The Western Washington Fruit Research Foundation

02/01/2023

Winter Field Day
Learn Grafting, Pruning and Pest Control
Saturday March 11th 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Registration starts at 9 a.m.
For more information go to NWFruit.org
Location: At our fruit demonstration garden at WSU Mt. Vernon WA. located on Hwy 536 three miles east of Mt. Vernon.
Members free. $15 for one day pass. $25 for a yearly membership; $40 per family. You can sign up at the door.
For sale on site: Scionwood $3 Rootstock $5 Custom Graft $4
Grafting supplies are for sale.
We have about 100 cultivars of scionwood including apple, pear, plum, cherry, apricot an almond.
See the list of rootstocks and scionwood varieties available at NWFruit.org
For $12 you can take home a newly grafted tree of your choice.
We have indoor classes and then we go out and demonstrate the skills in our orchard.
Classes include:
How to graft a new tree. How to "top work" an existing tree to new varieties.
How to prune a young fruit tree and how to fix an old tree that is out of control.
How to prune grapes and many kinds of berries.
Learn about the organic pest control that you need in the spring.
Our group of friendly amateur fruit gardeners welcomes you.
Besides the field day there are opportunities to volunteer and learn in our six acre fruit garden on Thursday mornings.
It is all a lot of fun. We hope to see you there.

09/23/2022

NW Fruit is having our Apple and Pear Sample the Harvest Day on Saturday October 8th from 10:30 am to 2 p.m. The event will be at our fruit demonstration garden at the WSU Research Unit on Memorial Highway in Mt. Vernon Washington. The event is free to members. You can become a member on that day at the event. Membership costs $25 and is good for a year. There will also be classes that day where experts demonstrate how to successfully grow fruit in the home garden.

01/20/2022

Hello Everyone,
We have changed the date of our Winter Field Day to March 12, 2022, which is a week later than originally planned with the intent of coordinating better with other local fruit interest groups. This will be an all outdoor event due to concerns about Covid. Scionwood and rootstocks will be available for sale. We will post more information on our website within a few weeks.

07/25/2021

We are considering a new project at the orchard. This project would add habitat for pollinators and other beneficial insects. It is part of our slow but steady migration towards a more sustainable orchard management model. One of our issues is that COVID has really put a big hole in our Thursday volunteer corps. If you or someone you know would be interested in helping us in general or the pollinator project in particular please message us for particulars. Note that volunteers are allowed to pick fruit after the workday. The blueberries are ripe now.

06/02/2021

Bob Baines will be teaching about Pruning and Thinning in Early June at our webinar this Saturday, June 5th, at 10 am. Directly below this paragraph is a link for a preview of the video (only a few minutes but then about 30 minutes of a black screen, sorry about that, I goofed!). After the video Bob will have a question and answer session where people can ask questions relating to the video or other fruit growing questions.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1prgtaCZ0ub1reCUsRQsC-kFX9Q0bxr2P/view?usp=sharing

Click on the link below if you would like to register for this free webinar.

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xepEFGbRT7a9YthUk0jEkg

Bob Baines demonstrates his "grooming" techniques on apples and pears where he thins fruit and cuts out crowded and unthrifty growth at the same time.

03/31/2021

We will be having a webinar this Saturday, April 3rd, beginning at 10 am, on the support structure for our Kiwis and for the Blueberry netting. Then we will have a video by Kiwibob about culture and pruning of kiwis.

Register in advance for this webinar:

We will start with a presentation by Richard Fairfield on our support structures for kiwi plants and blueberry netting, followed by a Q & A session. Then we will have a video with Kiwibob teaching how to winter prune kiwis. Kiwis need to be pruned twice a year, in January and July.

03/03/2021

We will be having our second webinar on Saturday, March 6th, 2021. Here is the Schedule, you can come to any or all of the presentations. This schedule has been changed from the original on March 5th.

10 am Bob Baines will talk about Fruit Tree selection for the home garden.

10:30 am We will have our Annual Membership Meeting to elect Board members.

Short Break

10:40 am A short video on how to cut and store scionwood, then by a presentation from Bill Davis on grafting followed by a Q & A time.

Short break

12 pm Sam Benowitz - Rootstock Selection.

Finally we will have a question and answer session with Bob Baines and Sam Benowitz.

To register for this webinar click below:

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Grafting, Selection of Fruit Trees and Rootstocks. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

02/10/2021

We will be having our 1st monthly webinar this Saturday, February 13th, at 10 am. The webinar will cover the cutting of scionwood and how to prune a neglected tree. There will be time at the end for people to ask questions about growing fruit. The webinar is free to all. Click on the link below to register if you would like to attend the webinar.

We will have a short video on how to cut and store scionwood followed by a presentation about how to prune a neglected apple or pear tree. A general fruit tree question and answer time will follow where you can ask your fruit growing questions.

01/26/2021

The NW Fruit organization is looking for some administrative volunteer help. The primary task would be keeping our inventory files up to date. This task could be done from home and would involve inputing data in our master spreadsheet and generating the reports needed for the maintenance of the garden. This task generally won't take much time except at the end of the year inventory time and early spring planting time. It would help if you have experience using spreadsheets to manage data. You can fit the work into your schedule. If you are interested message us!