Orchard People

Introduction to the Episode
In this month's episode of the Urban Forestry Radio Show, I'm going to turn the tables around. Usually I interview experts on fruit tree care, but in this episode somebody else is going to be interviewing me about fruit trees and that somebody else is Harold Thornbrough. He's got a wonderful podcast and it's called the Modern Homesteading Podcast.
So I was really honored to be asked to be on his show. So Harold and I had so much fun chatting that we decided it would be great that for me to share it with you guys as well in this episode. Harold is going to ask me about choosing a tree. To plant in your garden, to increase your chances of success, we are going to talk about pruning fruit trees.
We're also going to be talking about improving the quality of the fruit that you grow. So I really hope you enjoy this prerecorded episode and let's get started and let's hear what Harold has to say.
Today.
Meet Susan Poizner
I'm joined by Susan Poizner. Susan is an. Urban orchardist in Toronto, Canada, and the author of the award winning fruit tree care book, growing urban orchards.
She's an instructor of fruit production at the Niagara college in Ontario. And the creator of the award winning online fruit tree care training program at orchard, people. com. Susan is also the host of the urban forestry radio show and podcast and an ISA certified arborist. Susan, welcome to the modern homesteading podcast.
I'm really excited to be here. Thank you, Harold.
it's, I'm glad to have you, you have quite the, resume there of, tree knowledge. And I love it because that's something that. I've been growing fruit trees for a long time, but I know even me, it's like I run into problems. there's just struggles I have here and there.
And I think most homesteaders are the same way. most of us who are trying to grow some of our own food and have a few fruit trees, we're always having some kind of a challenge. And I'm always excited to talk to people who. Who can answer some of the questions that I have and answer questions for the audience as well.
And I think you're the person for that.
I hope so. I hope I can help.
Susan's Journey into Gardening
first of all, I'd like to just hear a little bit about how you got where you're at, what was the interest in fruit trees? What are you doing? Can you just fill us in on that?
Absolutely. I always, Harold, I always find it funny when people talk to me like I'm an expert.
And the funny thing is that I have been doing this for, 14 years, right? But before that, I didn't grow anything. I was a gardener. I started gardening maybe in my 30s. I didn't grow up with this stuff. And so what happened was I got married to a wonderful man, Cliff, who came from Trinidad. Now, in Trinidad, you throw a seed down, a tree grows, the plant grows, everything is so easy.
And he was saying, when we moved in together, he said, I want to plant some tomatoes in the backyard. And I said, No way. I know what's gonna happen. You're gonna plant tomatoes. I'm gonna have to take care of them. It's gonna be a mess. I was like, No way. I don't want to do this. And then finally he kept at it.
And I'm like, Okay, fine, do it. But I am not going to help you do it all yourself. You can see what a nice person I am. Anyways, I'm very difficult. So we plant the tomatoes, and it's magical. It's the most magical experience I've ever had in my life, as I see these, the fruits growing on the plant, and then I taste them, and I see how amazing and it was like a transformative experience when I realized this is what food is supposed to taste like.
I had no idea. So I fell in love with gardening and went on that adventure, ended up signing up for a garden design certificate program at a local college. And I realized as I did that. That my true love was trees. Trees are these amazing beings to me. They're not like here in Toronto, you see them, like you can walk by like their street furniture.
You just don't even notice them until you notice them and you realize what they do to make this world healthy for us and how they beautify our environments and how they shade our communities and how amazing they are at blossom time and then the fruit. When I realized that fruit trees do all of this, and they offer this amazing organic harvest of whatever, peaches, cherries, plums, apricots, apples, I'm like, Oh my gosh, these, this is amazing, so I'm a city girl.
I take all of this for granted until I really open my eyes. And from there.
Starting a Community Orchard
I go on a journey starting a community orchard in my local park and I did what everybody else does. I say, Hey, let's plant some fruit trees. It's going to be easy. I have other things that I do, but don't worry. The fruit trees will take care of themselves.
And guess what? They don't.
They do have their challenges for sure. I think that's so funny how you, how you've said, you just noticing trees after you really got interested in them. And that's so true. it's like when we came up. I think back like when you'd buy a car, for instance, you buy a certain kind of car and you never see this car ever, but then once you buy a car, you start seeing it everywhere.
And when I started homesteading and gardening and planting fruit trees everywhere, I'm driving and looking, and it's people with orchards and you see some gardens and you just, it starts catching your eye and you, because you're fascinated by it. You think, what are those people doing and how are they doing it?
And, I think that's great that you started really appreciating fruit trees. And just trees in general, once you started studying about trees and learning about trees, and I think that is true, that it does fascinate you. And the whole thing is just, it's addictive, gardening, you planted that first tomato plant and it just sparks your interest.
You got going with it and trees are the same way. I remember when I started plopping trees on my property here and you just get fascinated and just, I don't know, a little bit, Where you just can't stop thinking about it. you want another tree or you want to make it better, or you just want to, you want to do everything you can to have the best orchard you can.
And, and like you said, sometimes it just doesn't happen magically. Sometimes you have to do some things. So we're going to talk about that. I hope.
Absolutely. And I also want to say the difference for me between trees and plants is trees to me are beings. I really feel them. I feel their energy. I can tune to them.
Whereas I don't have that same connection to a zucchini plant or, even to, a bunch of daffodils. I just, I love them. I love all plants. I don't have a lot of plants, but trees, they, each one that I have planted has their own character and as I prune them, as I work with them and care for them, I see each one has a character.
I know what it likes and what it needs and what it doesn't like. and I know that these trees, hopefully, the goal is that they can last for a minimum 25 years and hopefully much, much longer than that. So as I grow, they will grow. We are having a journey together and we are working in partnership to create a beautiful harvest of healthy organic fruit.
Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. when you plant those, it's, you're, it's why I'm always really careful about where I plan. I put a lot of thought into where I'm putting these trees and, and, I'm picturing the image of this giant tree or this bigger tree and how it's going to work on my landscape.
I do a lot of permaculture practice. So it's you're thinking about everything, the shade, the microclimate it's creating, the plants you're planting around it. So you start really considering everything. Cause this is, It's going to be a long term commitment and you really have to think about those things when you plop a tree in.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Challenges and Learning in Orchard Management
so you decided you're going to plant some trees and you started putting them in. So how did you learn to grow these trees? what was the process like for you? did you just start plopping them down or did you put some thought into it at first?
Oh boy, I put a lot of thought into it and I went in absolutely the wrong direction.
So what I did was, I went to the library and I got all these books on how to grow fruit trees and I'm flipping through them and I'm like, Oh, that cultivar sounds absolutely delicious. I want to plant that. I create a list of all these wonderful cultivars that I'm going to plant. That's what I focused on.
And then I talked to the park supervisor that I was, that was helping me out to do this volunteer initiative in my local park. And he said, Susan, I went to the nurseries. I couldn't find any of these cultivars. Guess why he couldn't find these cultivars. He can't grow them here. I'm in a totally different climate zone.
These books were written in much warmer climates. And Not only that, these cultivars, it took me years to discover, are not the easiest ones to grow. So when you are growing in a public space, or even if you're a busy, gardener, and you're just putting a few fruit trees in your backyard, you want the easiest experiment to grow.
experience possible. You want to be able to plant the trees, water them, feed them, prune them, but not have to worry too much about disease if possible. And there are many, disease resistant cultivars. However, the ones that are featured in these books are not those. And the ones that we see in the supermarket, those honey crisp apples or the Macintosh apples, they are amongst the hardest.
fruit to grow because they are vulnerable to very common fungal and bacterial diseases. So I didn't know any of this. We planted, I think, 14 trees that first year. And in the end, the park supervisor went and he picked up these, the trees and he said, look, I couldn't get what you wanted. So I just got what they had Bartlett pears, bosk pears, I can't remember.
There were certain plum trees. There was a bunch of cherry trees, maybe Bing cherry. I can't remember. And, so he just, whatever he found, he brought and we planted. And so the experience started from there. Now I'll just add one little thing in. This was an exciting project for our community. It was in a neglected park that nobody had really spent time in.
But as soon as we announced to the community that we were going to plant a community orchard, there was a small group of people who did not want it passionately.
Really?
Yeah.
So they
started. Oh, yes. They started a petition and they got 60 people in the neighborhood to sign it saying we do not want a fruit farm in our local park.
So they had concerns. No, some of them were valid. Okay. These, the concern that if I planted that orchard and then just walked away and didn't and just neglected it, it would be a mess. There'd be rotting fruit on the ground. Yeah. Yeah. That's a valid concern. There were other concerns, my children will have cherry stains on their t shirts or, other things that I'm, there was increased concern.
murders. I don't know where they got that one from, but that was a suggestion. There were a few other very strange suggestions. But the point is what I learned from that is I got the right to plant the orchard. I got that opportunity. It was much smaller than I originally wanted it, but I had to do this right and I could not make mistakes.
That's what I learned. And so as these trees grew, when I started to have little problems, at first I ignored it. orange spots on the leaves. Gee, what is that? I don't know. It'll go away on its own. branches string looking a little strange. Don't worry. It'll be fine. Check back next year, right?
Fruit trees take care of themselves. Don't worry about it. One after another, these problems popped up until the, I realized that they were just getting worse and worse. And I realized they would not take care of themselves. And I realized that if I was not on the ball, this project would be a failure and it would be my fault.
So I, I had to do something. I had to learn. And that's when my journey began in terms of finding people and raising money to bring in experts to teach us how to take care of these trees. And it took me years. It took me three years to figure out how to prune a tree. Three years with bringing people in until finally I'm like, Oh, I get it.
Oh my God. That's so easy. That totally makes sense. I get it now. And once I get things, it takes me a little while, Harold, this is between me and you. It takes me a while, but once I get it, I can explain it easily because I had, I have trouble getting things in the first place. So I just simplify things to make it accessible to everybody because I want everybody to be successful growing fruit trees.
If you're willing to put in the effort and the time I want you to be successful. So I'll teach you. That kind of thing.
Pruning and Tree Care Techniques
There is a challenge to it because to me, it's like every tree is different, like every type of tree is different. Like I've got pear and peach and plum and apples and fig and pop. I got all these trees and it's they all need a different type of care.
So there is a learning process for every, you have to take each one of them and learn that one. And then this one, and that takes time and some experience and a lot of study, you have to do a lot of research to really learn all these different ways to do things. Cause I Peace trees are completely different than my pear trees.
how I would prune them, how I would treat them. They just, they're just different kinds of trees, and,
I love that you brought that up. Okay. So again, this is how I learned, give me five years, which is what I had the first five years. And I'm like, totally my head is spinning because we have apricots, we have pears, we have plums, we have all these different trees.
And I'm overwhelmed until I finally get it. And then I realize once you understand the science, for instance, once you understand the science of pruning and what happens when you make those different cuts, you can prune any fruit tree.
Yeah.
You can take that knowledge and prune any fruit tree.
You'll realize that, peaches and plums have different characters, a little bit of a different form than apple trees, but the science is the same, whichever tree you tackle.
Yeah.
yeah, so that's what I did. And it's same thing with diseases, for instance, when I did my first online course, because people had asked me to teach, my background is as a journalist and filmmaker, a communicator.
So people said, Susan, we want to do a community orchard like yours, the Ben Nobleman Park community orchard. Can you teach us? And so I'd say, okay, come I'll teach you. And then I figured out the same thing with diseases. Really, if you learn seven different. common diseases, you'll be able to recognize them.
You go into an orchard with a mixed bunch of different types of fruit trees. If you can recognize those, you can then, avoid them from, prevent them from spreading. You can prevent them from happening in the first place, but you need to know about them first. If you wait till the disease happens, It's a little bit late, by that time it starts to spread, then you have to look it up and oh, I could have prevented it this way, and if I had caught it early enough, then this wouldn't be a problem, but oops, it's too late now, so it's all filtering all this information and turning it into simple nuggets that will help empower people.
My experience has been really with my apple trees are my biggest challenge. They seem to be the ones that are more, most prone to just issues, as far as disease issues, because I want to do things in an organic or regenerative way, I'm trying to be really delicate about what I use on them.
I don't want to use any harsh chemicals. What I feel like is harsh chemicals. It's just my method. it's what I'd really do. I know, that some of these, Other ways would probably work a little quicker, a little better, maybe, but, and I know that some of the organic ways take a little more time, a little more consistency, a little more work, but it's what I'd rather do.
and I will say it, it does create a little bit of a challenge, especially with the apple trees.
Apple trees are in some ways the most rewarding, but they are, this isn't just you, Harold, everybody. There are something like 36 different insect pests that will attack to apple trees. Whereas with plum trees, there's maybe, I don't know, 10, 12 diseases.
Apple trees are so much more vulnerable. And For me, if I go out and I think, okay, I want to make this an easier experience for myself, I get a disease resistant apple tree to plant, you know, freedom or liberty or pristine, one of my favorite types of apple trees. And those are resistant to some of them.
You have to check like the common diseases, like fire blight or apple scab. When you choose those cultivars, which are also delicious, you're like taking a whole bunch of problems and taking them off your, problem list, And the same thing with pests. So I like you do like to avoid using chemical sprays whenever possible.
but there is one spray I'll do every year. And that is a dormant spray. So I use lime sulfur and dormant oil and it's the timing is it's a really tight little window, at least for my climate. So it has the tree has to be fully dormant, but the temperature has to be just about zero or just above. And you don't want to spray on a windy day because then the spray goes in your eyes and all over the place.
So you find you wait in the spring for this perfect time and you go out and you spray your trees. The beauty of that is it smothers overwintering insects. So out of the last 14 years, I think there were two years we messed up the timing. And if you miss the timing, you've missed your opportunity.
Those two years were our worst years for insect pests. So that one spray, which is organically acceptable, that one spray makes a huge difference. yeah, so that together with cultivars that are resistant to certain, diseases is helpful. And then when it comes to pests, a lot of the pests, when, especially with apple trees, what they do, like apple maggots or codling moths, they are attracted to your tree and they're attracted to the little tiny baby fruitlets.
So they fly over the baby fruit and they think, Hey, I'm going to make my babies in, I'm going to lay my little baby eggs. under the skin of the fruit. So they go, they're attracted to the fruit, they do their thing, and then the fruit grows and then you get a maggot inside, which of course you do not want.
So one of the earliest things I discovered would make a huge difference was what I call orchard socks. They're also called maggot barriers. And this is a community orchard. So we all come out and we take these little sockets. They're actually try on socks that you can get from the shoe store. I don't know if guys get try on socks.
Girls do sometimes.
Yeah.
Okay. little nylon sockets and you tie them on each apple. So it's a fun thing for people to do. If your tree is big, just do the lower branches and your fruit, you put it on when the fruit is quite small, like the size of, the tree. Quarter or something very small and and then the fruit grows and the fruit will be perfect at harvest time
Yeah, those are all some really good tips.
I will remind folks you are in Canada. So when you said zero, that was Celsius. That was
Celsius. Thank you. What is it? 32, right? 32
here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah, I just thought that might throw some people off. Yes,
they probably would get very confused. But
yeah, those, that's some, those are some great tips.
I've never done any of those things. So I've had those challenges, begin. Now I planted my trees several years ago and I've learned a lot since then. And you're pointing out the, role that tree choice plays, picking the right trees, resistant trees for your area, trees that are going to work well, insects, disease, taking all those factors, something that's delicious, something you'll enjoy back when I planted my trees.
None of that was on my radar. It's I went down to the store, I grabbed what they had. I put it in the ground. It's growing. They're growing well, but I have those issues because they're not the best trees for this area for disease resistance, for pest resistance, things like that. So I have, I, Basically, I made those mistakes, so I'm glad we're talking about that because I'm hoping that folks who aren't where I am now won't make those mistakes after hearing that because they need to.
It is something you really have to think about again. I was thinking about things like I mentioned earlier, shade and this microclimate and things like that, but I wasn't really considering Those other issues now I would, but I didn't then. Yeah.
And that's the one beauty. Okay.
Look, if you want to talk to somebody who's really smart, don't talk to me, talk to somebody who's really smart. Talk to somebody who's got a PhD and whatever. But the reason you want to talk to me is because I'm not really smart and I've made every single mistake. But the one thing that I'm good at is teaching people about my mistakes and how to avoid them.
I wasted. So much time, Harold, so much time doing it wrong. And now I want to help people get it right. We've got a beautiful planet. We want to be able to live sustainably and make this world a better place. And fruit trees can play a beautiful role in that. yes, it's not just me. you. there was something else I was thinking about when you, talked about, choosing the right tree.
and you talked earlier about choosing the right location, which is another thing. Now I've taught, I've got my online course certificate in fruit tree care. And the first part of it is all about choosing a tree. I do a two hour Segment, made up of little, little videos about how to choose the right tree, cross pollinating trees and a whole bunch of stuff.
but yes, choosing the right location is another thing that people can get wrong. Plant your fruit tree in the shade. It can be the best tree ever, but it's not going to do well. So that pre planning that you talk about is super important.
