Some Experimental Homestead Action!
Hi. I know I have been MIA a lot and it seems like I just do apple breeding stuff anymore. That is not the long term plan. I’ve been working hard to save money for a downpayment for 5 or 6 years now. In mean time the clock has been ticking and the apple breeding project and a lot of other stuff is just more or less on hold. I have not planted any apple seeds for two years. That means that other…
Scion sales are open to the public as of today. http://skillcult.com/store Auctions for scions on figbid are also running now and end on Sunday Evening. https://figbid.com/Browse?FullTextQuery=skillcult There are just 5 varieties on auction this year, Black & Red, Hella Kitty, Jellybean Cider, Tomboy Crab and Vanilla Pink. All of my other introductions are in the webstore. I do have two new…
I’m a little late on this, but I am looking for some of my old potato onion and seeds blum shallot stock, which I’ve lost. Many years ago now, during an especially challenging time, gophers gradually finished off the last of my stock of these two gems. I used to sell them every year on ebay, so I sent out a lot. I can probably get the same yellow potato onion again by careful shopping, but I would…
Apple seeds are now available to the public after patreon early access. I think patrons cleaned out about half of the cross pollinated stuff. Thanks to some help from friends and family, and a very good bloom period, I have more than ever. Between the cross pollinated stuff and open pollinated, there were 270 options, which is insane. I spent a lot of time this year just extracting seeds. Someone…
There is a common expression of wisdom that goes something like- “The older I get, the less I know.” Or as my friend and teacher Jim Riggs used to say, “The more you know, the dumber you are.” I like to refer to the same basic conceptual territory by saying “Know less to know more” . I would be surprised if riddle-like sayings like this pointing to the same thing do not exist in most languages and…
I released a new video tasting seedling apples early October 2025. There some promising new selections in there that I’m keeping an eye on, including the one pictured. It is another King David x Rubaiyat cross. Mostly great desert qualities and just a few small problems so far. More good first generation crosses coming to light. Imagine what can be done in multiple generations.…
Apple pollen is now available in the webstore . I try to add new stuff everyday as the bloom progresses. I also try to ship daily. There will be a smattering of pollen from my own varieties, but many of them are still small trees or a few branches, so that is limited still. It is a good bloom year, so I’m going all out on pollination. I applied hundreds of bags to isolate the blossoms, and ended…
The scion auctions are over and early access for my supporters on patreon is done, which means scion sales in the webstore are open to the public. This year I was able to add some of my seedling varieties to the store that were in such limited supply last year that they were on auction only. The new additions are, Vanilla Pink , Tomboy Crab , Pinker Lady , Black Strawberry , Integrity , Musketeer…
Quite a few of you should be getting this email after not receiving any for quite some time. I moved to a new email sending software and some of the contacts did not import. Hopefully the new import worked and this will go smoothly. The annual scion auctions have begun on figbid.com My username is Skillcult. All Auctions End on Sunday the 16th. For each variety of scion, the auctions end 5 minutes…
Often very large, fun to eat, pink fleshed Pinker Lady. After some years of assessment, I’ve decided to release a seedling apple into the public domain named Pinker Lady. Pinker Lady is a cross between Rubaiyat and Cripps Pink, commonly known as ™Pink Lady. Credit for the name goes to my ex-girlfriend tonia chi who insisted when I was making this cross for the first time that it just had to be…
Apple seeds are now available in the webstore . Patrons bought up a bunch of them during early access, but there are still quite a few cross pollinated and open pollinated seed left. Shipping should start around early next week. Happy growing :)
At some point, the trees begin to fruit and the real fun part starts as we get to taste the fruits of our labors. One thing I’ve learned is to give the trees a few years to fruit before judging them too harshly. The first fruits are often different and not typical or exemplary. They can be small and stunted, have very different texture and different ripening times than they will later. I’ve also…
Once seedlings have grown to a decent size and seem ready to transplant, I put them in the ground. I would prefer to put them on about 8 to 12 inch spacing in the rows, with rows a foot or more apart, but that can take up a lot of space. I’ve planted as close as 5 inches apart in every direction, in blocks, but some slower growing seedlings get overshadowed by the more vigorous trees and can…
I have changed quite a bit about how I store and germinate seeds and grow seedlings. I definitely do not have this all figured out. There are a lot of options to choose from, depending on climate and resources. I’ll tell you what I’ve done and what I’m doing now. I used to put the fresh seeds into the refrigerator to sprout in a damp medium. I would also store fresh seeds in small zipper seal bags…
I’ve changed how I pollinate apples quite a bit. Originally I would cut off all the male parts with tiny scissors. That is insanely slow. I’m pretty sure it is not necessary, so I quit. I also didn’t isolate blossoms for many years. I figured bees would not be interested in the flowers if I pulled off the petals. Then I saw a bee visiting some flowers I had just pollinated, so I began using…
This is part one of a series on what I would do now after a dozen years of amateur apple breeding. In this part, I will discuss collecting parents, testing them and choosing what to cross with what. Breeding apples is a long game and requires a lot of input on our part. Because of this reality, it pays to select parents carefully. I really prefer to choose both parents and will very rarely grow…
Cummin’s Nursery contacted me and offered to graft some trees of my varieties. I sent them budwood and trees are available for pre-order now, shipping next winter/spring season. The trees were budded late this year to heal and will begin growing in the spring. A certain number are listed now, but more will be listed when the full survival rate is assessed next year. We decided on 8 varieties. If…
The presentation I did on grassroots apple breeding for the Nafex virtual conference is now available on youtube. There is not too much that I would change as it was not that long ago. I don’t talk a lot about the nitty gritty of actual breeding, but it is covered in a brief way. It is more about the genesis of my project, ethos and philosophy, parent selection, categories of apples to pursue in…
It’s time again to ship little genetic packages out into the world to see if they have what it takes to spread and multiply. I’m talking about apple scion wood for grafting. Auctions are set up and scheduled to start and the webstore is open to the public after the past week of early access for Patrons. This year I dropped a bunch of new stuff, a whopping 8 varieties actually. It surprised me…
It was an amazing year for apples! I got to taste some new things and re-taste others, many seemingly at their best. Here are the 8 new seedling varieties I will be making available this year. Jellybean Cider This apple has amazing flavor, like artificial fruit candy. I was delighted to find, as I had hoped, that the flavor comes through very well in the juice, even when canned. I’m not sure I…