Our property has two fruit trees on it, an apple and a cherry. (Those two fruits, very Michigan.) I enjoy all things homesteading and would love to have (at least) a full garden one day. For now, I try to be diligent about carefully tending our two humble fruit trees. The apple tree in our front yard looked very sad, but it still produced a quite good yield last year. By continuing to care for it, we hope it can grow into a large, strong tree. One of the most important parts of caring for a fruit tree is pruning it.
Using a bow saw and hand pruner, these are the steps I use.
- Cut off any dead or broken branches from the trunk.
- Trim back branches that are growing too close to a building or walkway.
- Cut water sprouts and suckers back to their base on the branch or ground. These are small branches that grow straight up and do not yield good fruit.
- Cut back any downward drooping branches at the trunk or part of tree where they began to grow downward.
- Remove any additional branches or sprouts that are crowding other parts of the tree.
It may seem like you are chopping off a lot, but do not worry. A tree only has so much nutrition to use so eliminating inefficient branches sends more energy to the good ones. That means better fruit!
If you love homesteading too, one book we like on the topic is Carrie Madigan’s The Backyard Homestead.
