The #bigprune is on @ligayagarden! I usually prune at this time of the year but with food shortages and price hikes looking to be one of the continuing blessings of late stage capitalism, and the fact that I dont have any confidence in us meeting the IPCC recommendations for reducing the greenhouse has emissions, I'm pruning with the focus on food production. In the past, we've let the fruit trees grow unharvestably tall in order to shade the house but now that we have a handle on growing food and shelter producing vines closer to the house, we can reduce the tree's size a little. It'll take away a little from the super dense lushness that you've seen on the @adelaideediblegardentrail video and our stint on @gardeningaustralia but I reckon we'll still be in the running for Gawler South's densest garden. Today, I did what I call a crown prune. That means I cut down all of the thin, really tall stuff so that it doesn't fall on me when I get stuck into the bigger branches with my chainsaw. I'll have a rest tomorrow and then get the heavy work done. I've had to leave some branches though, so we get something from the trees that fruit on second year wood. If I don't do that, we'll have a year with a gap in the harvest. It'll be pruned next year when this year's growth becomes second year wood. You know that I like to make my life easy so instead of adding biochar and coffee grounds to the garden separately, when I mulch up all the pruning, I periodically drop handfuls into the mulcher so that they get spread into the mulch. It saves work and mess crushing the biochar too. This year's biochar came from Kim at @portadelaidefoodgardening. I got 30 litres of it to save me from making and activating my own. That's a messy job but I'm learning to weld this year and have a design idea for a compact, home garden size biochar kiln. Anyway, I'm buggered...time for a cuppa. _______________________________________________ #growitlocal #saurbanfood #permaculturesouthaustralia #urbanfarming #growyorownfood #pruning #frontyardfarm #productivegarden (at Gawler, South Australia) https://www.instagram.com/p/CfTSF_fvwJP/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=