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Spring on the Farm

Gifts for Future-Us

First, dig a hole
We have an amazing crop of rocks.

I doubt there’s a single place on our 54 acres where if you dig, you don’t find rocks. That’s the real reason New England is synonymous with stone walls. Robert Frost certainly knew that…

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

–From Mending Wall, by Robert Frost

We have built many walls on our property from rocks dug out during the excavation for our house addition and have added to them from working in the gardens.

Setting the 3 bare-root apple saplings in a common hole

Months ago, I ordered 3 different but pollinating-compatible apple trees: Roxbury Russet, Sundance, and Galarina. Why these? I have been curious about the Roxbury Russet and started my research with it in mind. It’s thought to be the oldest named apple variety in the US and was discovered in Roxbury MA. It’s a disease resistant apple and a good storage apple. The other two are newer varieties, but will cross pollinate with the Russet. They are both the kind of apples we love – sweet and crisp, and they are all good storage varieties and have some natural disease/pest resistance.

My apple trees after the first pruning and with their tender trunks protected.

Because the fruit trees that were already on the property when we bought it were overgrown and difficult to prune down to human scale, I was determined to start these trees right. I am using the guidance in Ann Ralph’s book “Grow a Little Fruit Tree”.

That meant making a nearly heartbreaking prune to take all the whips down to knee high.

This cherry looked a lot happier after a long drink of water

My spouse bought this cherry tree from our local ag co-op. It was already in a 5 gallon container and scaffolded out. I was a little worried that I’d have to prune it harshly to get it started, but it had been well pruned initially. All I have to do now is to thin out branches that will shade others and do some shortening cuts of limbs.

An Aronia – or chokeberry

This aronia bush has been sitting in its 1 gallon plastic pot out in our back garden, essentially being neglected for 3 seasons. I honestly thought it had died over the winter, but then it began to leaf out. Anything that determined to thrive gets a spot in my orchard. Because it’s a bush and not a tree, I’ll prune to keep it from getting scraggly, but that’s all.

The old, scraggly apple tree I couldn’t bear to cut down

Planting an orchard is a leap of faith and a gift for our future. It will be years before any of the trees I planted today bear fruit.

In the meanwhile, this old, gnarled apple tree continues to bear little crisp and slightly sour, misshapen apples that we primarily let the deer enjoy.

Categories
Spring on the Farm

The Best Time to Plant a Fruit Tree

bare root apple trees in plastic bag
3 bare root apple trees

According to an old proverb, the best time to plant a fruit tree is 10 years ago. The second best time is today.

So these three varieties – Roxbury Russet, Galarina, and Sundance, along with a peach I grafted last year, a cherry tree we bought at the Hardwick Co-op and an aronia bush cutting will be planted soon in a small orchard area we created last year.

Our orchard plan

We have a 40′ by 50′ space that has an existing old apple tree and some large rocks. (Hey, it’s New England, there are always rocks.)

While this may feel crowded for the number of trees we’re planning, the method I’ll be following is to keep the trees small with judicious pruning both in early spring and at the summer solstice. According to Ann Ralph in her book “Grow a Little Fruit Tree” Early spring pruning sets the architecture of the tree. Mid summer pruning controls size.

I’m hopeful this will keep our trees at human and homesteader scale, giving us enough fruit but not too much to handle.

We’ll keep you posted!

Categories
Spring on the Farm

Ghost Tree

Budding tree, coated in white powder
Plum tree, coated in white

In the six years we’ve been at StarField, we’ve harvested a scant handful of plums. The trees set flowers, get visited by a ton of pollinators, make fruitlets, and then sometime in June – just when we’re thinking of all the plums we’re going to get to eat, the tree decides life as a fruit produces is just too stressful and drops nearly all of its plums.

So I moved on. Focused all my love and care on the peach trees. *They* gave me bountiful harvests each August and the plums? Well, I labeled them prima donnas.

And then earlier this year, we had a brutal February deep freeze. Peaches set their flower buds early and without a coating of snow to insulate them, they all died.

Peach branches in a canning jar vase on the dining room table.
Peach branches putting out only leaves

There will be no peaches in New England this year.

:sob:

So, I turned my attention back to the plums. While there was some fear that *all* stone fruit would be affected by the February freeze, our plum trees actually set a ton of flower buds. Which meant I had to figure out how to shepherd a crop to ripening.

And no, my plum trees are not prima donnas, they have the dreaded plum curculio. My first salvo in the battle against the destructive beetles is a coating spray of surround – a finely milled kaolin (clay) that acts as an irritant to the beetles and discourages them from laying their eggs.

Gray-haired woman in overalls stands on the front porch with her hands out. She is dotted in white clay.

It’s a bit fiddly to use – it can clog up sprayers, gets all over – and it needs to be sprayed frequently through the season, especially if rain washes off the protection. But it’s not an insecticide and isn’t harmful to pollinators.

So we’ll see.