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I’m still struggling with my five old apple trees in my garden. If they are left alone they grow like crazy, sending up a massive number of shoots:

They’ll quickly grow too big for my garden. Maybe if I only had one tree it would fit in the garden, but since they have always been pruned the limited area was never a problem. Last year I pruned them really hard and removed all shoots so only the bare stems were left (thicker than 5 cm / 2 inch in diameter). That resulted in not a single apple being produced. Bad idea.

So this fall I’m leaving a single shoot per stem, hoping that apples will develop on those shoots next year, where they’ll be one year old:

I guess the lesson is that apples won’t develop on wood younger than 1 year.

The ideal situation for me would be to plant an apple tree in a place with lots of space around it, and then forget about it until I would go out and collect the apples. And then let it grow according to its own genes and chop it down once it stopped producing apples.

When you start pruning hard it’s like you can’t go back to free growth without letting the tree grow into a big mess. So I have to live with the decision of the former owners and learn how to prune properly, as I don’t want to chop the trees down, since that would force me to go to the supermarket instead.

I have five old apple trees in my backyard which are quite old. I would estimate the oldest to be about 25 years old, and it has a trunk diameter of 30 cm (12 inch):

The problem I have with these old trees is that they grow like crazy. They have really dug in through the years. I was told that the former owners of the property would cut away any shoots each year, but I had hoped that I could avoid this work, since I don’t like cutting trees.

Last year they just got too big for my backyard garden, so I cut the trees back to where they were used to be before I moved in. That left me with a lot of twigs but the garden looked nice again.

Then the trees start growing like crazy this spring, putting up 50 cm (20 inch) shoots (see the first picture) and worst of all – not a single flower or apple So no apples on this years shoots.

They have used all their energy for growth and nothing for reproduction (apples). So I guess I’ll select about 10 shoots on each tree and cut away the rest to see if they’ll produce apples next year. Last year I picked 19 kg (42 pounds) for eating, and the birds got much more out of it.

My red currant bush just doesn’t behave like it’s supposed to according to the books. Again this year it’s flowering on 1 year old wood and there are very few flowers on the 2 and 3 year old wood:

The party is clearly on the 1 year old top shoots, and not much is going on below on the older wood:

The numbers on the picture below is the age of the wood:

But what the heck – I bet the fruit is just as good if we can get to it before the birds.

I was walking past the garage the other day when I noticed this drop of water on the concrete tiles:

And here was another one:

It was weird since the weather was beautiful and had been so for days. So I looked up thinking the gutter must be full of water and leaking. But no, they sky was blue and the gutter is brand new:

I starred at the gutter for a couple of minutes, scratching my head, before I figured out what was going on. Don’t mind the expensive new powder coated metal gutter – the vine is freaking bleeding!:

Oh dear… Just wanted to prevent the vine from ripping down the gutter a couple of days earlier, so I just cut off the ends of the vine, which had been growing in under the gutter and the roof. Bad timing:

Other cuts on the vine had been done in time before the vine started sucking up water and distributing it:

And another correctly timed cut:

So remember to cut or prune your vine when the leaves fall off before winter, or you’ll end up with blood on your hands. Or water. (And where the hell does all that water come from, it’s so dry now?… anyway)

I have this bamboo growing like crazy on a south facing wall. I cut it down every year, but it keeps coming. I thought about removing it completely, but it turns out to be pretty useful:

I cut down all the shoots at the ground and cut them into smaller lengths. They’re perfect for marking your rows after sowing seeds, and for some reason they’ll  last several years. Bamboo sticks are quite expensive in our local supermarket, so I’ll leave the bamboo where it is for now.

Yes! The first tomatoes are finally ripe. They’re late because the ones I originally planted were cut down by killer slugs. That was a tough one since those original ones I sowed indoor where they germinated in my windowsill and grew up to become sound 20 cm (8 inch) plants. I’m not sure what to do to keep the killer slugs away from my small tomato plants next year, I’ll have to figure that out.

It was just before vacation I lost the original ones, but a friend looking after the garden in the meantime played a prank on me. He found some new plants at the supermarket which were even taller and planted them instead of the slaughtered ones. He didn’t say a word about it until weeks later after we got home from vacation, and I didn’t tell him that I knew what he did. But of course I knew, they were my small babies. So I don’t actually know what varieties I’m growing, the ones you see in the picture I would like to try to save seeds from tomatoes but I don’t think I’ll do it this year since I don’t know what they are. But they’re healthy and the taste is okay. We only tasted the variety on the left so far, the one on the right is a beef tomato.

There are not many leaves left on the plants, because I have worked from the principle that if any leaves are casting shadows on any of the fruits, the leaves have to go so that the sunshine can reach the fruits. I’ve also pinched any shoots appearing between the main stem and the side branches to keep the fruit production high. Those shoots will not produce much fruit. Next year I’ll try and limit the plants to having only one main stem per plant. They are sensitive to the wind as they are now, so I hope that they will be more stable with only one stem.

I’m using a growing bag which I’m sure is filled with all kinds of nutrients. It works well but in the long run I would like to use my own compost just to live a little more self-sufficient. Besides, I’ve read that tomatoes should be able to grow in almost anything, so I think it should be possible to do.

The self-watering box I use below the growing bag is very good at providing the soil with the right amount of water at all times. I’m considering buying two more and digging holes for them in the ground, so that they are out of sight. The cats are using the box like a scratching pole which is not a pretty sight and it won’t last long either.

I have a blackberry bush in my garden that has been growing a little wild on it’s own. It’s all over the place as you can see in the picture above. Now I would still like to have many blackberries year after year so I’ll have to prune it. A blackberry bears fruit on one year old wood so in the winter you cut away the branches that carried fruit this year. Keep two new strong branches to carry the fruit next year.

Our new black currant was picked up from the nursery and planted this year. It produced a small amount of fruit which have all been eaten by now, so I thought I would do some pruning to get more fruit next year. It turns out that black currant bushes produces the most fruit on 2 and 3 year old wood and this is only 1 year old. Pruning is done in December so I’ll have to wait. I’m supposed to keep 2 stems from each growing season and cut stems at ground level when they are older than 4 years. This picture shows what a bush should consist of, where a darker color means older wood. (A part of me wants to present this as a drawing done by our 1 year old daughter, but yes, I did it, okay?  ):

I know this is simplified but the goal is to cut stems that are older than 4 years in order to keep the bush young and producing the most fruit.

I don’t know why this pruning thing is so hard on my brain, so advice is always welcome.

Do you have experience pruning black currant?

This weekend I had planned on pruning the red currant, since the birds already ate all of the fruit during my one week vacation. So I wanted to get this task checked off, but it turns out that a red currant bush produce most fruit on 2 and 3 year old shoots. It looks like this particular plant is 2 years old but it produced fruit on one year old shoots. I guess fruits will be produced every year and it’s only necessary to prune if it gets too big. I thought I was supposed to do something every year but now I don’t know. My brain hurts.

How do you handle your red currant bushes?