Appreciate your ramble! sounds like you are set for winter.
Love to hear that you learned grafting as a boy! I think that is pretty rare so kudos to your dad. Also AMAZING that you have a tree with 10-15 varieties on it already. When spring hits, I would LOVE to see a post on that. Just wow, very cool. We have only lived on our land for two years and the first year we observed a lot based on the Permaculture Principle of Observation. This last year we planted many trees and tried our hand at grafting some of our wild persimmons with cultivars scions and same with wild plums, but none took. We're trying this year with a little more knowledge and ability to use a friend's fridge to keep them stable til we're ready to graft ( i think the temp fluctuations were the reason we were so unsuccessful last year). but we'll try again!
sounds like you have a good herb garden already. i love it when they naturalize, personally. i make and sell tinctures for a business so i grew some ashwagandha, licorice, astragalus, and goldenseal last year to start the small herb business. it feels VERY good to have those in the ground and to be sharing medicine with people, and making it for myself. Good to hear from you. Take care.
Grafting stone fruit like plums can be tricky if you are using a cleft graft. Usually they bud graft them later into summer. I have yet to try that. I did have luck with a peach using a cleft graft, although I planted rootstock in a pot and had it in my greenhouse. I used black rubber electrician tape (no vinyl) to wrap the graft. The hotter sun in Greenhouse allowed it to absorb more heat and it healed over and grew.
I need to try it again with a plum tree I have. It tolerates our cold nights during flowering...I only know it as a Russian Plum. The tree produces well but I can no longer find the tree so I can have more than the one. I canned them last summer and they are wonderful right now.
I am slowly preparing a post for growing your own sprouts, especially during winter. I am eating them twice a day now. Once I finish that I will be starting up my hydroponic units under lights...I have posted a little about that early on when I started on steemit. This time I want to get pictures of the entire process...
Duly noted on stones and cleft grafting. Our plums will be whip and tongue grated this season, and maybe wait till later to bud graft our wild cherries, good tip!
Love to hear you're into sprouting! Me too, big time! If you're interested you could read one of our previous posts on sprouts here. We did a few in promotion of my book. Would love to read what you come up with.