2021 Week 5 - Pruning and Zooming

You've got to retain a sense of humour.

Pruning Orchard Fruits
This week's big job has been pruning the fruit trees and bushes.

These two apple trees (a juicer and a cider apple) form part of the canopy in the new forest garden.
They've had a good haircut!

You leave stone fruits alone at this time of year, but the apples and pears needed their annual trim. Pruning is always presented as somewhat of a science and for several years I would accomplish the task with my trusty fruit growing book with me. Unfortunately the trees didn't always grow as they were supposed to in the book.

As I have gained experience, I have come to understand how trees and fruits respond to pruning. I have realised that pruning achieves various purposes. Firstly, there is pruning to take out damaged or diseased wood. Then there is taking out any branches which cross as the rubbing of the bark leaves a route in for infection. Once these fundamental steps are completed, there is pruning for the sake of producing fruit and pruning to keep the shape of the trees. 

As far as fruit production is concerned, I have realised that if you cut back the small side shoots they will eventually, over a year or two, turn into what we call fruiting spurs. To put it another way, what would have grown into branches is stopped and produces blossom and fruit instead. 

Pruning for shape is not just for aesthetics either. You need an open structure so that air can circulate and you need to make sure you can reach the fruit for harvest. Increasingly as our weather turns warmer and wetter fungal diseases are becoming the biggest problems, those and problems associated with alternative periods of drought and excessive rain, so thinning branches and thinning fruit has become more and more important.

This year I felt confident enough to show another couple how I prune. I concentrated on a holistic understanding of how the tree responds and what you want to achieve. I hope it was useful.

Pruning the Soft Fruit Bushes
All the soft fruit bushes needed pruning too, blackcurrants, red and white currants and gooseberries (a prickly subject!).

You need to understand how they fruit and how pruning affects new growth, but the principles are very similar to those that apply to apple trees. 

Fruit pruning days provide a very special treat for the Shetland sheep.
They really appreciate all the cuttings, even the spiky gooseberry twigs.

The soft fruits have been festooned with berries and currants for the last few years. New plants are ridiculously easy to propagate too. As a result, I've actually ended up with too many bushes which have expanded leaving no room to get between or for airflow. So this year I have pruned them quite heavily (pruning is not a science and subjective decisions need to be taken). I thinned out a few bushes too. The only problem with this is that the open ground becomes a haven for grass and weed growth. However, since I want this area to become part of my forest garden, I shall put smaller herbaceous perennials in the gaps which hopefully will require little attention and give us some novel crops.

Imbolc

The week's weather has been generally good, typically late January weather, some days cold, some warmer and wetter. The bees ventured out on a couple of days and I've heard robins, great tits, blackbirds, a song thrush and skylarks in song. This made pruning a pleasant task.

I've seen much talk of Imbolc on social media. It seems to have become very trendy to acknowledge these ancient festivals. Imbolc is allegedly a Gaelic festival to mark the start of spring. I am all in favour of appreciating and marking the passing of the seasons, but come on! I think it's a tad optimistic to be talking about the beginning of spring so early in February. There is sometimes a gap between reality and hope. 

One of my favourite plants at this time of year is mahonia or Oregon Grapes. Ours has split into two plants and become quite statuesque. It flowers and fruits really early and is an important food source for the bees when they venture out of their hives on warmer days.

I won't say that spring is quite here yet, but there are hints of its approach. To brighten things up in future, I had ordered a whole load of bulbs to go in the hazel coppice as I have now moved the strawberries on from that area. Hopefully they'll survive and we will have the delight of snowdrops, aconites and bluebells coming through. Planting them all was a lovely job to do with Sue and the dogs helped by enthusiastically digging up some lawn.

The garlic cloves I set in the ground a few weeks back have all come through strongly now. Once they get their roots in I'll take the netting off. The birds do like to tug at them though.

But the week ended with more heavy rain and the water has come higher than ever before. There comes a point when wellies become standard wear and you give up trying to go round the mud and puddles. 

Covid update

It's been my week to teach from home so I have almost no direct contact with the outside world. This makes me feel safe. School staff are now taking twice weekly lateral flow tests. These are notoriously unreliable but they do give a little reassurance despite being pretty uncomfortable to self-administer. We now look forward to gag-tastic Sundays and Wednesdays!

