Honeychick Homestead

Homestead, Health, and Happiness

Tag Archives: Orchard


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So Busy in Spring!

I am finding springtime around out little homestead to be very exciting but I’ve decided it’s the most challenging time of year because everything seems to happen ALL. AT. ONCE!

Fruit trees bloom and it feels like only a couple days pass before the fruit is set and ready to be thinned. The winter garden has to be tilled then get the spring starts and seeds planted. Spring is also the time of year for new bees. This year, I added nutrition school into the mix and I’m trying to maintain this blog 🙂 all of this is helping me keep my multi-tasking skills polished!

Besides spending a lot of time listening to lectures and doing homework, these past couple weeks I’ve kept up with people who recently returned from Infusio, shared with several others information about Lyme ND, I introduced my new bees to their home, finished thinning our peach tree, and got some of my garden planted!

Here’s a before and after picture of a spot I thinned on my peach tree. Continue reading →


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Orchard Prune Day with Pictures

Thankfully our trees have provided fruit, even though we given them very little love, since we moved in. After attending the Fruit Tree Q&A, I realized they desperately needed a major pruning. I had no experience pruning trees or bushes, so there was no way I was going to do it myself this year! Good thing for me, there is a local company dedicated to teaching orchard maintenance.  Today, Kim from Orchard Keepers spent a full day pruning all of our trees! She let me spend the first couple hours watching and learning from her. It was information overload, but I took a few notes, and hopefully I can do the next prune myself!

She showed me how to identify one-year old wood, two-year old wood, and so on. The smoother the wood, the younger it is. She was able to give me a rough guess of their age. I thought the smaller trees were young; however, looking at the wood on the trunk, she thought most of the trees were 20 -30 years old. I was shocked! Based on their age, she suggested planting a couple new trees this spring. While that sounds exciting, I’m not sure if that’ll happen since I barely know how to maintain these trees! Continue reading →


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Fruit Tree Q&A with Orchard Keepers

I’m very thankful for the free Q&A sessions that are offered by the garden centers in my area! It’s greatly appreciated by this beginner! If you’re just beginning as well, contact with your local garden center about what workshops they offer.

Today, Trevor and I attended a Fruit Tree Q&A at The Garden Company. Matthew Sutton of Orchard Keepers was the speaker. Orchard Keepers is a local company that provides orchard management, and support. They only use organic methods, so I was happy to get some advice from them about caring for our trees.  I found the Q&A very helpful, so I decided to share it.

WARNING, this is a long post! Continue reading →