeding, into better situations, along with the new breeding stock, so that I’m getting plenty of good, well organized flowers all in the same area. I’ll continue making crosses for now and growing them out in flats and keep them there. Since I hope to be moving within a couple of years, I want to plant as few in the ground as possible. I am not looking at all forward to digging thousands of bulbs and replanting them somewhere else. I just had to dig out two garden beds of bulbs and now have hundreds to sort through, sell or replant, just to have to dig them up again later. But hey, if I can pull all that off, it’s going to be spectacular, because I have a gajillion bulbs!

I have a new system in mind of early weed control using tarping. When the fall rains come, I’ll let the herbs and grasses all sprout, but when they are still small, I’ll shade them out with heavy duty weed cloth. The flowers don’t emerge till quite a while after the first rains, so I can kill most of the weeds off for the rest of the year before the bulbs sprout up. I want to use that system to establish blocks of seedlings. If I keep the project going, every year those blocks will produce new flowers to assess, like a genetic treasure chest. And that’s the really fun part of the breeding process, going out to see what new treasures literally pop up out of the ground.

I think some people might think breeding plants is extremely complicated. It can be, but it often doesn’t need to be. Or they think that if something can be done, someone would already have done it. Nope. Plant breeding is far from tapped out. Certainly for the two plants I’ve worked with, apples and daffs. Daff breeding can be as simple as buying a bunch of bulbs of varieties you like from a catalogue, and when they flower, taking pollen from one you like and put it on the girl part of another one that you like. The only guideline I follow (mostly), is I use pollen from a color I want, like let’s say a red rim, and put it on a flower with the physical form I want, like a split cup. I read an article where a daffodil breeder said he does it that way, so I just do it mostly that way. That is as sophisticated as I will probably get with it.

My friend Mark Albert told me once that he used to sell vegetables at the farmer’s market, but eventually stopped and started to sell just flowers. Flowers make people happy. They think food should be dirt cheap and will complain about the price of good produce, but not about the price of flowers. I would probably never buy flowers for myself (or anyone else lol) but I like the smiles and happiness they seem to bring some people. If I could eventually get one or two apples or daffs that end up really spreading out there, that’s quite a legacy of enjoyment to unleash into the world. Each year, they produce the same fruit or flowers, regardless of age, potentially for generations to come. And maybe they will inspire other breeders or even be used as breeding stock.

Lust may be a strong word for my current relationship with daffodils and this project, but I’m certainly finding the results gratifying and the process compelling. Perhaps we’ve settled into a mutually beneficial LTR, puncuated by occasional exciting interludes. Look forward to more new flowers as they keep blooming. I’m hopeful that I’ll get new bulbs to flower quicker with better care, but out of the hundreds I already have growing, there are going to be many worthwhile new blooms. Out of those, I’m actually hopeful that I can market some on a large scale and generate some funds. So, with luck and work, maybe you’ll see my flowers in catalogues some day, propagated by the thousands and shipped all over the world. That would be pretty cool, to bring a lot of smiles to a lot of faces year after year for what seems like a relatively small effort.

Daffodil Lust

Daffodil Lust II: The Breeding

Daffodil Lust III: The Seeding

Daffodil Lust IV: The Waiting…

Bush Wisdom: How to Chop Without Breaking Your Handle and Beating Yourself Up In The Process

Todays video is on axe handle breakage. There are many factors that can go into axe handle breakage. The thing people seem to look at and talk about the most when choosing axe handles, is orientation of the growth rings on the butt end of the handle. While that is a worthwhile factor to look at, it is far from the most important. Not only are There more important factors when it comes to the wood grain, but how we use the tool is also very important. The discussion of how to, and not to, use an axe re: handle stress and breakage is the real good stuff in this video.

While the wood and the design can be very important, user error still likely accounts for most handle breakage. Again, this is another area where blame is often misplaced. Most think of user error as hitting the handle on things. The usual term is overstrike, meaning basically you miss and smack the handle on the wood you are cutting. Overstrikes are a serious problem, especially in splitting wood, but how we swing an axe and whether our technique is light or heavy handed can be a major contributing factor to handle breakage.

