I had a copy of this book on my computer I downloaded for free from the Internet Archive. But I never read it. I’m not much for reading books on the computer. It is an inexpensive book, so I just bought a physical copy of it for $10.38 on Amazon. List price is $16.99. The book has 168 pages and is highly illustrated.
The book arrived today and I flipped through it. It may not be for experienced orchardists, but for me, it looks pretty good. Over 19 years I’ve planted +/-100 varieties of fruit trees and fruiting bushes. But I just plant them and let them go. I wildcraft them so to speak.
In that time some trees have grown to 25 feet or more. I can’t keep doing that. Property is too small and I can’t pick fruit that high even with a pole that high! It is too unwieldy. So, I need to learn more about keeping trees right size. Which is about 12 - 14 feet for me.
Here are some snapshots I took from the book to give you a sampling of the content. Look at the rear cover. She shows a photo of a pruning cut that may sum up her technique. I try to buy 7 to 8 foot trees to plant. I’d have to cut off 65% of it! I guess that is what you do if you want real mini trees! If I get some new ideas from the book I will post them.
I’m doing her close tree planting technique. But I learned about it on this forum, not the book. She gives some other options for close planting I didn’t think about. I’ve tried 2 trees in 1 hole and 3 trees in 1 hole. It helped expand my real estate to be able to plant more trees I could not plant normally. It doesn’t sound that revolutionary an idea. But in 19 years I never thought about it.
I am following this book too! I learned about the extra-close planting technique in this forum and her book just confirmed it for me.
I just did the knee-high chop on my barefoot trees when I planted them (3 apples, 2 pears, 2 mulberries) and I’m anxiously watching them bud out now (late because I got the barefoot trees late).
The book gave me a lot of confidence on pruning too, I would recommend it to anyone interested (though of course, I’m such a beginner that I can’t say if the advice is actually accurate.)
I got this book last year and did pruning of my then existing trees around June 21st as Ann Ralph recommends. Also, I got a big order of bareroot trees from the Trees of Antiquity (Ann mentioned them) by the end of February and planted them close to each other. All leafed out and are doing great. I didn’t make an initial drastic pruning cut at planting time because unlike Ann I order all my trees online. My untrained eyes didn’t allow me to see how viable trees are. Some of them had branches, some were just like sticks. So, I decided I will perform “correcting” pruning around June 21st. Maybe next season I will be able to experiment bravely and cut my new trees down to the level of my knees (I am 5 feet tall/short). Thanks to deep freeze we had in April (14 nights total) all my flowers and little fruits were gone. So, around summer solstice I will give all my older trees more of nice correcting pruning.
