I wrote last fall that high-density apples yield early and prolifically, but that you have to commit to lots of summer pruning and training to make that dream a reality.  With fruits well set on trees that are going to produce this year, the plants are now turning their energy to shoot growth.  Time to honor my commitment and give those dwarf trees some TLC.

The first thing I'm looking for at this time of year is double headers like the one shown to the left.  Since the nursery I bought the trees from headed (cut the tops off) the apples before shipping them, multiple shoots have a tendency to spring up right below the cut.  I want one central leader, so I pick my favorite, then rip the other one(s) off.

Side shoots are also starting to elongate at this time of year, and many varieties have a tendency to send that growth vertically, straight to the sun.  I don't want side branches competing with my central leader, and I also want to make the branches as horizontal as possible to promote early fruiting, so I took another pass through the planting to tie down branches so they look like the photo to the right.

Even if you don't have a dwarf apple tree that you're pruning in a high density system, now's a great season to spend a little time with your fruit trees.  Weighing down a few branches now or yanking off watersprouts before they harden off really pays off by prompting the tree to put all of its energy into the wood you want.  Just remember that for most trees, you won't want to make the side branches completely horizontal the way I'm doing for my high-density apples --- that's a way of keeping the plants compact and tempting out early fruits at the expense of a large canopy and longevity.

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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.



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