I agree. and like I said earlier, also, it's a long term commitment.
The re if I had made these mistakes with anything else other than trees, okay, you pull it out of the ground, you replant something, you start over right with trees, you don't want to do that. they've been growing there for several years. It's I don't want to, you don't want to cut those down and start over with a new tree.
you don't really want to, even though it is the wrong tree. Maybe, there might be a situation where that is the right thing to do, but for me, it's I It's still beneficial. It just takes a little bit more work than what I would like it to take. but it would have been better if I'd done it right the first time, but again, it's that long term commitment.
It's something you want to put the thought that you really think about what you're doing in all those areas, or at least tap into the resources that can really assist you, books, courses, anything. Cause you know, a couple hundred dollars spent here can save you. Thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of work in the future.
So it's, really a small investment to make in something as important as trees.
Absolutely.
yeah, I just think that, I love my trees. They do provide the most. Just the most productive things on my homestead without a doubt. And that's why I love them. I just love the abundance of trees, but again, they take some work if you, make some mistakes.
yeah, I'm glad you're, setting people straight with some of those things because, Yeah, it's, it can be a challenge when you make those mistakes for sure. Now, I'd like to talk a little bit about pruning more because you said, you as long as you got the technique down, or what the science is behind it, that it's pretty much the same, but even though that's true.
Knowing where to cut and how to shape the tree. Some trees I find like a different shape than other trees. even though the science is the same on what you're doing, they just tend to like my peace trees seem to do better. And you tell me if I'm wrong, you're, you are definitely, have more experience in this than I do, but my.
My peach trees seem to like the more sprawling branches, a little more open space where my pear trees seem to me, go up more, just a little bit different shape, and, then of course the apple trees, they just do whatever they want to do. It seems like I try to keep them, doing the thing, but they're, gnarly.
They do a kind of many different things, but, but what do you find that to be the case with your trees as well?
Okay. So yeah, absolutely. So fruit trees are they're like people. Okay. So I'm tall and skinny. I'm long and lanky. My husband, Cliff, he's shorter and he's more muscly, a little stouter kind of different look, but we're both human beings.
And we both have, we function as human beings. We got hearts, we got, whatever organs we have and trees are the same. So here's what we need to think about in terms of pruning. Why are we pruning? Once we understand why we're pruning, then we can figure out, the techniques to use to make the shape that will help us.
So for instance, we are pruning to create a strong fruit bearing structure for our tree. We needed to be strong. So in our orchard, like years ago, I think 2013, we had an ice storm here and the trees were still quite young, but they had been pruned properly for four years at that point, trees fell down around our neighborhood because they were piled with ice.
Our fruit trees didn't even have one broken branch, not even one broken branch on these young trees because they are designed to hold a heavy harvest. So the ice was not a big deal. They can hold apples. They can hold peaches and apricots and plums or whatever. Actually, we don't have peach trees, apricots.
So they are designed to hold a heavy harvest. That's one of our functions. The second function is we prune to keep the tree healthy. So in order for the tree to stay healthy, you need very good air circulation. I don't know if you've ever seen people, if they've neglected an apple tree, for instance, and you get this whole tangle of branches and they're all very close to each other.
And that's in the winter when you can't see the, when there are no leaves, then the leaves grow. And it's like this dense mess. And you look at the tree and you think that tree needs a haircut, but It's not just that it doesn't look the best when you have a canopy that's not dense, then water from the rain will stay in the canopy.
It will never dry out completely because the sun can't penetrate. And then you get fungal diseases. Interestingly, when it comes to fruit trees, 80 percent of all the diseases that they get are fungal diseases. The rest are, bacterial diseases, maybe a little bit of viruses, mostly it's fungal diseases.
So if you have this big, messy, hairy canopy and it's retaining all that water, cause it can't dry out. then you are going to have diseases, but. If you prune in a way to have air circulation, so each branch is quite far from the other branch, it'll look open and airy.
And it means that the sun can get in after a rain and dry out the branches.
Yeah.
there goes your fungal diseases. You don't have a problem anymore. You don't have to spray your trees with sulfur spray to deter and defend them from fungal disease, fungal spores because you're proning properly. Let the sun do the work. Let the sun dry out those branches. yeah, so that's the second thing and then there's a whole bunch of reasons, but you're also pruning because you want quality fruit.
So you want to make sure that the sun hits every single branch on your tree. So if you've got three branches that are one on top of the other, the top branch might get some sun, but the other two underneath will not.
Understanding Tree Shapes for Optimal Growth
And so how will the fruit ripen properly? So there's that I could keep going.
There's quite, there's a few more reasons as well, but what I'm saying is once you understand that whatever shape that tree wants to make, you just need to know that those branches are spaced in a way that they can have lots of air circulation and that every single branch can have access to sunshine.
If you are creating a vase shape, and I know that it sounds to me like that's where you're going with your stone fruit trees. if it's a vase, every branch will have access to the sun. There is no branch that's shading another branch. If it's an apple tree, you may choose a central leader type shape.
Shape it like a Christmas tree. One, one branch, one straight trunk in the middle and branches on the side, but they are going to be structured so that every branch has its own space on the tree, like a bicycle wheel, so that no branch is shading the other branches. So central leader pruning is what I teach in many of my courses so that people can, and that works pretty much for every tree.
though, though you can use your scientific knowledge, which I can talk about in a minute, to, take something and say, I don't want to do central leader, I'd like to do vase shape. That's possible once you understand how the tree grows.
