Raintree Fruit Growing Blog

I describe spreading wood chips around fruit trees in the orchard at Raintree Nursery. I'm excited that we just got a large load of wood chips dumped at the nursery. Wood chips, and other types of mulch, provide many benefits to fruit trees and the orchard ecosystem as a whole.

Fruit trees on dwarfing or semi-dwarfing can be easily pruned into productive open center (also known as open vase) or central leader forms. Learning these two pruning strategies will help the home orchardist establish healthy and fruitful trees. I discuss how open center versus central leader pruning styles differ and which fruit tree species are suited to them.