Grounded!!!

"What in tarnation do you think you are doing?!?" Kubota bellowed.*

In Mrs ERJ's absence Kubota appointed himself my keeper.

I knew I was in trouble when I heard the Duramax come up the driveway, but I can only sprint just so fast with the walker. Add that to the 100 feet of sod, the soft dirt of the garden and the snarled mess of 14 gauge wire between me and safety, I knew I would just have to take my ass-chewing like a man.

"I am grafting" I told him.

It did nothing to calm him down.

The good news

The first mulberry I was going to graft

Good looking tree, right? Unfortunately you are looking at the hazelnut behind the dead mulberry.

Blurb Silk Hope mulberries

 I could not see that it was dead from the house. Oh well, I had three Silk Hope scion that I wanted to get grafted today. (thanks Lucky in Kentucky).

Mulberry wood is soft and easy to work. The bark can be filled with latex and the Genus demands high temperatures to knit together, but I have lots of heat to work with this late in May.

The potato patch. The soil is too wet to hoe.

Well, I just happened to know that I had several mulberry seedlings growing in the asparagus patch on the other side of the potato patch. Onward, ho!

Not my best work but not my worst.

I opted to use black, EPDM #33 rubber bands because they have lots of UV resistance. The stripped-off shoot you see is on the rootstock. The latent buds at the base of the shoot emit growth regulators that prevent the rootstock from aborting the area damaged by my surgery and promote healing.

I had pre-wrapped most of the scion in the house and followed up with wrapping the graft up to the pre-wrap with parafilm when I was in the field.

I was this close ===><=== to being done when Kubota pulled up the drive.

Busted!

I told him I would behave. And then, under my breath, added "for the rest of today."

* Those might not have been his EXACT words.