On Sunday the clouds and sun were sharing the sky and the warmth of the day encouraged me to spend the part of the day outside. As a gardener within five minutes the jobs appear, this time it was pruning one apple tree and list grew.
Of course, when I am in the yard my 'ladies' make noise and walk the fence until I open the door and let them roam the yard. Sometimes they fly across the yard for 40 feet about a yard above the ground. Other times they festive on the grass one foot from the coop and dance their two step slowly moving across the green.
There are a few that think winter pruning is not a good thing because the rains doesn't allow the cuts to heal. Others have the whole scientific movement of fluids in the tree in the cold months and say it is the best time to prune. I fall in the school of people that think a little pruning a few times a year is best. Apple trees are easy for me to prune I have a mental picture of what a well shaped tree should look like. Also I have a goal of keeping my tree manageable for me which means I don't have to get up on a ladder.
Peaches trees are a problem on all accounts for me. My dreams of harvesting three or four trees loaded with peaches is dieing a slow death. I took out one tree last year and on very close examining the remaining three, I see one have problems, a honey type sweating. Last year I harvested six peaches, return on space is not worthy for a peach orchard. This summer Georgia better make it's way to my yard or plans will be made their replacement.
In the meantime, I move from the orchard area to be back fence and prune the espaliers. I am learning how to grow a third tier to these trees and pruning is very important to forming this. These trees provide a lovely cover of the back wall of cedar fence and even if they did not produce any fruit for me they are attractive to view. Fortunately, they are my oldest trees and after I thin them they still produce bounty of fruit. If I was doing any grafting these cutting would be valued as scion wood but I have no interest this year in starting my own trees.
Even with one week of below freezing temperatures I think my two fig trees are healthy, will be ok this year. This maybe the year that my young pears and apricot trees give fruit. I am happy to say the plums, apples, Asian pears are mature enough not to be hurt by the sudden cold. Dealing with fruit I have learn to understand that berries are easy to grow and offer so much in the way of production and good taste and health. My new bed of Haskap berries, added to my blueberries and goji berries will needed to be cover in some way this year to protect from the birds.
Red is my smartest hen and she is always the first to wander into the kale bed or start digging in my berry bed, off I go with my rake and wave her off. Our shared time together in the yard is finished off this Sunday with the "ladies" finding some nice soft warm soil next to the house and they had a dirty bath. John and I have a Paris lunch on the small patio next to their coop, little Italian wine and last night's pizza.
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