Orchard pruning

Daniel giving one of the big pear trees some pruning love.

Today we met a local orchard pruner out at the farm. Our trees are visibly old and haven't been pruned in at least 6 years, maybe more. We didn't have any sense of how old the trees are or how much longer they'll last so we called Daniel out to check them out and give them some love.

This first tree is one of our largest so he tackled it first. Daniel informed us that despite their gnarled appearance that most of our trees look quite healthy and may have 30-40+ more years of life in them! Also, by his estimation the tree are 100-120 years old. I knew they were old but was blow away by that. 

After about and hour of pruning love!

Daniel had a great bumper sticker on his truck :)

Daniel will take a few days this week and next and get all our orchard trees trimmed up and back in shape before they start to bud over the next month or so.

See all the dead branches on the ground after the pruning? Daniel is going to make neat piles under each tree but not dispose of them. I feel a group work day coming up. Guess I need to find a wood chipper to borrow!