Prepping the orchard: Wood, Air & Light!

After our November post about the orchard, here is an update of its progress. In the words of John Bunker all you need is new wood, air and sunlight, and the rest is up to you and your tree's individual personality and story.

Two weekends ago we had the very good fortune of hosting a MOFGA pruning workshop on our homestead, for very old apple trees.  John Bunker and Phil Norris were our instructors, about twenty people came, and it was a perfect day with warm sun rays and my very first sights of butterflies.

During this 4 hour course we learned about the best practices of pruning fruit trees (as opposed to pruning for powerlines or ornamentals who just need to look good), to maximize their fruit production, but also to bring back trees that have been left untended for quite sometime.

Being that our house was built circa 1840, we have some Old trees, and although they might look 'old' and dying, they are still kicking.  And it is possible to bring them back to interesting fruit production with a little help.

 

Our Russet before... sorry I don't have a better before picture

Our Russet being actively pruned :)

First, you want to assess the vigor of your tree, to determine whether or not it will do well with an intense makeover all at once, or if you could help it with some homemade braces under some branches to reduce the pressure of gravity on the main trunk, or even more important, whether or not the fruit is any good!  Have you tried it?  Lots of different apples can be used for different purposes -- fresh eating, sauce, baking, juice, cider, apple butter, animal feed, etc. -- but not all apples are worth all that work.  Especially if they are seedling trees (meaning it isn't a grafted apple variety but one that simply grew from a seed).  Seedling trees may be edible, but rarely delicious.  So the advice given to us was to first try the fruit of the seedling trees we have, and maybe if it's not all that interesting, to use the tree as a root stock to save, or simply multiply one of our other trees with a better fruit on it.

From what I understand, all apple cultivars we commonly know of by name are supposed to be genetically identical specimens to the original one.  That is because they are propagated through grafting or budding, grown from a twig of the original one, passed down from generation to generation.  That is the beauty of orcharding: even if your tree is old, and you think you might not be able to bring it back to life (because of a hollow trunk or a nasty wound) you can give it new life by grafting a piece of last year's new wood onto a new root stock, or fifty new root stocks!  Well that wasn't the focus of this specific workshop, but I am thankful for that option, as my dearest apple (that we have temporarily named the Ghost apple), is probably close to 150 years old and has a very hollow trunk and because of that, could, might, perhaps not survive that much longer (Gulp!).  For that reason Mr. Bunker saved quite a few scions (= new wood twigs) which he will transform into new grafted young and healthy Ghost apples for future generations to enjoy.

Alex learning the ropes on the ghost apple tree from Phil

The next thing you can think about when pruning, is pruning the other trees around your apples :) Do you have lots of Norway maples or other early pioneers or invasives slowly taking over your orchard?  Cut them back, and use them as lumber, firewood, woodchips, etc, and give more sun to your fruits!

Alex and Ian, cording a Norway Maple that we took down to make room for the Ghost Apple

 Then dead wood is the easiest next step.  Remove all the dead branches, to give you a better, more accurate idea of what you will want to keep.  Then begin to remove what are called the Water Sprouts, the vigorous vertical branches that shoot straight up. 

Apple trees will never have fruits on vertical wood, never.  You need to have horizontal growth (or also otherwise called weak wood) to have fruits.  So if you see some younger vibrant growth shooting straight up, it might be a good sign that your tree is still very much alive, but you can go ahead and cut it off (remember it might seem extreme, but its not all for not, as you can also then remove last years growth on that branch to make scions :)). 

Sabrina came down for the workshop, and Léo in her arms :)

After removing adjacent trees, dead wood and water sprouts (thus taking care in part of the wood and sunlight aspects), we still have to keep cutting to create AIR.  You don't want any of your branches to touch, intertwine, or 'choke' one another.  So just like at the hairdresser, you want to layer the tree, and the analogy of a Christmas tree shape was used a lot, even though, with these olds gals, it might have to take a less symmetrical shape :) Obviously you want to encourage growth closer to the ground so you don't have to climb so high to get your fruit, so keep that in mind when you select the branches you will keep. An old adage is you want to cut enough to be able to throw a cat through the tree!

All cuts should be made directly next to a joint to allow the tree to cover the wound with bark. The two types of pruning cuts, heading and thinning are used for different purposes, but about 98% of all cuts we were told should be thinning cuts (cuts at a branching joint and not somewhere along a branch).

