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This spring was very productive here at Mad Cat Farm, as we expanded our nursery to more acreage nearby. We started the year by adding 800 new fruit trees to our collection, including many varieties of apples, pears, cherries, persimmons, pawpaws, chestnuts, hazelnuts and more. Last year's severe drought and erratic weather took a huge toll on our younger trees, killing many of our persimmons and apples. We will replant these next year and continue to add new varieties. Our goal is to make scion of unique and resilient fruit varieties available in abundance. Late in the winter, we ripped contoured (keyline) strips across the field at the new MCF nursery location: 40 acres of pasture and hills. This will provide plenty of room to expand our fruit tree and perennial collections and will hold our apple, peach and cherry breeding experiments; and our entire Jerusalem artichoke and elderberry collections. We start by ripping a keyline pattern (similar to contours) across the property with a heavy duty soil ripper. Next, we strip-till the ripped pathways to make for easier tree planting. This creates an ideal environment for root development and makes planting quick and efficient. The soil will not be tilled again, but will be mulched with hay in the future to develop soil life and retain moisture. A similar method is also used in syntropic agroforestry systems. We will continue to share updates and progress as our fruit trees mature and scion becomes available. Scion sales will open around December, 2023, but will be very limited. In the meantime, be well and happy growing!

Despite being the most challenging growing year we have ever experienced, we expanded our plant collections significantly this year, with the hopes of sharing these with our customers in the future. A massive drought settled in and strangled production from late spring into winter. In February, we planted hundreds of trees into our scionwood orchard, including apples, pears, sour cherries, quince and a few peach varieties. In March, many more trees were grafted and planted into our nursery beds. Unfortunately the drought took a toll on these and we lost 50% of our grafts. We expanded our mint collection to include almost 40 varieties (these will become available in the future as root cuttings). Because our main nursery site is now completely planted, we spent the year searching for land nearby. We believe we have found a new location to continue growing our collections and hope to begin planting this winter/spring 2023. Our intent is to increase our persimmon, pawpaw and pear collections significantly. Along with a large variety of Jerusalem Artichokes. There are many other projects we are working on, such as a collection of Munson grapes, hybrid hazelnuts, chestnuts, useful hardy perennials, cold-hardy figs and mulberries. As things mature and become available, we will update their status on our website. To be the first to be informed and to stay up to date, subscribe to our mailing list at the bottom of this page.

With summer rolling on, we can begin to see standouts among our newly grafted fruit trees. We've been working in the nursery in the morning hours, unwrapping graft unions which may girdle the trees and taking stock of varieties that look the most vigorous. Among the apples, Limbertwig varieties appear to be doing the best, in general. With some other standouts, such as Enterprise and various crabs. As for pears, Nova appears the most vigorous so far. Mulberries are all doing very well (I didn't get any photos of them though). As well as the pawpaws, jujubes and persimmons. If you are interested in learning more, sign up for our mailing list.

We launched our apiary last year with the construction of several Layens hives and swarm traps. We use treatment free methods and raise bees as close to their natural life cycle as possible. This means no feeding sugar, no miticides or treatments and we do not prevent swarming. Our aim is to work with local bee genetics in order to allow the strongest to survive and proliferate. This last week has been spent working in the apiary. We collected five feral swarms this month and have been working on relocating them to our farm. After they are adjusted, we move them into permanent hives where they can grow and expand.

Grafted fruit trees are doing well. About 600 are planted in the nursery, mainly apples, pears and cherries. Some quince and mulberry, as well. The pawpaws, jujube and persimmons are waking up in the greenhouse and will go into the nursery when things dry out.

Top working some wild persimmons with a mix of American and Asian varieties. Beautiful weather and scenery! Found some large specimens. Will be back this fall to check on them.

Comfrey (Symphytum x uplandicum) is one of our most used perennials: chicken fodder, living mulch, garden borders, compost starter, medicine, bee forage and much more. We grow a variety called "Bocking 14", which is was originally bred in Bocking (Essex, England). It contains 20-30% protein by dry weight. Grown near a chicken coop, it makes a great nutrient-rich supplement to chicken feed. A poultice made from the leaves or roots and applied topically is said to promote healing of bruises, sprains, and broken bones. Honeybees and bumblebees flock to the flowers. It grows so well that it outcompetes other weeds, making a great border plant for mulched beds. Just make sure you plant it where you want it--because comfrey is persistent once established. Click here to purchase Bocking 14 comfrey root cuttings.

Thousands of seeds have been placed in the soil, dormant and waiting for Spring's warm sun. Many of these trees will begin their lives as a humble seed this spring, grown out in raised air-prune beds and later moved to permanent homes. Air Prune Beds and Flats We built our own air prune beds and flats using scrap lumber and 1/4" hardware cloth for the bottoms. Using air prune beds, we are able to grow thousands of seedlings in a small space. Because the roots naturally air prune themselves upon reaching the bottom of the box, they form dense, thick root systems that are easy to transplant.

MCF begins life this spring as we graft approximately 1,000 fruit trees to trial for disease resistance and hardiness in our variable Kansas weather. The objective is to only grow and sell varieties that will reliably produce fruit with little to no care in Kansas and the midwest. These trees will spend the first year or two of their lives in our tree nursery before being planted into the orchard. A small forest of newly grafted apples, stored in sawdust until the graft heals and they leaf out in early spring.