Last fall, Mike, a friend of ours, who also happens to be a pomologist stopped by and took a look at our pear tree.  Over the last several years, I have been slowly pruning back the pear tree in order to get better fruit from it.  Thus far we have seen some results, but they were not the stunning results I was expecting.

His diagnosis:

1. The tree needs to be pruned down more as it has grown too tall.  This will help fruit production as well as fruit picking
2. The tree is under nourished and does not have very much new growth.  Feed the tree by placing compost on it’s root system.

Easy enough, we have a lot of compost, in fact, I have already dug out about 5 wheel barrow loads for the garden.

One wheel barrow load of home made compost

I dug out 6 more for the pear tree and spread it out on the ground within about 4-5 feet of the tree.  I will install a rock circle around the base of the tree to keep the compost from wandering off across the rest of the yard.

Feeding the pear tree

These mysterious migrations happen often.  I find deposits of gravel, rocks, dirt or misplaced tools scattered around.  When I question my children, I am often treated with a blank stare or they often disavow any knowledge of it.  Perhaps I should put up some web cams so I can keep an eye on the place while I am at work.

Feeding the Peach tree

I also spread some around our peach tree, which is growing very well.  This was the same tree that had to be cut back to a little stump last year because the deer nearly destroyed it.  They seem to be leaving it alone this year.  For some reason there seems to be less deer in general this year.  I wonder why…

The compost is spectacular, rich black decaying matter full of earth worms and other stuff.  I’d say I have used about half of what we have.  Each wheelbarrow load is full to the top, so I would guess that it equals about 4 bags of compost that you would purchase at say the Home Depot.  Last I checked (which was last year) a bag of Home Depot compost was about $3.00 or so.  Therefore, 11 wheel barrow loads is $132.00 worth of compost.  That is dinner for the whole family at a nice restaurant with a little left over.

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