I've not been to many gardening clubs before, but lets just say that if you added the age of my brother and me together we'd still be younger than most there! We were given a warm welcome though and the speaker was excellent.
His name is Nick Dunn and he runs the nursery that I visited the year before last and he is also the author of the book "Trees for your garden" which is excellent.
His talk was brilliant (no photos sorry) he brought in many trees with him and cut them all up into how he's start different forms and shapes. Although I've been on many fruit tree pruning courses and talks before I still learnt a lot from this. He was truly passionate about it and seemed very happy to be talking to my brother and me at the end as he could see we were a younger generation interested in it.
A few random tips I wrote down are:
- Prune hard when you plant - This si something I never do but he was taking quite a bit of growth off, by half on the one tree. He says to be brave and the tree will grow a lot stronger because of it. It seems counter-intuitive but I'm going to adopt this practice and see how I get on.
- Tie cherry tree branches downwards or break them slightly - any growth going upwards produces vegetative buds but downwards will produce fruit buds. Break them when the spa is rising.
- Bend and tie the trees into an S bend to slow the spa rising and to produce more fruit. Also some orchards are planting closer and closer together to increase competition.
- Try to pick out branches that are a wide angle from the main trunk. they use toothpick like things to space them on some orchards now as it will mean a much stronger branch in the future. remove narrow angle branches as they tend to want to grow upwards.
- Summer pruning - I thought it was tricky to work out when but he says after the longest day you're good to go, although you might have to prune twice if they put on lots of growth.
- Figs - Prune in early autumn or summer, not in winter like I would have assumed.
- To prevent peach leaf curl you need to stop the rain falling on the leaves until the end of may. Give the tree a cover until then that is open to the sides.
My mother keeps on to me to do some talks for gardening clubs? What do you think I could do them on? Could you do a talk to a club and what would it be on?
Hello Kev,
ReplyDeleteI was a member of the local garden club here, and they had some interesting guests at times. I felt like a fish out of water because they were all over seventy years old! Most of them were only interested in flowers, but I am not a flower person. I like to grow food to eat!
I don't think that I could give a talk like that, I am the shy type, but I think you would be fine :)
The gardening clubs still seem a little old for me. I'd love to start a homesteading club in the village. I think that could be good fun.
DeleteYou could give talks on garden and smallholding blog writing, vegetable and fruit growing and DIY projects with wood, Kev.
ReplyDeleteI once gave a local talk about vegetable growing on my smallholding. I was very nervous and wish I had done a slide show. Good luck!
I would have liked to have gone to your talk, I bet it would have been interesting. I think if you're passionate about a subject then you can make it interesting. Some good ideas for talks there as well.
DeleteI always thought the hardest part about speaking to groups is handling the asshats no matter how knowledgeable the speaker is.
ReplyDeleteThe local garden club near my neck of the woods has a number of younger members. Young being relative of course but I mean they are not all over 60 :)
Well mums a member of this one and she's not 60 yet (not far off) but I think she was the youngest there!
DeleteThat sounds very English. Like something off "Downton Abby."
ReplyDeleteAt least with Downton Abby on TV it means we stop getting compared to Monty Python all the time!
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ReplyDeleteSad and concerning, the age thing speaks volumes.
ReplyDeleteI disagree, Gardening is generally a hobby people take up when they're older, when they have more time and disposable income and a bigger house with a garden. There are young people gardening that I'm friends with but they wouldn't go to a gardening club because it's tailored to the older generations.
DeleteI prune on the principle of forming a goblet shaped tree; plenty of air and light, and no branches too close together. What I do is quite probably against all advice, but it seems to work OK.
ReplyDeletethat's the way I do mine as well. Sounds like you've got it perfectly.
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ReplyDeleteIn my (very limited!) experience, pruning hard when you plant definitely works. I was too scared to do it when I planted my first fruit trees but plucked up the courage to do it for subsequent ones and I think they've established themselves much better as a result.
ReplyDeleteThat's what he was saying. I'm going to do it with any I plant this year and see how they do.
DeleteI once worked for 8 years as a gardener for a small wildflower nursery, growing all the stock from seed or cuttings and also did the outside pruning of apple trees etc in the grounds for the owners. I was a bit scared at first but my boss's favourite saying was 'be ruthless' so I was and it worked! I am now just as ruthless with my own fruit trees and I have to say, they are growing a lot better now and one of them has even stopped that biennial bearing that it used to have and now fruits every year. As for the talks, I think you'd be brilliant at it if your blog is anything to go by, just be yourself and talk about everything that you do, even being a stay at home dad keeping up the supply of veggies and fruit for the family.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a great experience. The be ruthless thing works I think. Ever since I did the first pruning course I've gone a lot harder at my trees and they've all done well. Getting a tree out of biennial bearing is good work, they can be tricky, apparently pruning in the summer can help with this as if you do early enough then you can encourage more fruit.
Delete& thanks for the compliment. I might look into doing a talk at some point and test run it at my mums gardening club!