[Previous entry: "From Pig to Plate"] [Next entry: "Signs of Spring"]

04/01/2008: "Pruning Day!"

I managed to make a trip down to the farm in February for a day of pruning. It wasn't exactly raining, though it did mist some. We got out the ladders, and set to work in the main part of the orchard: we're in the midst of a multi-year project to bring the long-neglected orchard back into fruitful production.

Some of the trees were brought back to some semblance of 'pruned' last year, but many of the old apple trees still had many, many waterspout branches rising up and crossing over, etc. We concentrated the better part of the afternoon on these, and compiled a pretty impressive pile of branches.



We also did some work on the plum trees, hoping that the coming season might yield another bumper crop like 2006. We didn't do much on the cherry trees; on another trip I hope to do some starling habitat reduction, but until we deal with the bird problem there isn't a lot of point to pruning the cherries.

Towards late afternoon we went to the barn, and got out the chipper attachment for the rototiller. This was our first time to finally get to see it in action! It is large, and impressively heavy. We got it out of the barn, attached it to the rototiller, and drove it over to the orchard.


Once there, Nate and I worked as a team: I fed him, and he fed the chipper. It was pretty amazing to see the chipper reduce a 3-inch diameter branch to a pile of chips in about 30 seconds! Man, you gotta love the power of petroleum fuel and an internal combustion engine! We set the chipper up on a tarp, so that we could collect the chips; after we had done all the recently cut branches it took three of us to drag the tarp 25 feet across the orchard to the driveway, where my truck was waiting. I shoveled the chips into the bed of the pickup, and took about a cubic yard of it home for chicken bedding.



It's hard not to be philosophical when pruning. Should this branch go, or this one? One can't help feeling a little omnipotent, deciding such weighty matters. Generally, my rules are: if two branches cross, cut off the one that doesn't head out into an open space. Cut off three-quarters of the water pipes. Favor the branches that go out or down over the branches that go up.

I don't worry about shape; it's too late for that on these established trees. I just try to remove branches to reduce density in equal proportions around the whole tree. Usually, it works out. i can't help but recall, however, reading Masanobu Fukuoka's book, "The One Straw Revolution," in which he advocates never pruning at all: the trees know best how to grow. The trouble, I tell myself, is that you either have to prune and keep pruning, or never start pruning. I am restraining myself from pruning some of the cider apple trees we planted over near the cowshed; these will be my test case for the no-pruning approach. So far they're developing nicely...