Saturday 22 November 2008

Fruit Tree Pruning

I’ve had an excellent day at Hanbury Hall learning how to prune fruit trees. The course was run by Pershore College and covered everything from standard trees to espaliers and fans.
The course started with a bit of theory, in the polytunnel they used as a classroom, and then moved out into the orchard to prune the trees ourselves. They took a lot more off the trees than I thought they would, but in doing so showed us the shape we should be aiming for and how to manipulate the branches that are left. I’ll be pruning the trees in my garden tomorrow so long as it doesn’t rain! I’ve also got about 24 fruit trees on my parents farm that I planted four years ago to have a go at, so that should be good practice!
We were given so much information in just one day, I think I’ll book myself on the advanced pruning course in March to make it sink in better (and maybe the summer one as well).

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