Master Gardener Fruit Tree Pruning with Eric Oesterling

Eric demonstrating how to prune grape vines. 

Eric pruning a blueberry bush.

An unpruned blueberry bush.

Eric demonstrating how the branches of an apple tree should be trained.


Pruned apple trees on Eric's property.

Eric demonstrating on how to prune an apple tree. The left side of the tree is pruned and the right is unpruned.

Eric talking about peach trees.

Pear tree

Apple tree with rootstock suckers.

NOTES: 

Grapes fruit on 1 year old wood. Keep moderate sized branches and cut big ones. Shredded bark branches are 2+ yo. Leave 5 nodes on smaller branches. 6-12 nodes on main branches. Keep pencil thin branches.

Apple fruits on 2-3 year old branches. Wider at bottom than top. More horizontal branches = more fruit. Cut all vertical growth or downwards growth and root suckers. 

Blueberries: prune off old less productive branches at base. Likes consistent moisture, does not tolerate fluctuations. New plantings, cut weak shoots & strip flowers for first 5 years

Peaches fruit on year old branches. -12 degrees kills fruit buds. 

Pears fruit on 2-3 yo wood. Grows like apple, but with more branches. 

Falling Into Winter

Last Sunday I was finally able to see the forsythia mess up by the street. It turns out there are really only three bushes, but the one closest to the house has been left unchecked to grow wild. There were branches all the way to the sidewalk! Even though you are not supposed to prune more than 1/3 off, I figured this thing has grown enough over the years to have enough energy stored so I hacked away! I even got the chainsaw out! Inside that mess was a wild grape vine that was as big as my wrist! Anyhow, it has not been cleaned up well, but it is tamed at least! 

All the plants I couldn't figure out where to put since I didn't really have time to figure out the garden were dug in for the winter until hubby decided he HAD to do certain projects outside and had to move them. If I can't find any of my plants next spring, we'll know why! Now some of them are uncovered and winter is arriving this weekend! I need to get a new bag of mulch. This was the last thing I wanted to do when winter hit! *sigh* 

As for winter, my first seed catalog came in the mail today! Time to dream! What shall I plant next year????