pruning the gnarly apple

Pruning is best done before the blossoms. I was told as much at a pruning lecture last summer. In this post I pruned the apple tree, successfully beating the blossoms. The buds were just forming. The tree was 60+ yrs old and very tall so that the top part shaded the lower part, such that the lower easy-to-reach fruit was unnecessarily small due to not enought light. In this post I pruned the upper branches off.

Below, partway done pruning. Sorry no official "before" photograph. I cut the branches using an electric pole chain saw. Standing up on the truck bed got me within reach of everything. This apple variety is Baldwin or Winesap, according to a guy at the local orchard.

Cut branches, saving the bigger logs because apple wood is supposedly great for smoking meats.

Electric saw made easy cutting. The pruning took four or five hours, most of the time positioning the saw, and lugging branches into the woods. Thanks to my neighbor for lending me the saw.

Picture below, this branch was high up, blocking sun from the one underneath.

After cutting the branch.

Hard to tell in picture below, but the pruned tree is nice and low now. From some angles it looks decent. From this angle it looks a bit like it was hit by lightning, split down the middle, but should fill in over the summer.

The dreary two days of rain causes all sorts of pond in the yard.

Garden flood