Winter fruit pruning

Cut them back to boost blossom and crops, says Ruth

- Ruth Hayes

IT'S easy to fall into a lethargic funk in the indulgent days after Christmas, so to try and work off some calories and keep active, I've been out in the garden doing some fruit tree pruning.

This is my favourite piece of pruning because the results literally bear fruit the following year. However, because this year has given us a bumper crop of apples, I won't be surprised if our trees take a 'year off' in 2023.

The dormant months of winter is the right time of year to prune pears and apples, but leave plums, cherries, gages, apricots, nectarines and almonds until midsummer when they are less likely to be attacked by silver leaf disease.

Our 'Brown Turkey' fig also fruited prolifically this year and the branches are still holding some rotting unripened fruits, so I removed these and composted them.

Figs are pruned like other fruit trees, but they are best pruned in the middle of winter when they are definitely dormant as they can bleed a lot of sap if cut at the wrong time, which can weaken and even kill them.