Yeah.
Common Mistakes and Lessons Learned
You're, pointing out all my mistakes. Thank you. I have the apple tree that I struggle with the most.
I actually planted before I put a greenhouse in and it's on, the wrong side of my greenhouse. some sunlight gets to the greenhouse, but then when that greenhouse is full of stuff, of course the sun don't go through there. So a lot of the bottom branches, especially. I have a lot of disease issue fungal disease issues with, and that, it makes perfect sense.
And, I, know that's the reason, but again, that tree went in before I put a greenhouse in, but again, you don't think it's why you really need to think ahead about how you're going to design a property and what the possibilities of change are, because, it very well could cause you some issues.
yeah, again, you're pointing out all my mistakes, so thank you.
Gosh, I'm only pointing them out because I made them myself. So we are in the same boat. Let's pause the interview here for just a moment. Harold has a lot more questions for me and we really enjoy chatting together. So we're going to come back to that in just a minute.
Sponsor Break
But in the meantime, let's hear a word from the valuable and wonderful sponsors that sponsor this show. So let's listen to that now. So in the first part of the show, Harold asked me about how to choose an easier to grow fruit tree. We started talking about pruning. And now in the second part of the show, we will continue talking about pruning, and we'll also talk about how to improve the quality of your harvest.
So let's dig into that now.
Reasons and Techniques for Pruning
There's a lot of different reasons to prune a tree. I, one of the reasons I prune trees is to keep things down where I can reach them without having to get on gigantic ladders and go, 30, 40 feet in the air to get to my fruit or, having to, I've got fruit pickers, but even they'll only get up so high.
just this last year, I basically topped all my pear trees cause they were getting so tall, even with my. Really long fruit picker. I couldn't even get close to some of the top fruit. And, and then you just get a mess if stuff starts falling and it's all over the ground and you're picking fruit up off the ground.
Like you mentioned, some of the people were basically had a problem with and that in the park you were putting together, cause it can be really messy when a lot of fruits on the ground. yeah, for a few weeks. Yeah.
At the time I thought, gosh, these people are so mean, not, liking fruit trees is like not liking, motherhood and apple pie, right?
it's just like, how can you not like fruit trees? but they did me a big favor. They really taught me.
Community Impact of Fruit Trees
It just goes to show you've got to be open to everybody's feedback. I wish it hadn't been, it was not a fun interaction. It was bitter and, it divided the community for a while.
But now one of the opponents is the loveliest person. Every time I'm in the park, 14 years later, she says, Susan, Thank you so much. You have made this park so beautiful. All the work you guys have put in over the years has been amazing. This is somebody who fought tooth and nail and, really didn't want this.
and she was like, wow, I can see the difference. This has transformed the space. How lovely is that? That's very lovely. She's one of my favorite people because, to turn around like that and just say, yeah, I guess I was wrong. this is amazing. that's lovely.
Did you, I know we're stepping back a little bit here and going back to that story, but did you have to really, did you have to have a meeting and really address their issues and try to change their minds?
is that how it took place?
It was not a pretty scene. It's funny because there was an article in the local paper and, This is just really funny. So it was a time I live in a neighborhood, there's a strong Jewish community and there's a few synagogues here. And so one lovely synagogue offered that for us to do our meeting with the community and with our city counselor in the synagogue.
But at the time there was a lot of anti Semitic events, so there was security at the door. And people thought the security was because, and they were not like, it was this bitter. They thought you've been checking your purse because you really didn't want fruit trees, There was so much anger.
There was so much passion. and we brought in experts. to talk and to say, look, you have a point. Yes. But this is how we're going to learn how to care for these trees. And this is how good it is for children to be playing with fruit trees in nature. We brought in experts. We did everything. And the compromise was instead of 28 trees, we got 14 trees and, probably a good compromise too.
Who knows? But the point is you have to listen to everybody and I'm really love my city councilor for taking a chance on us. 14 years later, it is a beautiful project and has transformed the park.
I think that's just a great lesson overall, when we're not even talking about fruit trees, just the way we address and approach issues and, debates and, conflict, if we can just talk and, try to legitimately understand the complaints that someone has, try to address them or learn from them and say, that's legitimate.
I don't know. I haven't thought about that. How am I going to handle that? and learn from it. And if we could handle a lot of problems like that, wouldn't we just all be better off.
Absolutely. I'm understanding more and more now that everybody's complaints. are valid. Even if I totally disagree with them, they're valid because something in their life experience taught them that lesson.
Now, it could be the world has changed. It could be they're interacting with different people with different intentions. But if you understand that Anger comes from some sort of pain and some sort of fear, and the first thing you say is, I get it. I get why you're saying this, and I get why you're scared.
I get why you're scared of fruit trees. I get why you're scared of the park turning into a mess. You go there every day with your dog, and you don't want to have to not go there. Let's find a way for me to reassure you that I am going to be educating myself to make sure that this whole team Me and all the other volunteers so that we all know what to do to take really good care of these fruit trees so that they will be an asset in the community and Harold on cherry harvest day when kids come out from far and wide in our neighborhood and for the first time ever they see cherries growing on a tree and they can pick them.
It's amazing. The other beautiful part is the first couple of years we got it wrong and what we did was everybody could harvest and take their bag and walk away. That doesn't work. It's not good because it's like the greedy way of seeing it. What we do is everybody harvests and we put in big bowls.
And then at the end, we look at how much we have and divide it up evenly to every single person who came that day, everybody gets to take home an equal amount. So you're not rushing to grab, I want more cherries and I want the better cherries. No, you can rush if you want, but it's all going to be divided up at eight o'clock PM.
