The orchard

I just finished, after several hours, and lots of sweat, cleaning up all of the drops from the 8 apple trees we have. I lost count after 10 of the number of 5-gallon buckets of apples that I dumped into the compost pile. I suspect it was over 20.

When I went out to the orchard this morning to try to finish up I noticed that one of the larger branches on one of the trees was snapped in two (not completely, but enough) from the weight of the apples on it. What a heartbreak.

I have to say that this is not a big surprise.  I have not been able to properly prune the trees for several years. In fact the orchard has been neglected for most of the 20 years it has been there. In addition it has been at least 2 years since there has been much in the way of fruit production due to late frosts. This year the trees are making up for 2 years of not being able to produce seed and they are being prodigious.  The poor trees are weighed down with way too many apples and the branches are too spindly to hold them. I can't prune them now (although if more branches break I might as well) because it is too early in the year. Plus there's all that fruit.

The heartbreak is that I'm just starting to work on the orchard again like I wanted to for the last 20 years but never seemed to have the time, and I had to saw off a major limb because of my neglect.

There is a lesson here. Don't neglect your orchard or you will regret it. Whether your orchard is one with apple trees or one with children, friends, parishioners, or whatever, things can happen within your orchard that will be heartbreaking, disappointing, and will take a lot of time and sweat, and maybe tears, to remedy or recover. With care you can enjoy the fruit of your orchard without the trauma.

Steve