Big Pruning

This weekend’s main event was getting our larger fruit trees tidied up.

The King Apple is always a big job. But this year we felt like we needed to make a decision to keep the tree from taking a dive, due to the westward lean of the trunk.

It was a hard cut to make, and it didn’t come off quite as cleanly as we’d hoped, but I’m hoping that the tree will recover and have quite a few more years in it.

Might take a few years for the apple production to recover, tho. That was the most productive quadrant of the tree (southwest facing). I’d really like to do something special with the wood, but don’t have much experience with that sort of thing. Suggestions welcome-

Today we tackled the Big Cherry. Before:

and after

There are still some branches up pretty high that I wish I could have reined in, but they were a bit out of reach, so will have to wait for the next round.

We also did the not-so-big cherry

I suspect that the cherry trees are in shock about now. We’d mostly left them alone for the last few years. But hopefully this will help us get the leaf spot issue under control, and make the trees healthier in the long run.

I also managed to get Griff’s Smokeshow vest blocked, assembled, and off the needles during the in-between times. So it’s 99% done. But no photos yet. I’ll get the ends tucked in, buttons on, and give it a little steam bath and model it for you next time.

Here’s a preview of the fun buttons tho-

Have a good week, folks! 🙂