Winter: What your trees need right now. Tout suite! Chop, Chop

If you’re new to farm/garden life, here’s something you may not realize. Winter only seems like a quiet time of the year. And, mostly, it is.

But it’s also when the fruit trees within your acreage, are bared as if under an X-ray machine. And, you? You must become Dr. Garden. Study the branches, look at their skeletons, and think of how to shape them.

A yearly haircut

Everything we do at Bird Haven Farm in the winter will mean a better garden come spring, and for our apple trees in particular, better apples.

As a New York City girl, I think of it as a yearly haircut with a very, very good Madison Avenue hairdresser. Frédéric Fekkai himself, say, but with a pair of shears and loppers.

Timing is everything when it comes to a tree’s haircut. We prune late winter before spring buds form on the trees. You don’t want to prune too early in the winter when extreme cold can damage tissues exposed by pruning.

Pruning Tips

With pruning, the goal is to bring air and light to the tree. To do this, cut off the summer suckers and trim the dead wood. Properly pruned, trees live longer and fruit more prodigiously. On our farm, it takes about a week to do the orchard. Here are some pointers:

• Sharpen your tools for clean cuts. When cleanly cut, the tree is less stressed and thus heals quickly.
• Know where to cut before you even start. There are improper places to cut, such as too close to the trunk or too far from the trunk. Climb the tree to find the right place and angle. Or use a telescoping pole to reach high branches.

For a complete guide on pruning check out Stark Bro's website. It’s filled with super helpful tips!

And here’s the even more fun part. We give our cuttings to a ceramic artist who glazes with them; and to a cook who smokes meat with them imparting a sweet, apple-smoke flavor. Maybe you can find someone in your area that can use the cuttings similarly. I, on the other hand, decided to mold a charm after my beautiful apples and design a necklace.

The last step

In early spring, we do the last task to set the trees on a path to success. We nourish them by composting around the trees.

With a haircut and a feeding, the trees are set up for a fruitful harvest in 2025!

A little piece of the orchard you can wear every day!