Bring some seeds, plants, cuttings and starts to share; pick up some, for free, for the coming year! Feel free to come completely empty-handed, all are welcome!
Where’s this happening?
The ‘Spring Seed Share and Plant Propagation Fair’ will be at the Oakridge Community Farmers Market: 48137 1st Street, by the United Methodist Church, from 1 – 4 pm on Sunday, April 6th.
This year we are welcoming the inspiring Agrarian Sharing Network, who will be bringing an amazing abundance of fruit tree wisdom to share. ASN is a decades-old volunteer movement of orchardists and plant lovers with a loving mission to save and increase local fruit tree diversity by helping communities propagate their favorite fruit trees. Propagation involves collecting fruit tree cuttings (scion) in the winter to graft on rootstocks in the early spring before the buds break.
An awe-inspiring variety of scion and rootstocks will be available at the Oakridge April 6th ‘Seed Swap, Tree Swap’ event, with experienced grafters guiding the propagation process.
Did you know that nearly all fruit trees are grafted? Fruit trees such as most apples, pears, grapes, cherries, plums, peaches do not grow ‘true to seed’ – so, every seed planted often have wildly different characteristics than their parent. All commercially available apple varieties are grafted.
Grafted fruit trees are exactly identical to their parent tree. The ancient technique of grafting is used to join a piece of wood (the scion) from a tree we wish to propagate to a rootstock. Want to learn more?
Examples of fruit tree cuttings that can be planted directly, without grafting, include: elderberry, fig, mulberry, willow, raspberries.
Do you have a fruit tree that’s special to you, that you’d like to take and share cuttings? Check out the Agrarian Sharing Network’s video that goes over important tips on scion collection and storage:
What can I bring to share?
- Bring seeds you’ve saved from your own garden, or extras from your seed collection. If you have older seeds, check out this ‘seed longevity chart’.
- Cuttings from your garden of directly-rooting plants such as: willow, elderberry, raspberry, fig
- Extra veggie starts
- Roots and bulbs such as sunchoke or ornamental flowers
- Already-rooted transplants from your garden that benefit from thinning (such as comfrey, raspberry, strawberry, thyme, rosemary, lavender, mint)
- If you want to contribute cutting from your fruit tree for grafting, make sure you gather it following the video above.
If you have large amounts of seeds or plants to share, please plan to check in at the info booth at least half an hour before the event begins on Sunday. If you want to drop seeds or plants off in advance, you can do so at the farmers market on Friday.
Clearly label what you bring with as much of the following information: variety, date harvested (or bought), source story (where it came from), any helpful growing tips. Feel free to make a sign that people can take pictures of instead of individually labeling each packet. Empty seed packets for dividing up seeds into smaller sharable quantities will be available during the event.
Important note: Bring what you can, but you are absolutely welcome to come empty-handed! Please be considerate with how much you take, take only what you think you can grow so we can make sure there is enough to go around. If you miss out, no worries: select leftover seeds from the Seed Swap will be available at the Seed Library where you’ll be able to check out all throughout the year!
What’s the Seed Library?
The Seed Library is a community resource, available all year long, located at the Oakridge Library. Anyone is welcome to “check out” seed packets, with the hopes that they will save seeds to bring them back in the fall. All seeds at the Seed Library are heirloom “saveable” types. The Seed Library shelves will be restocked with new seeds starting in March. At the end of the Seed Swap event, all extra seeds will go to the Seed Library.
Your help makes this all possible!
We would absolutely love your help.
- Workparty at the Farmers Market: Tuesday, February 18th, 9:30-11am Do you love plants? Come help us sort through and organize donated seeds for the Oakridge Seed Saving Library!
- Workparty at the Oakridge Library: Saturday, March (TBD), 10-12pm. Come help out the Oakridge Seed Library! We’ll be preparing for the Seed Swap event in April as well as loading up the library with more seeds.
- Workparty at the Oakridge Library: Saturday, April (TBD), 10-12pm. Come help us packet up some amazing varieties of bioregional seeds and prepare for the big Seed Share, Tree Share event.
You can RSVP below. Thank you for joining this community effort!
