Starting April 8, Wildsight will be hosting fruit tree pruning clinics as part of their Apple Capture project. The clinics are intended to teach fruit tree owners how to prune their trees for increased yield, ease of harvest, and better health.
Dave Couse, Kimberley local and ex-Ornamental and Edible Arborist, will demonstrate the basics of pruning in the two-hour workshop. Participants can expect to learn the basics of tree anatomy, the ground rules for stress-free pruning during dormancy, techniques for taming unruly mature trees and ongoing pruning for tree maintenance.
Both workshops will take place on Sunday, April 8th at a backyard location in Kimberley at either 11a.m. or 2p.m.. The cost per person for registration is $20. When registering, indicate your preferred time of morning or afternoon.
The workshop is an extension of Wildsight’s Apple Capture program, which allows residents to keep up with their fruit harvest or share it with someone else who will use it.
Wildsight lends out fruit picking, juicing, preserving and tree pruning equipment, they have an online tree sharing board, and organize community picking and juice pressing events.
Wildsight has juicers, grinders, dehydrators, sauce making kits, apple peelers, regular ladders, tall orchard ladders, special fruit picking bags, extensions and hand pickers. They also have pruning equipment to keep trees in good shape: pole pruners, pole saws, hand saws, and loppers.
Their tree sharing program is an online sharing board where residents can register their trees for others to harvest. So far, there are 30 trees listed on the Kimberley sharing board consisting of apple trees, crab apple trees, apricot trees, plum trees and more.
For more information or to register, visit the Wildsight website at www.wildsight.ca or contact the Kimberley Wildsight office at 250.427.2535 or kimcran@wildsight.ca.