Pruning allows the tree to produce larger, better colored, higher quality and more valuable fruit. Equipment repairs and maintenance occupies the days too cold or stormy to be outdoors, through the winter months. In the spring apple trees begin waking up. Leaves start growing, reaching for the sun. Fragrant, sweet-smelling white flower blossoms pop out.
Honeybees love to visit the sweet-smelling blossoms, spreading pollen from flower to flower.
When blossoms fall off the pollinated flowers, baby apples begin to grow in their place. Each blossom has to be pollinated in order for an apple to form. The apples keep growing all summer. The pace of the farm quickens. The brush from pruning is picked up or mulched back into the orchard soil.