Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Before and After.






Despite all the rain, the gang of 8 Punjabi Indians have finished the Kiwifruit pruning.They made a really good job. I am so Thankful I no longer have to do it! ( but the price had gone up from last year by nearly $2 a vine! so things will be tight financially around here for the year )( the $NZ doesn't help with what we get back on our export fruit either ) It all has nothing to do with how hard we work....who would be an orchardist or farmer....blah!
The photos show the thick, busy tangle before the pruners start ; the next how much is cut out and the few select canes that are left and spaced on the overhead wires. The third shot shows all the cut up pruned off canes on the ground. You can clearly see the buds on the canes where they will sprout in a few weeks time.
That means we are very busy at the moment.....so sorry those Bloggers who haven't had comments from me in the last week - I just haven't had computer time!
The next thing DH and I are doing is going along after DH has mowed ( mulched up ) all the prunings on the ground, and finishing....that is, cutting off all the missed bits; taking off the used plastic clips and ties. We are removing anything that could rub future fruit.In the after photo with just the few canes seen against the blue sky you can see the stalks left where the last crop of fruit was hanging. I break all of those off.....then there is no way they can rub marks on new fruit. ( it is all overhead work so I feel it in my neck and arms - I stop and stretch and pace myself! )
It is very wet under foot, as we got 110 millimetres ( about 4.5 inches )of rain on Sunday. Yesterday we got a fine afternoon to work in. Yesterday morning we spent in the shed shelling walnuts - we have 4 sacks to work our way through. So at the moment I am one busy person, BUT I do get to sit and sew hexagons after dinner at night while I watch TV. The number completed has grown! Last week I got nervous about having enough backing fabric so I had a cutting session and now know that I do indeed have enough as I cut out all the backing hexagons I will need. Yippee! I had to buy another metre of that particular batting to have enough. If I keep working steadily I will get there.I have the month of August to finish in. ( Some more photos of that soon.)
Strangely enough I have made a mark off list so I can count down as I go....an incentive for me.....I work very well with lists!

5 comments:

meggie said...

You are very busy Ali, with all the orchard & shelling of the walnuts. They stain dont they, do you wear gloves to shell them? Or do you have an automatic sheller? (is there such a thing?)
Glad you still get to sew in the evenings.
I never like lists, cant seem to follow them at all. haha.

Harmany Quilting said...

I remember pruning kiwifruit vines - I was half my age then, and my neck and shoulders were younger. It was so good to be outside all day and looking back to see how much I'd done. Those hexagons really get us in, something special about them.
See you later,
Nicola in Australia

Tracey Petersen said...

How does a kiwifruit vine grow? Is it from a seed or cutting?

It certainly looks like a lot of work.

Birdydownunder said...

you blog is so informative Ali. I love kiwi fruit, but am now thinking I am becoming an expert on the subject...via your blog.

Ali Honey said...

Hi Tracey, Kiwifruit can be grown both ways. Commercial quantites are usually obtained from commercial growers, usually as rootstock plants they have grown from seed. After a year in the ground they orchardist grafts good fruiting pieces of cane onto one strong stem and cuts the rest of the growth off.( male and female required ) That grafted cane then sprouts and grows and is trained up and over the pergolas..... usually having it's first few fruit in the 3rd year after that.(That's a simple version )