Fruit Trees

Our spring tree sale will be the weekend of March 28 – 29, from 10 AM to noon both days!  Trees will be available by pre-order only.  Check out our farm store to see our inventory and to order trees!  For more information, check out our FAQ.

IMG_6342Full Circus Farm grows certified organic apple, pear, asian pear trees.  We do the grafting here on the farm, then grow the baby trees for two years until they are ready for their new home.  Love going apple picking in the fall?  You can grow a bounty of delicious fruit right in your own backyard!  Apple varieties include McIntosh, Esopus Spitzenburg, Northern Spy and more.  We also grow hard cider varieties such as Golden Russet and Baldwin.

IMG_6512You can buy our trees directly from the farm in the spring and the fall–or through our partnership with the Hudson Valley Seed Company.  Additionally, if you are interested in larger volumes, want to save an old family tree, or are looking for specific varieties, we offer custom grafting.  For more information about custom grafting, please contact us: fullcircusfarm@gmail.com or 518-789-0025.  For general info check out our FAQ page.

Ripe Figs, Fall 2020We also offer certified organic fig trees!  Wait …  you can grow figs here?  Yes!  We sell potted fig trees, a variety that was passed down to Miriam by her advisor at Cornell when she graduated.  There is absolutely nothing more delicious than a freshly picked fig!  Potted fig trees require a cool or cold space for dormant storage in the winter (such as a basement, attic, or garage).  Here’s more about overwintering figs, including info on planting them outdoors.

nursery photo for biz cards

What is grafting anyway?  Apples generally require cross-pollination from another variety.  This means that if you try to grow a new tree from the seed of a Jonagold apple, you will get an entirely unique apple tree (similar to how the child of two people is always an entirely unique individual).  So, in order to get a new Jonagold tree, people developed a method of propagation called grafting.  On our farm, we graft a couple different ways, but mostly we do what is called bench grafting.  You take a baby fruit tree (this is called the rootstock) and cut its top off.  Then you take a twig or branch (called a “scion”) from the tree whose fruit you want–a Jonagold apple tree, in this case–and splice it onto the rootstock.  With practice, luck, and a little magic, the graft “takes” and the new tree grows up and makes Jonagold apples.  Want to learn more?  We are considering offering grafting workshops in the future.  Get in touch with us if you might be interested!

IMG_5621