I also received an oximeter in the post. Both Sue and I have been feeling unusually breathless at times but the oximeter showed a normal oxygen level so I guess it must just come down to getting old and maybe carrying a bit too much weight around the middle (me, not Sue).

I received my Google timeline update too.

124 miles travelled in the whole month and never further than 8 miles from home. I think this was 6 trips to work, one drive out for fish and chips and one trip to the hardware store.

A sign of the times.

Asparagus put to bed

Saturday 13th January 2018
Sheep stuff
I was rudely awoken by Sue with the news that the three ewe lambs had pushed through the electric fence and got in with Rambo and the breeding ewes! Normally they go nowhere near the fence so I don't know if something spooked them. Luckily Rambo did not seem to be showing much interest.
The lambs were overdue their monthly worm treatment anyway, so we herded them all into sheep hurdles and got the syringe loaded up with the drench (oral medicine).

With that accomplished, we separated Rambo and led him up to the top paddock to spend the next few months with the other two ram lambs. So now all the girls are together and all the boys are together.

Asparagus put to bed
A rare dry couple of days and just about warm enough for the fingers not to go too numb.
Sitting on the to do list for a while now has been to clear the asparagus bed. The ferny tops had yellowed and dried out but needed chopping. This helps keep the asparagus beetle down. With the stems cleared away I could get to the weeds. Asparagus is an absolute pain to weed, as its fleshy roots run shallow. So it is a hands and knees job. I piled a good layer of sand and manure on the bed last year which helped inhibit the weeds and improve soil structure. Most of the weeds were easy to remove but couch grass roots had encroached from the edges and needed carefully forking and teasing out.
I then lightly turned the soil in the trenches and let the chickens in to pick out the slug eggs. Early in the spring, when the chickens have been banished from the veg plot, I'll mound up the ridges again and add more manure. There's no point doing it now as the chooks will just scratch it all over the place.

The chickens taking advantage of turned soil and doing me a favour too.

Even better, with the lengthening days they are starting to turn the extra protein into tasty eggs.

I didn't quite finish the whole asparagus bed but there's not much left to do. I had to call a slightly early end to the gardening today as the evening was set aside for a meal out with the Grow Your Own group. The Fens is a big place and we had a bit of a journey to The Lamb and Flag in Welney.
We had a lovely time and a very tasty meal (generous portions and they let me have custard and ice-cream with my bread and butter pud!)

Sunday 14th January 2018
Pruning the apples and pears
With the weather holding fine I decided to get all the apples and pears pruned. However much I read and watch videos, this is a job I am never quite sure if I am doing right. The trouble is that the trees don't often grow like they do in the books.
However, I've been doing it for a few years now so feel as if I am getting the hang of it.

I have to hold off on any stone fruits (plums, gages, damsons, cherries, apricots) for a while yet, until the sap is rising.

Let's hope the weather conspires for a good fruit harvest this year. Each year one crop or another catches a frost at the wrong time and one year I lost all the apples and pears to hail damage mid June. I'm not expecting that to happen again in a hurry.

A Pear Treat

Last year we got our first ever pear harvest. I have several varieties, but star of the show was the Concorde, an established cross between Comice and Conference. One young tree kept us supplied with delicious pears for a couple of weeks.
So over the winter in our forays to the plant auctions I purchased a further four Concorde pear trees. Well, you can guess what's happened this year. Not a single pear, not even from the more established tree! Some fruits seem to work like this, plums especially, one year a bumper crop and the next year nothing.
But the Beth and the Williams in the chicken enclosure have come to the fore instead. These pears are different in that they need to be picked before they are fully ripe. If you leave then on the tree they go grainy.
I picked most of the Beths a couple of weeks ago and they have now been eaten. Delicious they were too.
The ones growing on the lower branches fell victim to jumping chickens, who very much appreciate a pear to play with.

The Williams weren't quite ready, but when I cleaned out the chickens last weekend I noticed that three of them had committed suicide by falling off the tree straight into the chickens' water. So I picked out the rest, enough to fill a basket. It's not much, but it makes a welcome contribution to our diet and I anticipate ever increasing yields from all of our orchard trees.

Now, a week later, the Williams are ripe and very juicy. There are 9 trays drying in the dehydrator and almost ready as I type. I tried a slice and the flavour just kept increasing in waves.

