How to Start a Small Permaculture Nursery and Grow 1000s of Trees by Yourself

FULL article at "How to Start a Small Permaculture Nursery and Grow 1000s of Trees by Yourself" written by papprentice. May 10, 2015.

 

In summary, several actions must be taken and research required to start a small-scale permaculture nursery:

 

Fruit Trees are propagated by grafting or budding a desired variety onto a suitable rootstock. Trees can be also propagated from seed, but then it will not grow “true” to the variety of either parent from which it originated.

You can learn about propagation by reading books, watching videos, attending workshops and learning from skilled orchardists.

Start by analysing what grows in your area and understand your local biome, consult other growers to see what works locally.

Think about what you want from your trees and what your goals are – is it for juice, jam, cider or fresh fruit?

Buy pre-grafted trees to take cuttings from, or get scion wood from other people’s trees and by trading with others.

Grow your rootstock from seed or buy just one and clone it. If you have capital buy rootstock in bulk.

Set up a small home nursery or plant directly on site, you can start as small as you want and expand gradually.

Start seeds in buckets, seed pits, nursery boxes or nursery beds, and, if needed, graft on later.

Use nursery beds and a standard nursery setup to grow vast amounts of trees and transplant on-site later.