Growth of the winesap
I spent part of the afternoon
Sunday training the fruit trees, tying branches to the ground to widen
their angles from the trunk. I also went ahead and pruned my
apple trees, though it's only just barely late enough. (I'm going
to hold off on pruning the rest of the fruit trees until March.)
Actually, my apples hardly needed pruning. I only have one good one --- the winesap shown here. I bought it last April from Lowes, pruned it within an inch of its life so that its branches would match its roots, and then ignored it. I didn't really believe it had grown, but when I took a look at the side by side comparison, it become clear that the winesap actually did quite well. Maybe we'll have apples in a few years!
Actually, my apples hardly needed pruning. I only have one good one --- the winesap shown here. I bought it last April from Lowes, pruned it within an inch of its life so that its branches would match its roots, and then ignored it. I didn't really believe it had grown, but when I took a look at the side by side comparison, it become clear that the winesap actually did quite well. Maybe we'll have apples in a few years!
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
I'm glad you enjoyed the photos! I had never trained my branches before, but I've been doing a lot of reading on pruning, and several people say that you should do a lot more training than pruning before their fruit trees start bearing. The goal is to get your branches at a roughly 60 degree angle from the trunk while they're still malleable enough to be trained.
I tied yarn around my branches and then tied them to the raised bed around the base of the plant , but I've also heard of people tying the yarn (or wire --- yarn might rot, though I was more afraid I'd forget about wire and girdle the branches) to old milk jugs filled with water or to stakes in the ground.
Good luck!