Orchard Planning and Maintenance

Join long time orchardists Pru Smith and Sharon Gensler for an afternoon workshop on small-scale homestead orcharding. They’ll demonstrate overall orchard planning, building diversity into plantings, breed selection, practical fruit growing techniques, and soil and plant health. Pru and Sharon will lead participants in an informative and experiential process, using their property, Wild Browse Farm, to demonstrate the importance of a holistic approach to orchard care.
Wild Browse Farm’s orchard is a model of diversity, containing over 10 species of fruit, including kiwi, sand cherries and paw paw, and more traditional tree and small fruits like apples, pears, peaches, plums, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and grapes.

About the Instructors:
Pru Smith and Sharon Gentler are co-directors of Wildbrowse Farm and Sustainability Center in Wendell, MA. Pru is a homestead orchardist and a sustainability and wellness life coach.  Sharon Gensler has been a homesteader and educator for over thirty years.  In 1981, Pru and Sharon, began their homesteading journey on nine wooded, hilly, rocky acres in western Massachusetts.  Through their labor of love, they have co-created a place of abundance and joy.  Clearing land, co-creating healthy soil, building their home and outbuildings, designing alternative energy systems, working alone and within community they have lived their version of “The Good Life.”