When everything's over, nobody gets to take any home first and the children get to learn about sharing and participating. There is so much that these fruit trees have taught us, and it's not just how to care for them. It's more how we care for each other, how we work together as a community. These trees have been such a blessing.
Yeah. I think gardening in general works that way, especially if you do it in a community, aspect like that. it's just, it, does so much for a community and for people and, yeah, and trees are just, one part of that, but. Yeah, I agree. It's there's something about there's something about growing things and being in touch with nature and bringing people together around that, that just, it crosses a lot of, differences and, just brings everybody together.
I love it. it's why I love homesteading because of that. It just, it crosses a lot of barriers and brings people together. And it's we're all just different. I find that on this podcast. I've, Came across so many different people and, that, that don't think like I do about everything, and I think that's great.
I love that. I love the diversity. I love that we're all different and I love that we can find some common ground and something, it's really neat.
Absolutely.
in the end, what we really, want out of our, fruit trees is a really good, healthy harvest. You've given us some hints on how we get there.
You got anything you want to add to that? I'd really like to hear more.
Oh my goodness.
Scientific Insights on Pruning
let's think we talked a little bit about the goals of pruning. and in terms of having a healthy harvest, we might want to think a little bit about the science of pruning. So I can add that into to the mix.
So here's what happens. I don't know if this has ever happened to you. You want your fruit tree to be smaller. And so you go out there and you cut it shorter. You cut, you shorten your branches, you shorten the tree. And sometimes it seems like it's working, but then the next year it gets twice as big. So you feel like it wasted my time.
Does it, has that ever happened to you?
Yes.
Okay. Especially with apple trees in particular. So one thing that I have learned about pruning is that the effect it has on the tree is different depending on when you do it. So if you have a little small little apple tree and you're like in a hurry, you want it to grow faster, you want to prune it in the winter.
Okay, just the end of the winter, it's still dormant, it's not really actively growing that much. So you prune it at that time of year, and let's say this little tree has 10 branches. And so you prune off three of the branches. what happens is that dormant tree has stashed in a way in its root system, a bunch of energy, let's say 10 units of energy.
It stashes it away at the end of the previous year, puts it, it's a little pantry with its, munchies for the spring when it really is going to need all that energy. So you prune off three branches and each remaining branch will have a little bit more energy. to grow longer and grow stronger. If you leave all 10 of those branches, each 10, each one of the branches will grow a little bit.
If you remove three branches, each branch will grow more. So that's why winter pruning spurs growth. It's great to do when you have a young tree that you want big to be bigger. But let's say you have a big old apple tree and it's winter and you're like, man, this thing is way too big. I'm going to prune it now.
So it has a hundred branches. And so you cut off all, you shorten some and you cut the branches to make it smaller, but each remaining branch gets more of the energy in the root system. So each branch will have more energy to grow longer, to grow water sprouts, to grow upwards, to grow all over the place.
Yeah.
So winter pruning is not a good time if you want to make a fruit tree smaller.
Okay.
so that's one of the things that people need to keep in mind. The same thing is true for summer pruning. So let's say with that big old apple tree, you think, okay, you know what, I'm going to trick it and I'm going to let my apple tree, I'm going to let it blossom.
I'm going to let it form some baby fruitlets, just little tiny baby fruitlets. And after blossom time, that's when I'm going to reduce the number of branches. But at that time, it'll already be a little tired because it would have blown a whole bunch of energy making some blossoms that it's not going to keep, making some fruit it's not going to keep.
And so that's the time to make your little, your tree a little bit more compact. So yeah, so these are the kind of tips to keep in mind. if you want more fruit, for instance, let's say you want to, oh, I'm getting too complicated. Maybe I won't throw too much into the mix right now. But basically, yeah.
I see a lot of, I experienced a lot of that because I do some, trees. Now I don't, you don't want to do this with, certain fruit trees, of course, but there's a couple I have here that you can, pollard or, coppice and really aggressively do it in the winter time. And it's amazing the growth you get through in the new year because you're taking them down to where there's just nothing left.
Like mulberry, for example, you can cut it. I can totally cut that tree down and it grows really, fast. 25 feet in, in just a few months, it's amazing a fig trees. I have a fig out here at the same way, cut it to the ground. You cop us it to the ground. Boom. It just grows back more aggressive than ever.
but I never have known that if you prune them in the summer, that you can actually stop that. Rapid growth. Not that I want to on those two trees, but I'm just saying that's interesting that you can do that.
But again, if you're one of those people who has on your homestead, one of those beautiful old apple trees, but they're great and you want more fruit, but instead you keep getting those water sprouts.
Why am I getting the water sprouts? I want the fruit hang in there. let it run its little race in the spring, let it run off all that energy, let it all go, and then you prune it, and then what's going to happen, and you're, this leads back to your question, what's going to happen is the remaining energy that it does have, it will use to power its, biological, all sorts of functions that it's doing, including creating fruiting buds for the following year.
So you asked about how do you improve your harvest. Summer pruning can improve your harvest. It's not wasting the energy making more sprouts. It's using the energy to create fruiting buds for the following year. Part two of your question, how do you improve the quality of your fruit, can be counterintuitive.
And that is, When you first plant your tree, that first year you plant a tree, remove all the fruit on the tree, even if it has, sometimes they don't have it. Sometimes they do take it all off gently in the early spring, allow it to invest its energy into its root system to establish itself.
I do that for two years. I don't let them fruit at all for two years. After that, I thin the fruit. On the branches. Okay. So if you've got clusters of apples, I will leave only one per cluster, one apple per cluster. If I have, apricots all along my branches of my apricot trees, I thin them to the extent so that each remaining apricot can grow to full size.