And I guess lastly, take your time, whether you are pruning for the first time or if you are an experienced apple orchardist...  As you open up new sunlight areas your tree might be telling you a different story next year, so think of the future, and don't be afraid to be gentle, there is always next year, or the fall.  With these older trees, don't be afraid to take your time, do the pruning in seasons, wait to see if new growth appears right on the trunk (as it will when you cut some of the top, thereby freeing some sunlight).

I say this because there is a saying, ''When you think you are done pruning, keep pruning!''. 

If you know some important tips about pruning, old or young trees, if you have comments, questions or stories about how you prune your trees, we'd love to hear from you :)

Til next time, be well!

Apple Cemetary or Hidden Cider Mecca!?!

Younger fruit trees closer to the house

When we first arrived on the Homestead we were so psyched to be moving to an orchard!  We also thought that many of the apple trees were dying, or dead, rightly so because they hadn't been pruned in years and had been overgrown by Norway Maples.  Although we were thrilled to have them and had high hopes that we would be able to graft them onto new rootstocks before they past, we didn't give the actual standing trees a chance.  Boy were we wrong!

I mean, wouldn't you think that this tree's days are numbered?!

Among the many people that we have received so far on the Homestead, we were lucky to have the visit of Mr. John Bunker a few weeks ago. For those who have not yet heard the name, Mr Bunker is the leading pomologist for FEDCO and he is quite interested in Maine apple varieties, looking to find orchards that still have some of the old varieties that the settlers grew.

Mr. John Bunker with one of our supposed Russett apples, Alex's favorite

Since we have an orchard, and a really old one at that, we thought we should invite Mr. Bunker over and set out to identify our apples.  It turns out we have a hidden treasure!  So far we haven't identified many of the trees but we know that we have multiple different varieties, apples, crab apples, yellows, greens and reds, early ones and over wintering ones. Red Astrakhans, McIntoch, Snow, Russetts, Bell Flowers, Northern Spy and Cortlands are among the varieties that the previous owner remembers.  And Mr. Bunker said that our crab apples (of which we had no idea what we were going to do with) are the perfect kinds of apples for cider. hmmmmmmmmmm cider.

My very favorite, it doesn't look like much but it's delicious!... a yellow apple with red dots, still don't know what it is

Last November, I was very excited to figure out if any of the apple trees were going to fruit over the coming season.  This November, I am excited anew, to elucidate the mystery of the apple orchard and get ready for our first official holistic apple orchard crop... with high hopes once again, that we will be able to successfully use organic means to reduce worms and diseases.

Its pretty incredible to me that most of these trees are still alive and bearing fruit.  Now our job is to nurture them, back to full production.

Ok, a few of them are really gone...

an old apple surrounded by Norway Maples... for now :)

 

Yet another yellow with red dots

Lastly, we have added a little 'gadget' on the right hand side that now enables you to follow the blog by email.  If you want to be notified when we post a new entry, then sign up.

Til next time, be well.

Summer Feast

 My little snow man is a constant reminder that winter is near... Already September here in Maine and the Homestead is still in full production.  Since the beginning of August we have been canning tomatoes almost every day, to preserve as much of the fruits as possible, preparing pesto with the abundance of basil, and finding thousand and one ways to eat Patty Pan, the only squash that really did well this year.

Basil to season the tomato cans.

The harvest!!!

We grew many kinds of tomatoes this year, just to see which ones we'd prefer, and I have to say that the Black Sea Man tomato from Russia was hands down our very favorite.  Meaty, juicy, yet not watery and great for slicing and cooking with.  We'll definitely grow way more of those ones next year.

Putting Ira to work!

Boiling bath and Ice bath to remove the skins

Now the fruit trees are bearing heavily, and it's time to pick. We have been waiting for this moment since we moved in, having had no idea what variety of apples the orchard was going to delight us with.  What a surprise it was to also find that we had three different varieties of pears to combine with our many apples.  We had high hopes of making cider with our apples this year, and made a sample test batch which was so delicious, but we have yet to find an apple press to go through a real production, so for this year we'll concentrate on making apple and pear sauce for when bébé Léo hits the 6 month mark :)

Can you tell which egg is a double yolker?

Our earlier apple variety

And an exciting project that has been taking place of late is the set-up of our very first greenhouse (actually, a solarium that will be attached to the south-west facing wall of the house).  After a lot of searching, we found it second hand on Craigslist, Alex is now putting it together, creating the three missing sides with upcycled free windows we found in the trash around our neighbourhood.  The inside will boast in-ground year-round vermicomposting bins, rain catchment watering systems and cob walls below the glass metal frame. Stay tuned to see the development of the outdoor shower, brick patio and parilla :)

The future greenhouse...

 and our loveable cloth diapers :)