WOOHOO! Memorial Day is Upon Us!

I'm not celebrating because it is a three day weekend. I'm celebrating as a gardener in zone 6a that it is time to plant my plants in the ground!!! :D

My collard greens came back!

See the little guy at the bottom and its predecessor all dried up behind it?

And this morning I found my first sugar snap pea! YAY!

I love these tomato cages! I just went and got three more to expand it since I have about 6-7 tomato plants to plant! I'm going to have tomatoes coming out of my EARS! :)

My garlic is doing well too! Look how big they are!

Some of the plants I haven't dug up yet that I dug up from the old house. I swear there are like no plants left there anymore LOL

More plants from the old house...

And more from the old house...

A photo bomb by the dog and another Peony :)

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.