Pruning in the Orchard

Red Gravenstein apple before pruning

You might think that if you stick a little apple tree sapling in the ground, you can just let it do its thing—then enjoy many seasons of free apples!

I wish. To get a decent crop, apple trees actually take quite a bit of managing. At a minimum, plan on:

*Annual pruning 

*Fruit thinning

*Pest control 

Pruning might be the most important task of all—since you’ll have less fruit to thin and fewer pests to worry about!

And as I mentioned last month, the end of winter is a great time to get your pruning done.

Over the years, my husband John and I had gotten really lax about pruning. We would end up postponing our pruning chores, then try to trim away all the excess growth after the tree had leafed out. 

And guess what—it’s not only really hard to prune with all those leaves in the way, but late pruning only encourages the tree to push out more growth! Then you’ve got a tree putting more of its energy into simply growing, instead of producing fruit.

And one or two growing seasons, we never did the pruning at all. The result of no pruning was an orchard full of hugely overgrown, tangled trees that took many, many hours of hard labor to get back under control. 

Last October, after yet another disappointing apple harvest due to late pruning and thinning, I vowed to do things differently.

 I did a post about ways to manage your orchard trees (the way John and I used to!). And in the spirit of taking my own good advice, going forward, I was determined to get my pruning done on time. And this winter, I actually stuck to my resolution! 

During a dry spell in February, I got a start on our Honeycrisp trees…

Honeycrisp after pruning

Then winter returned with a vengeance. We got a foot of snow 10 days ago, and the lake in our neighborhood is still iced over. 

But this week, John and I got back on the job. We have the lion’s share of our apple trees completely pruned, and we finished the heavy pruning on the last two trees.

William’s Pride variety—pruned!

You can find lots more about apple tree pruning right here on the Little Farm blog: “Under New Management” from October 2022, and “Parsnips, Pruning and Pests” from February. 

I hope these pics inspire you to move forward on your orchard management chores!

Parsnips, Pruning & Prevention

 As we move into late winter, you might be thinking you still have a few weeks to chillax—enjoying your favorite indoor activities before gardening season begins in earnest. But hold on…there’s lots you can do to make a head start on spring!

Parsnips

Picked in late Jan., these parsnips are sweet!

If you grow this super tasty and nutritious root crop, you already know they do fine in the ground well into winter. 

Around mid-February, though, those overwintering ‘snips will start pushing new growth from the tops—it’s the start of the developing seed head. As more green leaves appear, the root gets tougher.

Last March, when I noticed new, healthy green growth emerging from my unharvested parsnips, I got busy and picked them. I roasted a couple, and they’d completely lost their sweetness and flavor. I ended up having to toss all 15 of them.

And it was some job to hack those tough roots into chunks for the compost pile! So if you haven’t harvested all your parsnips—and your bed isn’t frozen solid—now is a great time to dig them out.

Pruning

In the Pacific Northwest, February is a great time for fruit tree care! The trees haven’t yet started their spring growth spurt, so your pruning job is much easier than working with a leafed-out tree.

If you’re not sure about pruning fruit trees, I recommend doing some research. At our place, I take on most of the apple trees pruning. I used to be a bit nervous about it…always wondering, was I pruning wrong? Would I damage the trees?

What I learned is, apple trees grow like crazy—at least around here. And any wrong or boneheaded pruning I may have done hasn’t hurt our trees in the slightest!

With apple trees, I cut out the interior growth close to the trunk and shorten the leggy horizontals. I also try to eliminate the vertical growth, since the verticals generally have few, if any, fruit spurs on them.

Trying to pick apples in a bushy, overbearing tree is no fun at all—been there, done that. So as you prune, you can also be shaping the tree for easier harvesting this summer and fall. Keep in mind that a well-pruned tree has better air circulation for the ripening fruit too!

Prevention

While you’re communing with your trees and pruning loppers, you can also do some pest prevention. If you find one of these on your fruit trees—Beware!

Caterpillar egg sac

They’re tent caterpillar egg sacs—and the caterpillars that hatch from them LOVE fruit trees. Waste no time in cutting them out, since hundreds of caterpillars can hatch from one teeny sac. I talk more about tent caterpillars in my current newsletter--and will share more on these nasty critters this spring.

Also, lots of creepy-crawlie orchard pests overwinter on the ground. The pupa stage of the apple maggot comes to mind, the scourge of our own orchard! The spring grass and weeds will soon obscure last season’s dropped fruit, so it’s a good idea check the ground under your apple tree for any fruit from the summer or fall.

By the way, I recommend the book, Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre. It has lots of helpful advice about orchard fruit, and it's also an excellent all-around food gardening manual. 

May you enjoy your winter garden chores!