The calendar and the cold tell us that it's time again for pruning fruit trees, berry bushes, and fruiting vines. It is important to prune most fruiting plants every winter, regardless of their age! Essentially everything except peaches are best pruned while dormant, between now and mid March.
Here is a quick list of the reasons for annual pruning:
1. open all parts of tree to sunlight2. increase air circulation3. improve quality, quantity & consistency of harvest4. prevent infection and spread of disease5. create good structure to support fruit6. avoid breakage from poor branch angles7. control size for easier harvest8. ensure penetration of sprays9. stimulate vegetative growth
In addition to our
new video series,
I've also attached a printable version of the POP Pruning Guide in English and Spanish.
IMPORTANT NOTE FOR POP ORCHARDS: We are again offering pruning training visits to all our orchard partners that need assistance. Please contact your lead POP staff support sooner than later if you'd like to set up a pruning day at your site. With 68 orchard sites and counting, if you wait too long to contact us, we may run out of days to help you!
For those of you who plan to accomplish your annual pruning on your own, note that a variety of pruning tools is available for borrowing through the city's tool libraries:
For POP volunteers, if you'd like to gain more experience with pruning and help out at some of our POP orchard partner sites, please sign up for our
Lead Orchard Volunteer email list. Best way to learn is hands-on!
Note: in order to assist with pruning, we expect you to have attended a previous POP pruning workshop or at the very least, have viewed our video series or read the attached pruning guide in full. Other than the
pruning workshops, most pruning sessions are held on weekdays.