Gardening Club: Jan ‘22
Pruning Fruit Trees
A foggy morning at gardening club yesterday but the murky weather did not dampen the enthusiasm of our community gardeners. Some of our regular faces were joined by members of the Little Wymondley Gardening Club. The focus of the session was pruning our community fruit trees.
One of our local residents, Paul, kindly lead the group on how this should be done effectively to yield a good fruit crop later in the year. This was fascinating, lived knowledge that his father had passed on to him.
Paul’s top tips for pruning:
- January/February is a good time to prune as the tree is bare.
- New shoots that grow into the tree should be cut off.
- Cut or saw flush with the tree when cutting off a whole shoot or branch.
- Branches should not cross or rub. Choose which one to cut by checking for damage. and which one has the most room to grow.
- When pruning, the cut should be clean. Tears will allow disease to enter.
- The tree should be open enough to allow a small pigeon to fly through.
The offcuts from the apple trees were then used to build a dead hedge which wildlife can live and hide in.
The gardeners were productive across the rest of the garden too. The raised bed was filled with top soil. We have plans for a second raised bed as well to help with accessible gardening. The large grass mound was flattened using a mini digger and rotavator and soil distributed to fill uneven ground. The greenhouse was cleaned out ready for use this year. Finally, the compost was bagged up which will be dug into the low vegetable beds.
Garden club is a great way to get involved with the community garden and introduce children to gardening. There is a great amount of knowledge within in the community who are happy to help the novice gardener and no question is too silly!
Our gardening club sessions are held from 9am-12pm on the third Saturday of every month. Free to attend and all ages and abilities welcome.
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Wymondley Community Garden 