Welcome back everyone to the epic gardening podcast fruit week.

We're talking with Kristi Wilhelmie.

She is the founder of Garden Nerd and the author of the upcoming book grow your own mini

fruit garden.

So Kristi we talked about pest control yesterday.

Another P word but it's a little bit better.

It's pruning and it's actually super super important with fruit trees but probably the

area that most amateur growers get the most scared and afraid so they don't do it.

So then the plant gets really weird and unruly and you don't get a good yield.

So what should we know just on a general level here?

Yeah, it's a big topic and it's a big topic with fruit trees in particular because almost

every fruit tree has its own specific instructions but don't let that scare you.

There are some basics to start with.

So I always start with the 3D's dead diseased and disorderly dead pretty much easy to identify

the branches are brown they're brittle they break easily and if you do a cross section

and if you cut through you're going to see that it's brown all the way through there's

no green anywhere through there.

It's also usually pretty easy to identify curling leaves or you know discoloration or

gals or rumples or whatever and you can cut that off and it's when we get to disorderly

that is more of an aesthetic preference and that could mean water sprouts that are shooting

up in the air and will never produce fruit.

Those need to be cut all the way back down to the branch they're growing from or runners

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