Let’s prune a tree or two, she says. It’ll only take an hour or two, she says.
Well. Ahem. Maybe a little more.
Winter pruning is all important. Snuggled up in front of the fire, priorities seem to vanish. You know you need to pay some attention to your trees before spring, but there’s a million rain showers and excuses to leave it until another day. Well not last weekend.
We’re really fortunate to have a fruit salad orchard fruiting this month: grapefruit, satumas (easy peel mandarins), lemons and limes — yet the leafless walnut and black cherry tree, and the olive trees still in leaf, need pruning after having grown untamed for several years. If they grow so tall as you can’t pick the fruit, they become ornamental. No ornamental trees allowed in our garden! Also, when the nutrients and energy is channeled to the tips of the tree in an overcrowded growing environment, or rerouted to dead ends (dead wood etc), not a lot of fruit is going to grow – or it results in small fruit as there’s only so much to go around.
Last weekend wasn’t just a trim, it was serious topping and shaping – some trees 6 metres tall. We were determined to get the tools we needed for the long haul, rather than get a ‘tree man’ in.
So, tools of our trade that we’d no longer live without: extendable loppers, extendable saw, handy man scaffold table – and a handyman (aka My Englishman, my ‘tree man’).
Wood chips for smokers
I am not a meat-eater and no longer close to the sea to have a regular supply of freshly caught fish ready for the smoker….although I appreciate those that do (fish specifically) and yet to enjoy smoked seafood and cheeses. My time will come. I know through friends that do, that walnut, cherry and olive make for GREAT woodchips.
Now even pruned limbs don’t go to waste. If not dragged to the ‘fenceline’ which is our never ending supply of kindling for next season, slender branches can be dutifully mulched into woodchips for the compost…but the compost can only digest ‘so much’.
This weekend I earned good karma by separating some chips and bagging them up for my wood smoking friends.
From wood smoker gurus Smokai: “Woodchip burns faster than Sawdust or smoking pellets. Because of their larger size, more air/oxygen surrounds the chips which in turns fuels the burn. If you soak chips in water for at least 30 minutes before adding them to the fire, you will prolong their burn slightly and they will smoulder more than flame. Soaking won’t create more smoke. The water simply steams adding moisture and heat to your smoking process.” Sounds good to me.
From grillinfools: Cherry – “Slightly sweet fruity smoke that’s great with just about everything. It can blacken the skin of poultry making it look unappetizing, but will still taste great.” Walnut – “While pecan is hickory’s milder cousin, walnut is the strong one. Often mixed with lighter woods like almond, pear or apple. Intense and can become bitter if overused. Good on red meats like Beef, Pork, Venison and other game meats. Can easily overpower poultry.” Olive – “The smoke favor is similar to mesquite, but distinctly lighter. Delicious with poultry.”
So, with no personal experience with wood smoking, I’ve become a ‘provider’ and happy to recycle as I would any other item that is no longer useful to me.
In go the branches into the mulcher/chipper, out comes perfect chips. They may need drying, but I’ll leave that up to the recipient to do ‘due diligence’ to optimise their smoker performance!
The burn-off
The rest of the pruning? Well, that was destined for a home-made incinerator that did the job nicely, all day.
Yes, underneath all the pruning is our vegetable garden-to-be. With a glorious home made incinerator it was down to a charcoal within a day, dug deep into the garden ready for planting. Watch this space!