I expect next year we'll have no Williams or Beths but five trees full of Concorde pears. I won't be complaining.

The Plant Auctions - My New Favourite Place

Now I know how the kid feels who's just been let loose in the proverbial sweet shop.

For every Wednesday and Saturday morning there is a plant auction in a little group of buildings tucked away in a quiet corner of Wisbech. I had heard talk of it, but it has taken me four years to get round to visiting... and boy do I regret the wasted years!



The travelling auction begins

They have just about everything you could find in a garden centre, but at rock bottom prices. In some cases you could knock a zero off the garden centre price. Granted, you have to buy plants in lots, but when you can get a whole tray or a group of pots for the same price as one normally costs, then that's got to be good news. In my case, with rather a lot of land to play with, purchasing one plant at a time has no impact whatsoever, so this way of buying is absolutely perfect.

If I'd discovered the auctions a couple of years ago, there would be a lot more shrubs, flowers, fruits and trees in my garden, veg plot, soft fruit patch and orchard. Anyway, my last two visits to the auction have seen me making up for lost time.
I've been quite restrained actually. The focus has been on topping up the orchard, though I have let myself be tempted by a few ornamentals too.



Bare root fruit trees galore.

The bare root tree section is amazing. It comes at the end of the auction, so most people have gone by then. There's not really even any bidding. The auctioneer just calls out what the reserve prices are and which varieties are available. All you have to do is tell him which ones you want. Most fruit trees come in fives, but I like to peruse the ranks of trees before the auction and count the stems in each bundle, for there are twos and threes to be found here and there. If I end up buying five, I can often sell a couple on to fellow smallholders and then everyone benefits.



Click here to read my post on Concorde Pears

So the outcome of my last two visits has been the acquisition of approximately fifty new fruit trees, which has doubled the size of my orchard.
I was especially delighted to find Pear Concorde at £3 per tree (+ 12% commission). This is the pear which did so well last year and I was prepared to pay a lot more to add to my stock.

I've also added to my range of apples. I now have Egremont Russet, Kidd's Orange Red, Laxton Superb, Scrumptious, more Discovery, Blenheim Orange and Ashmead's Kernel.

There are more plum trees, crab apples and cherries too, but I've saved the very best find till last. For my favourite tree in the orchard is my medlar. Even as a young tree it has taken on the appearance of a gnarled, old specimen. It puts on a stunning display of blossom in the spring and produces an intriguing and luxurious crop late in the autumn. The delightful pink tone of medlar jelly provides the final pleasant surprise.

So when, hidden amongst the serried ranks of trees, I discovered the label "Nottingham Medlar" I was very excited. But when I heard the price - £2!!! - yes, that's right, I said TWO POUNDS - I bought five immediately. I think my first medlar tree cost me over £20.

Click here to read my post on medlars, including a recipe for medlar jelly.

All this happened last Saturday, so I have been a busy bee during the week and all my fruit trees are now planted and labelled in the orchard. I've still got some raspberry canes,rhubarb plants and gunneras to go in, but I managed to get the orange contorted willows planted as well as the grasses, the aconites, the snowdrops and the conifers. I told you I showed restraint!

I plan to visit the auction once a month from now. That way, I'll end up with a selection of plants with interest throughout the year. Priority for my next visit are laurel plants and blueberries, though quite what I'll come back with is anyone's guess.



As you can see, I showed considerable restraint and didn't buy too much.

 Wait till I tell you about my other new favourite place! 

What a Nice Pear!

We finally have enough fruit to just about constitute a crop! An unlikely star has emerged this year, for at the far end of the orchard a little pear tree has been flourishing.

Pear Concorde

It's not unknown for a chicken or guinea fowl to spend a few minutes jumping up and down to reach the pears. So it was that the lowest three pears on this tree had little chinks missing from them. I thought that if the poultry were enjoying them so much, I had better try one. I got a real surprise. Not only were the pears ready to eat but they were completely without blemish and tasted delicious. I'm not sure if I should really divulge my secret, but the variety is Concorde, a cross between Conference and Comice. Well done to whoever came up with that idea!

Unfortunately, Sue has also discovered how tasty these are so it doesn't look as if this year's harvest of about thirty pears is going to last very long. She doesn't even usually like pears. However, there are a few gaps need filling in the orchard so I will most definitely be looking out for more of this variety.