We had a fun workshop on fruit tree pruning last Saturday.  Folks had some great questions about special pruning approaches for dealing with some of our mountain issues: bears and heavy snows.  Like this little fella who offered to help me prune my fruit trees last spring...

Conventional pruning recommends that you remove competing leaders if you're training the fruit tree to a central leader.  I tend to leave small competing leaders in case I need a "back-up" due to breakage from a bear or snow.  I remove larger competing leaders before they truly compete with the central leader.

Where the bears or snow have removed my central leader, I've tried to re-train the fruit tree into a open center.  I find that the open centers are subject to breakage from heavy snows.  It is important to have strong branch attachment.  Remove branches with narrow angles (likely to suffer from bark inclusion) in favor of scaffold branches with a 10 or 2 o'clock angle.  Be vigilant about removing watersprouts.  They grow vertically, don't produce fruit and add unneeded weight to a branch if left to grow large.

Lastly, consider apple and pear trees on standard rootstocks.  These trees grow tall and strong, so they can better withstand depradation by bears and heavy snow.  You can train the tree to have a higher fruiting canopy to reduce deer browse.  On the negative side, the fruit is waaaayyyy up there, so you'll need a large ladder.  They may take longer to come into production and do not have the bred-in disease resistance of modern semi-dwarf rootstocks.

Or then again, we can just learn to share with our hungry neighbors.

Please join us for a fruit tree pruning workshop at the Young Family Ranch, 260 Oregon Street in Weaverville, Saturday, February 15th from 1:00 - 3:30 p.m. Starting at 1:00 pm, the workshop will provide a lecture/review on fundamentals of pruning, dormant vs. summer pruning, heading vs. thinning cuts, proper pruning cuts, disease prevention, appropriate tools and tool care, tips for restoring neglected, old fruit trees. At 2:00 pm, attendees can practice hands-on pruning with guidance from Master Gardeners. You can attend all or part of the workshops. Some tools and ladders will be provided. We encourage you to bring your own pruning tools if you would like to have them sharpened. Please dress warmly as the hands-on portion of the workshop will be held outside. In the event of rain, the lecture will be held, but the hands-on pruning will be cancelled. For more information, check out our website (cetrinity.ucanr.edu), call Carol Fall, UC Cooperative Extension, Trinity County at 530-623-3746 or cjfall@ucanr.edu. See you there!

Please join us for a fruit tree pruning workshop at Salt Creek Growers on Hwy 3 south of Hayfork this Saturday, February 8th from 1:00 - 3:30 p.m. Starting at 1:00 pm, the workshop will provide a lecture/review on fundamentals of pruning, dormant vs. summer pruning, heading vs. thinning cuts, proper pruning cuts, disease prevention, appropriate tools and tool care, tips for restoring neglected, old fruit trees. At 2:00 pm, attendees can practice hands-on pruning with guidance from Master Gardeners. You can attend all or part of the workshops. Some tools and ladders will be provided. We encourage you to bring your own pruning tools if your would like to have them sharpened. Please dress warm as the workshop will be held outside. In the event of rain, the workshop will be cancelled. For more information, check out our website (cetrinity.ucanr.edu), call Carol Fall, UC Cooperative Extension, Trinity County at 530-623-3746 or cjfall@ucanr.edu. See you there!

This information comes to us from Rico Montenegro, Fruit Tree Planting Foundation.  If you haven't had the chance to join Rico for this informative, annual event, it's a great opportunity to learn how to restore heirloom fruit trees and volunteer at the National Park. 

Whiskeytown Restoration Workshop and Heritage Apple Pruning Day

Feb. 1, Saturday

We'll meet at the Camden House at Whiskeytown National Park. For those who would like to attend the 1 hour Restoration Workshop, which will cover restoration techniques for both fruit and ornamental trees, please RSVPme by this Friday via email and arrive just before 10 AM to the Camden House. Those who will not be able to attend the workshop, but would like assist with the hands on restoration of the old apple trees, then arrive by 11 AM to assist.

For those who have not participated before, take a look at the following two sites for a preview, one is the web site for the foundation I am affiliated with, which the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation, www.ftpf.org , where you can view a You Tube site, called Grains of Change; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoCOVOHx78k and see the orchard and many other projects I have been involved with over the last year and a half.  The other site is an article written by Jennifer Jewell a garden writer and radio garden host on our local PBS station. See; http://jewellgarden.com/blog/2010/01/15/pruning-for-long-life-rico-montenegro-and-the-historic-camden-house-orchards-whiskeytown/

To reach the Camden House, take Hwy 299 going west out of Redding. Drive about 4 to 5 miles past Whiskeytown Lake. Parking will be at the public parking lot on the left just before reaching the Camden House which is across from the turn off to French Gulch. There is no charge for parking passes to the National Park if you park in this lot on this day.  Follow the trail from the parking lot across the bridge to the meeting site at the Camden House, which you will see in the distance.

 Bring:

            -clippers (by-pass) preferred

            -loppers

            -small hand saw

            -work gloves

            -small spray bottle w/ 10% bleach & water

 You can stay up to 2 hours or more if you'd like

As an added bonus, I will sharpen your clippers and loppers if you'd like.

Rain date will be the following Saturday, February 11^th at 10 AM.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

               Rico Montenegro

                530-515-7657