During the first trips to the country, it’s time to take care of the garden. While the buds have not yet swollen and the snow has not melted, fruit trees require attention.
April 5 2017
The first step is to remove the old bark from the apple and pear trees. The old-timers of the garden, “grandmother’s trees”, are especially in need of care. Together with the old bark, we get rid of pests and diseases. A wire stiff brush, wooden knives are suitable for work. Place a cloth or film under the tree, and then burn it together with the bark with pests peeled into it and whitewash the trunk with lime. Wounds in trees – after pruning and others – need to be healed. Damage larger than 2,5 cm is repaired with garden putty or the old-fashioned way – clay with mullein. The size of the wound can be reduced. To do this, they cut the bark around the wound with a garden knife, without damaging the wood, so that an influx is formed that tightens the wound. If there are hollows on the trees, they must be cleaned to healthy wood with a chisel, and then treated with a 5% solution of ferrous sulfate. You can also “seal” a small hollow with a wooden stopper.
There are two types of pruning – sanitary and crown formation. All diseased, broken and rubbing branches are cut out without leaving hemp. You can start pruning apple and pear trees in April and continue until the first leaves appear. It is important to thin out the crown by cutting off excess branches. On a lightweight crown, the fruits will be of higher quality and larger. Apple and pear trees do not bear fruit every season, in some years the trees “rest”. The plum bears fruit annually. When pruning plums, it is necessary to take into account that fruit and growth buds are formed on annual growths, therefore fruiting depends on strong annual growths. Cherries require special pruning. If the tree is weak, emaciated and does not give annual growth, it is better not to prune it (except for sanitary pruning). Intensive care is needed, aimed at plant growth. Cherry harvest is formed on annual growths and bouquet branches. If the buds have started to grow, they do not shorten the skeletal branches, but only cut out the excess branches. In all grafted fruit trees and shrubs, it is important to cut the root and root wild growth. In order not to cut off too much and not to cripple the tree, it is important to understand on which branches the crop is formed. The branches that have arisen on the skeletal branches of the first order bear fruit for 20 years or more, and the distant branches are less durable – they live from three to five years.
All fruit trees are responsive to feeding. A good harvest of stone fruits will be provided by both complex fertilizers and microelements. In the spring, in the snow around the tree-trunk holes, we apply nitrogen fertilizers over the entire width of the crown: urea, urea or others. You can also use complex fertilizers with a high nitrogen content, for example, Azofoska, Ammophoska, Nitrophoska, “FERTIKA spring-summer”, etc. After the snow melts, we add ash, dolomite flour. We spread fertilizers evenly, about a handful per square meter. Mineral can be replaced with organic – manure, compost. Currently, there are technologies where mineral fertilizers are contraindicated: when using beneficial bacteria introduced into the soil. For example, when using the microbiological preparation “Baikal”.