Greetings I have been pruning my fruit trees on the nice days and am wondering if anyone else is pruning. We are working on some old apple trees and will be doing some younger trees soon. I have lots to do so will send some pics soon. Farmer Dave
It's still below freezing her so I'll put off pruning my fruit trees until the weather is warmer. They did get a bit of a haircut in autumn before the bad weather hit but they could do with an extra trim.
We live next to a commercial apple orchard here in North Carolina and they are beginning to trim their trees now. I have a peach tree that is about 3 years old, and I don't have a clue of how to best trim it, so I leave it alone. It seems healthy enough.
Pruning peach trees I just pruned this young peach tree yesterday. ( photo / image / picture from Farmer_Dave's Garden ) Pruning peach trees is important for the health of the tree and the production of fruit over the long term. Your tree may be growing fine but is it producing a good fruit crop? If so how long will it be able to do that without pruning. Of course all trees and situations are different but if you are not pruning your tree and you want to harvest fruit from it over the long term then you should think about the way a peach trees grows and where they set their fruit. Reasons for pruning; Pruning fruit trees is done to keep your trees healthy and easy to work in while gathering a bountiful harvest of large fruit. So if you do not prune your tree will end up with more and more dead and dying wood and your tree will basically get very bushy and out of hand and be very hard to pick and work in. Fruit trees set their fruit on fruit spurs. Apple and pear trees set fruit spurs that last 2- 10 years so must be pruned differently than Peach trees that set their fruit on fruit spurs that form on last years wood and only last one year. I like to prune my peach trees pretty hard every year as it forces a lot of new growth which is necessary for a good and lasting harvest. I hope this helps, here is a link to some good instructions for pruning fruit trees. http://www.family-gardens.com/fruit-tre ... tions.html Good luck Let me know how your peach tree care is going. Farmer Dave
Thanks so much for the information! I followed the link, and those are very detailed instructions on how to prune peach trees! I will get my pruners sharpened and get after it! I am sure my peach tree thanks you too! It was just so overwhelming to me, I sure didn't want to mess it up. I see now that I was wrong to assume that nature knew best. Thanks again for the very useful and timely information.
Happy Pruning My instructions are for pruning in general. I plan to write an article specific to peaches but need to find the time, after all I need to prune my trees too. If you have any more questions I have a place on my web site where you can ask a question it is in my left hand navigation bar. Or you can ask it here and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Its raining here in Northern California so I am not pruning today. Enjoy Farmer Dave
I usually hire a gardener to trim our two mature apple trees. They'd been neglected for years prior to us buying the house. We knew the basics on how to trim and had done some, but we decided we should get an expert. He always came out in January to trim while the tree is still dormant. On New Year's Eve a tree trimming crew from the electric company came out and did some pruning to get branches away from the wires so we didn't hire our gardener again this year. The hydro arborist did a decent job, but that may have been because we were watching. He was familiar with our trees, has seen apples growing on them in the past. Normally we take off the suckers, any branches that look dead, and any that are criss crossing. I haven't trimmed any of my young apple trees yet because they're still getting established.
Trees are breaking bud here so it is a little late for pruning. Will do our usually pruning in mid-summer to finish up the last of the fruit trees. I'd read some where years ago how mid summer pruning can help encourage fruiting buds for the following spring. It is such a nice time of year how could I argue, and the trees have done well with pruning in July.
