Since 1867Saturday - March 23rd Or March 30th2024
Located at: Ransom Sage Farm rt44
Sage's Annual Pruning Class is back!
Good for all levels. We are offering extedend time to allow for more hands on experience and questions.
Bring Pruners or loppers & warm clothing for hands on experience!
Bring your Questions and a Friend!
Price includes 1/2Peck apple voucher to be picked up at Sage's Apples.
Berries - blueberries, raspberries & grapes
Tree Fruit - apples & peaches (pears)
This will be a hands-on get yourself dirty workshop! So dress accordingly. Bring your own pruners, loppers, or saws. Participation is expected and is a large part of the learn-as-you-lop-it fun!
Registration is for you and a friend no questions asked. (small group aloud)
This event will mostly be outside in the fresh air with plenty of room to breath. We will begin inside with refreshments and if its cold we will begin discussions in the heated barn.
Pruning Class since 2001
Normally this day is snowy or at least cold. Wear appropriate clothing and bring gloves. We will be outside the entire morning and you will not learn anything without getting dirty. The coffee and donuts are included but they are inside by the woodstove.
This 3 wheeled hydrolic machine drives through our snow and manuvers us into the tree so we can prune. We can contol up down, side to side, and forwards and reverse from where we stand. Our hydrolic pruner and chainsaw give us the tools necessary to do any job without touching the ground. We are not planting trees of this size any longer. However, they are effective and fruitfull once established.
The way our orchards are being planted curently and in the future will be dominatly 4ft x 13ft with a 8ft tall trellis. This means we plant trees 3 or 4 feet apart and each row is 13feet wide. This tall superspindal system as it is called allows for much more uniformity. Uniformity of crop load, pruning, tying & training, harvest, and harvest quality. However, probably most advatagious is that less time is required to bring a new orchard into full production. The economics of this system speak for itself and we are not looking back.
The home apple orchard is fun and rewarding but not without trouble. We will cover pruning and training systems. However, we will not cover spraying and disease control specifically.
Many home growers enjoy blueberries. Soil pH and simple pruing is the majority of the work. Of course Birds are a problem. We will cover blueberries extensivly.
We will spend a sigificant amount of time on Blackberries and Red Raspberries. You will learn all you need to know. Please know what type of berry you have, Primocane or Floricane bearing before you come to keep it straight in your head.
We will ride the green wagon to the peach orchard at about 1130am. Whoever is left and wants to join us to learn about peaches is welcome. We will not specifically cover cherry.
We will spend a lot of time on grape pruning. Our small vineyard is a simple 2 wire system perfect for the backyard gardener. In general we cut everything out except 40 buds that we want on 4 canes (branches). This means we count 10 buds on each cane and cut it off therem, tieing it to the wire.
We will not specifically cover pear and plum on this day. However, they are similar to apple and peach. It's important to leave some branches alone and cut others completely out. Plum maybe less than pear but it depends on how full the tree is. Don't cut the tips of every branch!
There are many commerical nurseries to purchase berries and trees from. Most of these will be shipped bareroot, whicih means they will not be in a pot. They will ship dormant and need to be planted ASAP.
