Shoveling snow off of fruit trees

Summer

Winter!

The very thing that generally gives me a guilt-free pass from gardening -- snow -- delivered an usual chore this week: shoveling fruit tree branches.

Snow is nothing new here, but it came so fast and so wet and heavy (and so much of it!) that trees all over town strained and split with the extra weight. I don't want my little peach tree to suffer the same fate, which is why I tromped through knee-high banks to scrape snow off its branches. The tree is in my front yard, a steep slope of three terraces. In the best of weather it's like playing mountain goat to garden there. I'm sure I gave my neighbors quite the show as I climbed the hill and hoped to not lose my footing.

Ah, that's better.

Pruning tactics to maximize fruit production and sunlight to each branch also create a basin for snow. Hold your hand out, palm up, to see how. Hold your arm vertically from the elbow, with the hand bent back, as if you were a waiter holding a tray. Now curve your fingers. Your forearm is the trunk and your curled fingers the branches. When snow makes a branch bend at a notch, the risk for breakage is high.

My tree is against a retaining wall, where the upper level provides an easy reach to all the branches. (It's why we planted it there, for easier harvest.) If you attempt to remove snow from a bigger tree, be careful. Use a shovel to PUSH snow away from you, rather than pull it toward you. Obviously you don't want to get a snow shower, but you also don't want to dislodge an already weakened branch and have it fall on you. Consider that bent branches may whip upward when snow is removed; another reason to keep your distance and use a long-handled tool. Watch out for power lines.

I don't anticipate having to shovel fruit tree branches with every snowstorm, just when the weight of snow makes the boughs bow. (See what I did there?) 

Swing on tree heavy-laden with snow.

Oops! The patio furniture got left out.

What's your most unusual off-season gardening chore?

Home orchards

Fruit trees can be an attractive part of a home landscape, as this carefully planned orchard shows.

The orchard space is about 16x16 feet on the west side yard of a historic home in my city's downtown. In the center is a pear tree flanked by two apple trees and two peach trees. The five trees are laid out in a circular cross design with islands of light brown bark mulch separated by black edging and light colored gravel paths. This ground design is striking all year long, perhaps even more so in winter when the trees are bare. The mulch serves an extra purpose: it covers the drip-line irrigation system. All the trees are dwarf varieties.

A bed of strawberry plants borders one side of the grid, which fits right in with the owner's orchard motivation: "Because we love fruit."

Here, the trees create a privacy screen between the street and the house.

This is the front of the beautiful home, with the orchard shown on the left. The home sits on a large lot, but its compact orchard offers inspiration for using fruit trees in residential landscapes of all sizes. These strategies are worth noting:

• Choose dwarf varieties for small spaces.

• Separate fruit trees from lawn if you can. First, their water needs are different. Second, grass will not grow well under a fruit tree's canopy. 

• Think of a tree's pollination needs. Most apple varieties require another apple tree nearby to produce fruit.

• Use landscape cloth and mulch to cut down weeds. Consider adding a design element with your choice of mulches.

Tree Talk

As Marisa and I anticipate getting a new bigger property we have started to plan what we want to grow. We want a lot of what we had on our smaller backyard farm. A vegetable garden, strawberries, raspberries, chickens, and medicinal herbs. We just want more variety and bigger plots of these things. We also look forward to delving into new areas of farming that we have never tried. We are excited to have bees, goats, rabbits, and fruit trees.

(image is of Maya and her best friend swinging on a dwarf tree, other dwarf trees are in the background, I believe they are Red Haven Peach Trees)

We have never had fruit trees and we are starting to do some research into what kind of trees we want to get. We have learned a lot of interesting things but we are still novices. Here are a few things that I found interesting.

Did you know that apples, pears, quinces, cherries, peaches nectarines, apricots, plums, damsons, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, and the rose all belong to the same family? They are all part of the plant family Rosaceae. Don't ask me how to pronounce this. They are divided into sub groups that include those that have stone fruits, like cherries, and plums, those that have berries like raspberries and strawberries; and pomes which include apples and pears.

Did you know that if you plan it right you can have the same types of trees that bear fruit at different times of the year. For example, there are some apples that bear fruit in the late spring and other apples bear fruit in the fall.

Did you know that most varieties of fruit will not breed true from seed. Instead, cuttings from a fruit bearing tree (called the scion) are usually grafted onto a rootstock. The rootstock is a different tissue type than the scion, and the root and the branches grow together but remain biologically different.

Did you know that some fruit bearing trees are full size, but you can also grow dwarf or semi dwarf trees? The dwarf trees are smaller and take up less space on a smaller property. You can grow many varieties of dwarf trees only 6 feet apart from each other. Marisa and I think we might want to raise a small orchard of dwarf trees.

Do any of you have experience growing fruit trees? What advice would you give us as we start the process of planning what types of trees to get for our property. We probably won't start until next spring but it's never too early to begin learning about it.