Planting acorns with the kids

We have ignition.

Northern Red takes a quick lead.




Northern White.



A few sawtooth getting started.




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Northern reds continue to dominate. NWO in the background.




A few Shumards making an appearance. Sawtooth in the background.




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Early May update:

Northern red and whites doing great.



Nice looking pair of Shumard, sawtooth in the background.




Swamp chestnut just poking up.




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Transfer to one gallon RootMaker pots. We planted a few acorns in RM18’s (below).



And we planted most acorns in the long skinny tree starter tubes I found on Amazon. We took a chance on these. I haven’t seen anyone else use them but I’m impressed. The acorns planted in the RM18’s went in about a week later but the roots in the long narrow tubes look superior after ~3 months. It’s probably a more natural scenario for the long tap root of an oak.

https://www.amazon.com/Tree-Seedlin...rds=tree+starter+tubes&qid=1623499840&sr=8-17




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We up-potted some of last years oaks to 3 gallon containers and planted a fresh crop of acorns. Also pictured are a few grafted apples.



Kids took turns mixing the 3-1-1 planting mix.






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@weekender21 , when did you start these? I have some in RM18s and I'm trying to determine when to up pot them to 1 gallon. I also started 100 in deepots from Greenhouse depot.

When you switched pots, do I want the soil wet or dry, so it stays in a solid root ball?

 

Started the acorns in March last year (and this year) and moved them to 1 gallon pots mid June. I’ll probably target May for moving them up this year. I didn’t do anything fancy when I moved them up, just shook off the excess dirt and planted them in the larger pot.


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Starting to up-pot 2022 trees!










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Trimmed all the acorns off but the squirrels are CONVINCED there are acorns somewhere!

Luckily we planted 200 to make 20, plenty of spares.




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The squirrels are destroying our trees this year. I tried a pepper spray but it didn’t seem to help.


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I've had the same thing happen in the past with the squirrels on my RM18 trays, while trying to acclimate them to the sun and outdoor temps. For some reason, they dont mess with the 1 gal, 3 gal or 10 gal in my grow out garden.

I live in the country, never tried pepper spray, but found that spraying the squirrels with lead works pretty well.

 

Lead would work but the neighbors won’t appreciate that approach. Probably should get a pellet gun. I’m not sure why they’re so destructive on the trees once the acorns are pinched off.


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I assume every seedling they encounter in the wild has a nut still attached. Imagine their frustration in your pots. "This one HAS to have a nut... %$!&/?!!!"

 

Just dawned on me today that the seedlings I’m discarding in the compost all have acorns attached. I’m teaching them to look in the one place I don’t want them looking!


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