Saturday 23 March 2013

Learning To Prune Our Peach & Apple Trees.

Even fruit trees need their yearly trim.

Before we moved here, Bob and I lived in a flat on the eighth floor and we were ( rather the plant was ) lucky if we remembered to water the odd plant on the balcony. Well, imagine life's irony; we now have about 20 fruit trees and all the garden upkeep that goes with it.

We have finally turned the corner from being overwhelmed to getting stuck in. Last year we sort of chopped the odd branch here and there but yesterday, a friend came to teach us how to do it properly.

With infinite patience he showed us and uttered the one phrase that no one else had : " You can't go wrong and remember that no one gets it right the first time. " Aah, that man is brilliant !

The logic of it is actually quite simple. For the tree to bear big, sweet and juicy fruit, you have to
' chop chop chop ' and make sure that no unnecessary twigs grow off the branches. For me the hardest part was doing the first major chop. It sounds silly, but I wondered if the tree felt it.

Our property has been vacant for a number of years before we got it, so it is fairly certain that all of our fruit trees are organic. Wow, isn't that great. This year we want to make scrumptious jams. We did our first batch last year and have caught the bug.

Nature is a fantastic place to recharge our batteries. Look, Bob and I are miles away from being competent farmers ( gentleman farmers that is ) but just the act of stepping out the door with a pair of Wellies on, is Panacea for my soul.

Biggi

This was rather a small tree to start with.

Check out how cool Bob looks with his gloves shoved into his back pockets !

This photo was taken last spring, but you get an idea about the work involved.

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