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10/01/2006: "A walk through the orchard, part 2"

This continues our review of the orchard, this time focusing on the middle rank of trees from east to west.

The first tree we come to at the east end of the orchard is this Bartlett pear that I planted last winter (winter 2005-2006). It seems to be surviving well, though I have since wondered whether to move it; it probably is too close to the septic line that runs from the house out to the tank.


To the west of the pear, and on the other side of the fire pit, we come to the other Italian prune plum tree. I don't think that we pruned it very much last winter, and consequently this year it didn't bear as much as the other tree in the south rank. On the plus side, it bears quite a bit of fruit still, a week or two later than the other tree, and it doesn't have any structural issues (the other tree has a weak crotch held together with chain). I think that if we prune this one a bit it will probably perform well next year.


The next tree we come to is this little apple tree. As you can see, it lists seriously to the side; it was a heavy bearer for its size this year, and this caused it to simply lean over. The apples it produced, which ripened in late August were a nice tart red-green apple something like a Braeburn. This winter we need to dig it up carefully and replant it with the graft union above ground, and then next year we should probably thin all the apples from it to give a year to develop strong roots. Then we can turn it loose in 2008.


The next tree to the west is this plum which has suckered and gone wild. We didn't get any fruit from it this year that I'm aware of. You can't see it in the picture very well, but there are multiple large trunks growing up from the rootstock; these don't bear fruit, and they shade the true trunk that might bear if it got light. We can either take it out, or try cutting all the rootstock trunks out and see what happens. Eventually, we'll probably have to take out the whole mess, since it probably was planted too deep, and it will be a running battle with the rootstock's suckering. It would be nice to replace this with another variety of plum, perhaps something like an asian plum.


The westernmost tree in the middle rank is this pear. It bore some fruit this year, but we weren't keeping an out for the fruit, and we missed most of it. It is the earliest ripening pear of the the three mature trees in the orchard. I think with a little pruning (and maybe an orchard spray before bud break) it will do just fine.