Self-taught pruner makes the cut—barely
Last week, I spent an afternoon pruning one of our three old apple trees. You probably didn’t know I could do stuff like that, but that’s OK; until last week I didn’t know it either.
Years ago, we used to have a professional come out several times a season to prune and spray the trees. His care kept them healthy. Unfortunately, it also caused them to produce apples far more vigorously than we ever picked them. Eventually we concluded that we should stop paying to have our trees grow vast quantities of high-quality drops.
Now the trees are overgrown and hardly producing, and it makes me sad, mainly on principle. You know how it is with me and old things: They may no longer be practical, pristine, or efficient, but I love to see them still working (as usual, insert husband joke here).
Sure, it’s easier to buy a bag or two of apples each fall. But that doesn’t honor the legacy of our property or the family who planted and kept those trees a century ago. “Don’t those mean anything to you?” I asked Mark. He considered the question and took his time formulating a well-reasoned response.
“Not really.”
I had never pruned an apple tree before. But I did watch two 15-minute YouTube videos before taking a shot at it, so I’m basically an expert now, at least on an intellectual level. I understand the purpose of pruning. I understand the goal. I understand which branches to trim and what overall shape to aim for.
The only aspect I haven’t mastered is applying my deep understanding to the physical process.
That part seemed better suited to Mark. But, not caring much about the trees or having my level of experience watching how-to videos, he turned me down.
I then suggested a team effort, whereby he would get a ladder and a saw and some clippers, and I would give him instructions based on the comprehensive skills I had picked up from my several minutes of online training.
“I shouldn’t have been hanging upside down like a sloth.”
He said that, as much as he loves when I stand around and tell him what to do, he was more inclined to prune the trees “at the base of the trunk” to save time in future years.
The man has no sense of history. So I did the pruning myself.
I knew, in theory, what to do: Cut back any dead wood and rubbing branches and remove the smooth vertical shoots—what we experts call “water sprouts”—that apple trees send up in search of sunlight.
I had planned to do all three trees in an afternoon. It turns out, however, that while YouTube videos can be edited for time, real life can’t. I got one tree done that day.
Had anyone with actual pruning experience been watching me, I’m sure they would have been screaming about my technique. I shouldn’t have cut so close to (or so far from) the main branch. I shouldn’t have used that kind of saw. I shouldn’t have been hanging upside down like a sloth.
Those people would be justified in their horror. But from a distance, even though I gave it only a light pruning, the tree does look better.
And let’s put it in perspective: When the tree guy used to do his thing, the trees yielded a nearly unlimited supply of apples. Nobody wants that.
Do you know how many apples are in a bushel? Google tells me about 120. And a healthy, mature, full-sized apple tree can produce 10 to 20 bushels per year. We have three trees. That’s 3,600 to 7,200 apples a year, or approximately 3,500 to 7,100 more than I need for a few pies and a couple dozen jars of applesauce.
Every September, the sight of those picture-perfect trees dotted with robust red fruits would cause me to groan in despair. Another bountiful harvest? Already? Ugh.
I couldn’t take the pressure of picking as many of the fine, unblemished fruits as possible before they fell, or of processing them before they turned to mush. And later I’d feel guilty knowing I’d let most of them rot on the ground.
I know my pruning isn’t as pretty or as thorough as it should be, but I’m fine with that. We’ll probably end up with a few dozen scabby, misshapen apples, suitable only for baking and canning.
Good.
I’m not proud to say it, but honestly, that’s about all I can handle.
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(Originally published March 2024)