Otherwise, you're going to have a whole bunch of little hard, tiny little hard fruitlets. And that again, goes back to a couple of things, but it goes back to the energy. Would I rather the tree use its limited amount of energy to make a whole bunch of fruit that doesn't taste good, or do I want it to use that energy and channel more energy into each fruitlet so that fruit is a little bit sweeter, or a lot sweeter, or juicier, more delicious?
And the same thing, the apricots on the branch. If I thinned those apricots, wouldn't I rather they be full size? and not competing with each other. So all of these things, when I talk about a partnership between you and your fruit tree, it is, you guys are a team and you're working together for this beautiful harvest that you are going to create at the, together by the end of the season.
Wow. I thank you for pointing all that out because it's you were walking around my homestead, looking at all the things I'm doing wrong and pointed them out to me. And I appreciate it. cause I'm really bad about thinning out my fruit. It seems like such a painful task to me when I'm removing it, the potential of this apple growing and just all these apples, being great, even though I deep inside, I know you're telling the truth.
And I know that the best thing I can do is thin that out. Cause I get these bunches of, a matter of fact, I get so many, sometimes it. It can actually break a branch or weigh a branch downwards, touching the ground and just warp it because then it starts taking that shape, that downward shape, because it's done every year for three or four years.
yeah, it's horrible. I'm just horrible about that because it is one of the things that's maybe hard to do for some people like me, but it is important. And you're right. That's something I should be taking more time to do, especially with those apple trees, I find that to be the case with the apples, especially.
So when we send the apples, we get buckets of baby apples, and you're right, it can break your heart unless you say to yourself, Hey, I can turn that into apple cider vinegar, or I'm pretty sure, you can ask Melissa K. Norris next time you chat with her. I think those baby apples possibly could be used, because they'll be high in pectin.
Am I right for making jam?
Yeah. Yeah.
So there are things. Or you can, basically apple cider vinegar. If it's other fruits, I did an episode of my radio show on podcasts with Nigel Palmer, who is the author of a book. Do I have it here on my desk? Probably not. It's on making holistic sprays for your fruit trees.
It is one of the best little books that you will ever have for your fruit trees. Nigel Palmer's book, something about amendments, making organic amendments. You can look that up. but. talking to Nigel, he takes all that, whether it's the apples or apples he turns into cider vinegar, but other fruit, let's say fallen cherries or apricots that you're thinning, you can ferment them and make them into a holistic spray.
to spray your apricot tree with. It will have all the nutrition that apricot tree needs from its baby fruits that it's, you've taken off and you've thinned. So there, there is stuff you can do with it. And then worse comes to worse, if it is healthy and not bug infested, you can also put it in your compost.
Yeah. Yeah. I never, that's something I've tried to just keep in mind too, that, part of permaculture is really, there's no waste, anything you have, it has a purpose, even if it's just compost, you can make a use out of it. And if that's all you can do with it, or if that's all you can do with the excess of it, that's a good use of something, that's a, productive thing you can make.
yeah, we shouldn't look at that and say that's not productive. It's something you can absolutely get benefit from.
Choosing the Right Fruit Trees
I do want to ask you, Because, we put such a big emphasis on, the right trees for your area. Do you have a place where you like to get, the right trees or find information on what trees to get?
Is there anything you, a resource there that you have?
I am so glad you asked that because, in my course, I've also got a book called Grow Fruit Trees Fast, where I talk about it, and my other book, Growing Urban Orchards, I talk about it. So you want to get these varieties I'm telling you about that are easier to grow.
You want to do your research to find out that these varieties are good for your zone, that they are cross pollinating, or they will somehow pollinate each other. You've got to do a little research on that. You're going to do some research on when you're going to harvest, so you don't get all your harvest at one time, where you're harvesting five trees at in September and no trees in June, July and August, so there's a whole bunch of things.
It's a bit of a puzzle to put together. And I talk about that in my books. I talk about that in my online course, Certificate in Fruit Tree Care. But the most important thing is You're not going to be getting your tree from the big box store, and you're not going to be getting it from the garden center.
That is where you're not going to get your tree. And there is a good reason for that. The people who go to the big box store and the garden center will say, I want a Macintosh apple because that's my favorite apple. So that's what they are going to carry if they were to carry a red free apple or an easy grow apple.
Maybe easy grow people would think, Oh, that sounds easy to grow. But if it's, if it's a cultivar that they're not familiar with, they're not going to buy it. So it will not be available there. So my recommendation. is to go to a fruit tree, a specialist fruit tree nursery. And on my website, orchardpeople.
com, I have, if you put in the search bar nursery, I have a list of nurseries across North America where you can order your tree from the great news is they have many of them have online catalogs or you can order their catalog and you can spend an hour or two going through and making sure that they that this will be the perfect tree for your zone for your pollination needs for your timing needs and all that stuff.
So that's where the only place I would ever get a tree from. Secondly, I only get bare root trees. So once. The ones that go to the garden center, they're already older. They might be two, three years old. The branches are very, they're fixed in place. And the place of the branches is not where I want them.
When I'm pruning my tree, I make the first pruning cut on the day I plant the tree. It's called a whip cut. And I just like cut, cut this one little whip, this one little branch, which is essentially my tree. I cut it down quite a bit and then I get to sculpt, sculpt, or shape my tree right from the start.
yeah, so that's what I would say. If you want to plant a fruit tree, if you want to put it on your homestead or on your farm, and you think I have some room for five trees, 10 trees, even a hundred trees. Great. Spend that two hours and do your research first. It will make all the difference in the 25 to, 50 years to come.
It'll really be worth your while.