Recently, I had a young man up here helping out. He wanted to learn about chainsaws and get in some saw time. So we headed out to cut up a black oak tree that had fallen in the road. I brought a maul with a wooden handle, because my usual fiberglass handled maul was out of commission until I could get the head epoxied back on. (Yes, I use a fiberglass handled maul. It is the only place I use that type of handle. It doesn’t feel great to use, but they are tough as hell. I’ve glued mine back on a few times and the handle is still going strong.)

The wooden handle on this maul was not very good. It was too curved for my taste and it had pretty strong grain runout. Runout means that the grain, instead of running all the way lengthwise along the handle, runs at a diagonal. Runout is a major factor in handle strength and strong runout is not desirable. But while this handle was kind of crappy and prone to failure, I had already used it quite a lot. Not only had I used it, but I also lent it to my land mates for a year or more to use. Then I used it some more last year and some more this year. AND, I also used it quite a bit that day, while my friend was getting in some time on the chainsaw.

But when I took over sawing some bigger, trickier cuts, my helper managed to break the handle in just a few minutes of splitting. That’s interesting, why? He didn’t actually hit the handle on anything. This is where we get into user technique.

Whether splitting wood or chopping, people have a misconception that they need to shove or push the axe head through the work. That is not how good chopping and splitting works. We have little ability to push on the end of an axe handle and do any work. Just try it. Put the end of an axe or splitting maul on a log and push on the end of the handle. You will find that you have a great disadvantage. The idea of putting an axe head on a long handle is to gain an advantage. If you want to see how important that advantage is, just grab an axe head with no handle and try chopping anything by just holding it in your hand.

So, we see that there is no advantage realized from that long handle if we just push on the end of it. The mechanical advantage of an axe is that when we swing in an arc, we can increase the speed of the head a lot.

The formula is MASS X VELOCITY = MOMENTUM. The mass, or weight of our axe or maul is fixed, but if we swing it faster, it can do more work. What we can change to be more effective by delivering more energy to the work, is increasing the speed of the head. Remember that point from this article if nothing else. If you want more power, concentrate on increasing speed.

The work of chopping or splitting should be finished by the time the bit of the axe hits the wood. It is folly to try to add more power by pushing the head through the work from the end of that long handle. Not to say that such an effort will have absolutely zero effect, just not very much. We have already seen that it is a very inefficient way to deliver energy to the work, but there are other reasons not to do it, namely handle shock, and to the point of this lesson, handle breakage.

Let’s go back to our earlier exercise, but use the law of extremes. Imagine what would happen if your axe handle was a twig. And you are going to push on the end of the handle again, while the head is resting on a log. You can imagine what will happen. The twig handle will bow downward, like a smile, then eventually snap. No one is smiling now. So that is the same type of bow stress we put on the wood when we push on the end of any axe handle. Also important is that when the axe head strikes the work, there is an equivalent of a backward force pushing the axe head away from the log. Any chopping or splitting is a sudden stress on the tool, when that head comes to a sudden stop in the work. So, stress is a given, but it can play out differently depending on what we as the operators are going to do while hanging on to the end of that handle.

Imagine if we were to swing the tool very fast, then essentially let go of the handle. It is not too likely that we will break the handle. The shockwave that travels through the tool can just play itself out. But, if we have a death grip on the handle and push on the end to try to drive the tool through the wood, it will play out differently. Not only can the shockwave work against the handle wood more if we are pushing on it, we are also adding even more stress. The head is jumping upward, while we are pushing downward, all emphasizing that bow shaped stress on the wood, and snap, time to replace our handle.

And those are the reasons why this particular maul handle, though vulnerable by design and wood quality, was able to survive much use, and also why it broke in short order when in the hands of an inexperienced user. This kid is very smart, but he is also young, strong and enthusiastic. Learning not to make this kind of misguided effort to drive the axe through the work takes either time or instruction. I still sometimes have to remind myself to lighten up and concentrate on increasing speed.

So, next time you are splitting wood, remember these take home points.

*The work of splitting or chopping should pretty much be done by the time the tool hits the work.

*Increasing speed is the main effective thing you can do to chop “harder”.

*Taking a death grip on the handle increases stress on the handle, and also transfers unnecessary shock to your body for no good reason.

*Taking a light grip on the handle will save out your hands and allow the shock wave from impact play out as it will.

*The mechanical advantage of an axe is in our ability to swing it in an arc of some description in order to increase it’s speed.

Happy splitting and stay safe.