The USU Extension Office is excited to be hosting the Castle Country Pruning Workshop on Feb. 11 at the Community Garden. Castle Country Radio was able to sit down with Extension Assistant Professors, Rowe Zwahlen and Steve Price to get all the details.

There will be two sessions offered in Carbon County on Feb. 11, one at 10:00 am and the other at 12:00 pm. The reason is because the workshop fills up very quickly and organizers thought they could accommodate more individuals with two sessions this year. “We’re going to start out inside and give you a little bit of the theory on how to prune. This is generally not all trees this is kind of geared towards fruit trees. We’re going to talk about some of the shapes, and how to make good cuts, and give you an idea of how we’re going to do this, but really the hands on is vital. So at the mid-way point we’ll walk outside and we’ll let you do some pruning,” said Zwahlen.  The course will be held at the Southeastern Utah Association of Local Government building at 375 South Carbon Avenue, Room 134.

This will give participants the chance to prune with supervision and guidance during the workshop inside the Community Garden.  “We say the hardest thing about pruning is actually starting pruning, the second hardest thing is knowing when to stop. Its is kind of an art, mixed with science. We really go through the basics, and the worst thing you could do is never prune fruit trees, we see that a lot,” said Price. The benefits of pruning one’s tree is management of fruit, and balancing the fruiting wood with the vegetative growth which produces more fruit.

Registration for the Castle Country Pruning Workshop is currently taking place. “So it is on https://www.eventbrite.com/ so you can find it there. You can also contact either county office and we can get you signed up or send you that link call us or email us, get in touch with us however you need,” explained Price. The cost to attend this workshop is $5.00. There will also be a workshop offered in Green River on Mar. 4 at 10:00 am.

For further questions about the Castle Country Pruning Workshop call the USU Extension office in Carbon County at (435) 636-3233 or in Emery County at (435) 381-3535. You can also contact the Extension Assistant Professors by email at steven.price@usu.edu or rowe.zwhalen@usu.edu

PHOTO COURTESY OF USU EXTENSION