It's Saturday morning and the sun is out so it's time to tackle the apple tree. It was given to me by my grandfather about 15 years ago before the wall behind it was built.
It is a family tree with three varieties grafted onto a fairly drwarf root stock. They are Coxes, Katie and a cooker called Howgate Wonder. Last year we had a bumper crop of Coxes, but few Katies and one or two rather poor Howgate Wonders. (As cookers go I'm not impressed with the variety anyway so I wasn't too upset about that!) The tree is however an overgrown mess of crossing branches - and because it has the wall, a buddleia, holly and ivy surrounding it, it has strained towards the light and become straggly. The weight of the fruit has bent the lower branches so that they virtually touch the ground...it needs sorting out!
I have been very 'brave' with my pruning today. I hope I haven't cut out too many of the potential fruit bearing branches but I as it had such a heavy crop last year I wouldn't be expecting such a big crop this year.
And the extra plus to taking out some of the more mature branches is that I get a small pile of little logs that I will stack under cover and they will go on the stove in a year or two's time.
So - we'll see later in the year whether my hard pruning was a good or a bad move!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment