One of the first things that have to be done in a new gardening season is always the orchard. Pruning the trees is something I really don’t like doing. I’m a very short person and trees are like giants to me. If you add in the factor of the slope there is really no way for me to prune my trees without pretending to be Tarzan even though my trees are really small. Well, at last apples are short, the rest of the trees are huge. Those short apples are around 2m tall and they are still too tall for me. I can’t get to them anyway, but with my long telescope scissors. The only problem is that pruning with them takes huge amounts of time because you have to take of sucker by sucker and it takes almost a minute to get the sucker in the scissors. It usually took me at least 3 days to do 6 apple trees and at least 3 hours per apple. Last two seasons my hubby does the work with me so it is a lot easier to prune them. He gets all the suckers that are tall and I get the bottom ones and trim the oversized branches. 

I don’t allow my apples to grow any taller than they already are. Trees are almost 30 years old and by now they have a well-grown trees, I keep them on 3 levels so that I can harvest apples without any problems. Last year we had no apples at all, which is normal because the year before that apples were filled with apples. Usually when one year is really good, the other is poor and brings no fruits. The main reason why we had no fruits last year is the fact that the temperatures in April and May were extremely low. Apples started blossoming and were struck by the cold and rain. Hopefully, this won’t be the case this year although there are already buds all over the branches, and yesterday we had snow, so let’s just say I’m not hoping for any fruits this year.

Of course, Srećko was with us helping and you can only imagine what it looks like when you let him do whatever he wants while you work. Let’s just say that the shower needed a good scrubbing after him.

As for the rest of the orchard, my dad trimmed the blackberry nets. The only thing I’m really not doing and don’t know how to do it. Raspberries, gooseberries, and cranberries are waiting for me, but I prefer for them to start letting out leaves and then to prune so I could be on the safe side and not prune the wrong branch. Early plums have been pruned and as for the rest of the trees I’m still not sure what I’ll do. I think most of the trees have to go down and I’ll have to get new trees. The cherry tree is huge, branches are starting around 5m and there is no way to harvest it. Also, it’s the earliest cherry in the whole neighborhood and this of course means that every single bird comes to eat on our tree. Walnut is staying and it is growing amazingly, but the pear trees are going out definitely.
I’m still not sure if I will buy berries or trees, this is something I will have to decide this year but it will most probably be berries. They come earliest and are easier to prune and let’s face it I can’t always be certain that somebody else will have time to do my job for me and get the tallest branches.