When I think of September I think of apples, crisp air and leafs that are starting to burst with all the wonderful fall colors. September also bring fall cleaning, fall baking and canning, fall gardening and yard work.
I start by getting my fruit trues ready for the fall and winter. I do believe that my fruit trees are my favorite in the whole garden. In the spring they give us the wonderful smell from the pretty little flowers, in the early summer they provide us with shade, and in the late summer they give us their fruit. This making them the perfection of all trees, as a way to thank them for their hard work I do my best to give the best sleep that I can.
You cannot put anything to bed with a dirty face and hands. After the fruit tree has lost their last leafs, remove all the dead fruit from around the base of the trees, next rake dead grass and leafs from its base.
Once the cleanup is done and your fruit trees are wrapped, wired and supported spray your fruit trees with dormant spray. Use a dormant spray that is mineral oil based and get the dormant spray into the entire fruit tree’s crevices; this will kill all the insects that had planned to spend the winter in your fruit trees. Fox and rabbits can give your fruit tree’s nightmares all winter long, to help stop this nightmare use chicken wire. Working with gloves so you do not harm yourself, cut a piece of 18″ high chicken wire long enough to wrap around your fruit tree leaving at least a two inches from the tree to the wire.
Your fruit trees should be pruned in the late winter when they are completely dormant. After all you cannot expect your tree’s to take a long winters nap not looking their best now can you? Remove all dead, diseased or criss-crossing branches. Pruning fruit trees allow the tree’s nutrients to go into fruit production not branch growth.
Save the pruned branches from fruit trees to put on the BBQ for added flavor to meat, last way that our fruit trees give us a gift.