"Getting rid of everything that doesn’t matter allows you to remember who you are. Simplicity doesn’t change who you are, it brings you back to who you are."

Friday, March 15, 2013

Feeling Fruity

Last year was the first year that I pruned the little apple sticks we'd planted a few years ago.  It seemed that I was murderizing them at the time but they loved it. Not enough to give me any fruit but that wasn't really their fault.  We'd had an early warm-up and then got sucker punched with a late hard freeze that ruined any hopes of fruit from anything. 

It even killed a mature crepe myrtle.

So this year we attacked the apples (4th year) with the same ruthlessness we did last year.  But what about the peach tree?

I'd bought this poor little sucker from Walmart a few years ago.  Small and puny it was (but cheap) so I let it alone to get itself established. 

Last year it put out some stunning blossoms and about a dozen peaches, which surprised me as I thought it was way too young to do that.  Well, it must've agreed with me because all the baby peaches fell off.

So I figured this year I'd better learn a bit more about peaches.  I found this really good article on Peach Tree Pruning

Turns out that we were supposed to prune it in January.  SM and I went out and eyeballed it this past weekend and decided that since it wasn't close to blooming yet, we'd go ahead and shape it up.

Before shot.  Looks good to me!


 

But the article says it needs to be open in the middle.  Think of the shape of your hand holding a peach.  OoooKaaay...Snip snip snip...Remove 40% of the tree.  Really???




"Redwood" limbs will fruit, so leave those as long as they're growing at a 45 degree angle. 



Hm.  Looks kinda freaky now but who am I to judge?  If it gives me fruit this year than I'll be happy.

SM and I really need to pay some attention to the raspberry patch this year and I also tossed some fertilizer on the strawberries and blueberries as we had some rain moving in. 

Last year was our first year with the strawberries and we're hoping for a kick-ass year this year.  They're still looking pretty beat up from being under the pine straw and I need to get in there and trim old leaves out and thin out the herd a bit. 

I'm a bit nervous to go sticking my hands in there after the snake discovery last week.  I plan on using the rake aggressively first. 

Wish me luck!


3 comments:

  1. Oh yeah, always root around with a stick or something before digging into that mulch!
    We had our first strawberry yesterday.
    Can't wait to see how well your peaches grow!

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  2. I'm always nervous when I prune ....but the trees seem to love it! I need to transplant my strawberries or we won't have any this season.

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  3. Oh, how I hate to prune! And I'm sure I'm not even cutting enough off....it just want to cry when I'm cutting perfectly ALIVE stuff off a tree!

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