Pruning

Lance use to prune apple trees for a job, I found his tools today. I Love pruning!

It was a bit silly of me to not take Mum up on her offer to prune my roses though cos I still have alot of other pruning to finish.

Completed the biggest fruit tree this morning and my least favorite bramble, the boysenberry - they're so prickly. If you're turning a small section of land into a garden I'd leave these off the plant list unless you really love them. I've got four which I thought were going to produce enough berries to make jam, eat fresh , bottle and make wine out of but these four bushes take up as much space as the raspberries, require twice the effort in pruning and yield about half as much. I'd go for a thorn less blackberries and raspberries instead. Our single blackberry probably produces as much as those darned boysenberries all put together. To prune the boysenberries and blackberries cut out all last seasons fruiting canes and tie up the growth that came up during summer make kind of a fan. Easy. Peach trees I've got sussed too. Before......

.....after

When you select your tree or seedling from the garden centre have in mind the shape you want. All mine are vase shaped cos I reckon that's the easiest. You prune it to have four or five evenly spaced main branches. I like them to start low so they can be picked without a ladder. During summer I prune off alot of the new really fast leafy shoots and in winter I fix anything I don't like shape wise. Thin it out so there will be good airflow and sun reaching fruit to ripen. I shorten the end growth to try and keep the tree vase- ing out wards instead of upwards where I won't be able to reach the fruit. I don't let my fruit trees produce fruit for their first two years, picking off all the flowers so that they put all their energy into producing a good root system is worth it.

I found some buried treasures today too. Last year I didn't have room to put yams in, I've missed them, so I was pleased to find some wildings under some weeds. The Jerusalem artichokes are mammoth! I've grown them in the past for their ability to make a tall screen but these beauties will have to be tasted. I'm a bit nervous cos they don't look delicious.