Pruning fruit trees and thinning fruit

I had planned on not thinning fruit at all, just like Paul Gautschi. In his Back to Eden documentary he talks about how the weight of the fruit pulls the trees down into what I call the Halloween tree shape. I found one of the branches on one of my smaller apple trees, snapped and barely attached. I made a clean cut and then realized just how heavy the apples were. So I thinned out some of the apples on the branches that looked most at risk.

 

 

I then moved on to the very overgrown Japanese Shiro Plum. I cut it back to the size it was at the beginning of last year. Frankly, I just got lazy and didn't keep up with it last year. It sure looks better now. I knocked quite a bit of fruit off doing it, but it will be worth it.

 

 

I then pruned a few rogue branches off the fruit trees. Oh what a beautiful time in the garden. I've missed it the past few weeks.