Do you have some thoughts on preferences as far as like dwarf tree, semi dwarf trees, or do you figure full grown trees?
so you asked such good questions, Harold. I love your questions. Oh my gosh. Okay. I do have thoughts on that. When you are choosing your tree, one of the things that I didn't mention you're going to be deciding on is what rootstock it's going to be on.
And the rootstock will determine the final size of the tree. So there are dwarfing rootstocks. Now, dwarfing rootstocks are great if you have a small urban backyard, you just don't have a lot of space. they won't overshadow the rest of your garden, that's super. Problem is, many of them need support.
So do you really want a weakling little tree in your backyard where you have to stake it and support it and maybe it doesn't even produce that much fruit?
Yeah.
Then there's the semi dwarf. So lots of different rootstocks are semi dwarfing. So the tree might be 18 feet tall, but still manageable even without pruning.
Those are good, for instance, in our park, because they are strong enough for children to climb on the trees. If that happens, for a football, if a football hits the tree, it's okay. It won't like with a little dwarfing tree, the kid is playing and a football hits the tree. Boom, gone goes, your tree is gone.
So semi dwarfing are great for, public spaces. They are great for larger spaces. They have a larger harvest and with correct pruning, you can keep them compact. So that you don't have to harvest them with sticks, harvesting sticks, full size trees. They're called standard trees and for years I thought, Oh, who would plant them?
Who wants a tree that's going to be 30 feet tall until I spoke in one of my shows. I did a show on pruning old apple trees. my radio show on podcast had a wonderful interviewee from the UK. Who's an expert in apple tree pruning. He prunes, he calls it pruning veteran trees. and he said something that changed my view of full size trees forever.
He says, full size trees have full root systems and they expand far and wide and they will live a long time. Dwarfing trees. they have a little root system. They're not going to live a long time. But full size trees, not only do they live a long, time for us, but the older these trees get, the more they contribute to our environment.
And they build an ecosystem around them that is so amazingly unique and supports specific types of animals, like certain types of birds, certain types of insects that can't find a home in any younger apple tree. So he, just keeps pruning these veteran trees, even if they're hollow in places, those hollow areas are going to be great for certain types of birds.
It's, it's incredible. So in my heart, if I, we're limited to how many trees we can plant in our park, and we may get to plant one more. And if we do, I think it's going to be a full sized crabapple tree. Because I want that. I want a tree there in that park in a hundred years time, providing that kind of ecosystem, for wildlife to thrive.
Yeah, I agree. That's great. I, think of full size trees and always, you still prune them right and keep them at a moderate size. Plus you're right. You get that really robust root system, which makes the tree more drought resistant and just a better, healthier tree. All in all, it's able to absorb more, micronutrients and do the things that's doing and, just function better.
it's the way it was made. when you take this. Tree and you grafted onto the smaller rootstock and it's just, you're right. It's just, there's a, there can possibly be issues if depending on the situation going on around it, like a drought or something. and I just think you're right.
It's just, there's a potential there for long term establishment of that tree that can provide for great grandchildren if done right. And I think that's amazing to think like that.
I love that. Yes.
Yeah. That's great.
Final Thoughts and Resources
you have, you've really brought it today. So here's the thing. this is just, my mind's blown a little bit.
I'm so glad that you, Have books and courses and a radio show, because I think there's going to be a lot, people are going to need to dive into and really absorb this. And there's so much you didn't bring that you just couldn't possibly in one episode here. I'm going to really encourage people.
I'm gonna have all the links in the show notes, check out your course, check out your books, you have several courses. I see you had a whole list of courses of different things, which, so that's awesome. Is there one in particular? That you'd say if this is, if fruit trees doing this, what we've talked about today, was there one you'd point them to?
I would say that a certificate in fruit tree care is my first course. And that's the one that it took me five years to create. And you, may just take that and say, okay, I'm good. Now I am good. Most people do. They're like, that's the course that I, I'm good now. I know what I'm doing, right? So that I'm really proud of.
what I did is I also created other courses if you want to go in more depth, like with, Pest and Disease. There's a course called Managing Fruit Tree Pests and Diseases, where I teach integrated pest management, which sounds really scary, but it's actually But it's not, it's just in depth, how you stop all those pests, how you have a healthier tree.
And then I have a whole bunch of other courses, a fruit tree pruning masterclass for people who want to do espalier plantings and high density plantings. but I would say, start off with certificate in fruit tree care and take it from there.
Good stuff. like I said, I'll definitely be putting all those links in the show notes, be pointing people to all your stuff, your I've been listening since we first scheduled this actually before that I actually.
You don't probably know this, but I actually got access to one of your courses, through permise through one of the ball, they'd done a thing. And I'd actually seen that a while back. So I've been following you since then. yeah, I've seen some of your stuff and it's really good.
And, so you're doing some really cool stuff there. I want people to go check it out. Listen to your show, your radio show. You're having some great guests. I was just. Browsing through the past episodes and some of the guests you've had. there's just tons of information there. So if you're interested in, which I know this audience is and having fruit trees, having productive fruit trees and knowing all you can about that's the show for you, go check that out, learn all you can and get the material.
Cause it's really good stuff. Susan, I just want to thank you so much for coming on and sharing all your knowledge with us. I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much, Harold. This has been so fun. I want to thank Harold Thornbrough for interviewing me for his podcast, the Modern Homesteading Podcast.
I really had so much fun talking to you, Harold. Thank you. And I hope that you, the listeners, have really enjoyed this show as well. And next month, we'll go back to our live shows. we also moved our studio this month, So we weren't able to do a live show for you, but I hope you enjoyed this special content and this interview with me.
If you did send me an email, I'd love to hear from you. Okay, so that's all for the Urban Forestry Radio Show for this month. I'll see you again next month. Take care and bye for now.