Renewal

I’ve been pruning the orchard the last month. When I started writing this journal entry, I thought I had found an insightful metaphor tying the concepts of pruning, which is all about renewal and shaping the direction of the tree, to life lessons of continually working on yourself and encouraging personal growth. When I re-read it this morning it came across so heavy handed and insufferable that I binned most of it. Let's try this again.

Pruning is one of those seasonal tasks that for me marks out the start of the new year. December we are still often at the tail end of the juicing and fermenting, and who wants to start any major new job right before Christmas? But when January rolls around, I try to capture some of that drive to eat healthier and exercise more and put it towards pruning the 1000 odd trees in the orchard. A journey of 1000 trees starts with a single cut. At about 15 mins/tree, best get started.

Like many things along this orchard journey I’ve done things the wrong way at least 3 times before finding something that seems to work. The interesting thing about growing in skill along with the trees is seeing the results of actions over time. A pruning cut made at different locations on a branch has different impacts on the following years growth. But even though I had read about it, its not until you make a certain (bad) cut, then come back a year later and see how the tree responded that you realize what my crusty orchard mentors warned me about. They always talked about pruning as an art, one learned over a lifetime. When I first started that sounded overblown. Give the tree a little haircut once a year to keep branches out of the tractor path, how much to it could there be?

With pruning, I learned that the right cuts made at the right time result in new, healthy growth, while lousy cuts made at wrong spot along the branch can result in poor healing, die-back, or fungal or insect attack. The tree responds to having some of its limbs cut back with a spurt of new growth as it attempts to restore the balance of roots to foliage. The best apples grow on new wood. Trees that are not constantly renewing begin to ossify and the fruit production decreases in size and volume. Done in the right way, pruning cuts also open up the tree to light and air flow, as well encourage it to grow in ways that make strong branches that are easier to harvest.

The first few years after planting the trees, I left most of the branches and pruned very little. When they are small, there is lots of room for the branches, so I figured why not leave all of them? Fast forward a few years and the tree is crowded, the branches are large, and taking any out now is a major surgery. Much better to do the job when it is time to do it.

That alone is enough of a life lesson for this month. It's one that I’m still learning and I’m sure still will be when I write this next year.

Thanks for coming along for the journey for another season. Here's to 2023.

Until next time,

Mike