Avoiding Apples

Last week I got an email from our local Harvard weekly newspaper asking about the crop this year.

Hi Linda,

I’m doing a piece this week on this year’s apple crop damage. Frank Carlson is estimating a crop that will be about 50 to 75 percent of an average year’s crop. Are you seeing that kind of damage to your crop? He said his Cortlands were hit the hardest, but Macs are also off. 

Are your raspberries ok?

Let me know, sad year for the orchards, especially those who grow peaches.

Thanks,

 Joan

Frank Carlson is the patriarch of the orchard world in Harvard. When I first decided to bring back our trees, I called him. I felt shy about disturbing the man who was running the largest orchard in town, but I needed to make a connection with someone who knew about apples. Frank told me to come by, but when I arrived, I wasn’t really sure why I was there. It was harvest time, and there were towers of wooden crates filled with freshly picked apples. Frank was a mini-cyclone, answering his pager, cell phone, and loudspeaker calls, but he still took the time to chat with me in between answering questions that came at him from all sides.

Nodding, he said, “I’m familiar with A & M Orchards.” I told him that its new name was Old Frog Pond Farm and that I wanted to grow organic apples. “A small operation that is organic might work,” he continued. I sensed a sympathetic familiarity among anyone growing apples. I appreciated Frank’s openness and drove away with a glimmer of hope.  This year is a different story.

 I wrote back to the Harvard Press reporter,

 Dear Joan,

Yes - a sad year!

Our apples are certainly down 50 percent. It is variety dependent. The late flowering ones are all right, but varieties that flowered early were killed off by the frost.

Raspberries are doing well and it seems like a bumper crop of blueberries.

We have a few peaches…enough for us to eat; but indeed a very sad year for peach growers.

I think climate change is wreaking havoc with our perennial fruit crops. They suffer from these wild temperature fluctuations early in the season when the buds and blossoms are so vulnerable.

Linda

Climate change is the biggest factor affecting all of us. Plants don’t evolve as quickly as climate change is happening. Some good news is that one approach to lowering the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is to store more carbon in the soil. The soil benefits, the plants benefit, and the earth becomes healthier. 

Much of the carbon originally came from the soil and was released into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. We have agreed that we need to reduce the carbon in the atmosphere but where can it go? Water covers 70 percent of our planet and when carbon combines with water it forms carbonic acid raising the acidity of the water and killing off plant life. Soil can take back and store carbon if we change our approach to industrial agriculture and land use.

One of the most important practices is to cover every square foot of soil with plants. Erosion is a number one cause of the loss of carbon. The second practice is to avoid tilling the soiling or minimally till. Tilling exposes soil to the air and releases carbon. Plants do the opposite through photosynthesis. Even if our fruit trees aren’t producing peaches and apples, they are removing carbon from the atmosphere.

The French government recently put forward an initiative, 4p1000.org with the goal of mitigating climate change effects through agriculture. Already 28 countries have signed on including France, Mexico, Japan — no, not the United States. The benefit of carbon rich soils is that the plants become more resilient. When we eat the food produced by these healthier plants, human health also improves.

While this year we may not have a good apple crop, hopefully by continuing to support our trees and encouraging their growth, they will become stronger and be able to adjust better to the fluctuations in temperatures that are certainly going to be part of our lives for the next decades. Climate Change Boston has just released their projections for Boston that include 90 days of summer over 90 degrees, which is essentially all of summer.  

Still, it’s a sad year for fruit growers and the reason I have been avoiding writing about apples. The trees may be luscious with leaves, but there is really very little fruit. Truthfully, my estimate is far less than 50 percent, but I hate to say it.  It’s so disappointing, and then I think that maybe I did something wrong, or that I could have done something differently.

Frank Carlson said that people are already calling for peaches. Their annual peach festival attracts a large following every year. It won’t happen this year, but they will be celebrating their 80th anniversary this summer. When the fruit is not as plentiful, your orchards need your support even more. Even if our apples aren’t plentiful, we hope you will come for raspberry picking, vegetables, workshops, our Plein Air Poetry Walk, and Outdoor Sculpture exhibits. This year we  celebrate our 15th anniversary!

Desiring the Almata Apple

Malus in Latin means apple, as well as evil. No wonder the apple embodies both good and bad, purity and eroticism.

When I moved to Old Frog Pond Farm, I found many rows of Red Delicious apples growing in the orchard. The flavor of Red Delicious is quite boring as apples go, so I decided I would change them over to another variety. To do this, you need scion wood — the term for the small twigs of first-year growth that are used to graft onto a trunk, branch or rootstock.

I went to a scion wood exchange and grabbed a twig of the Almata apple along with several other varieties that were spread across an old pool table. Not knowing anything about its characteristics, I chose Almata because it was named after one of the largest cities in Kazakhstan, Almaty which translates as “full of apples”.  Almaty is near the foothills of the Tian Shan Mountains, the forests that are the birthplace of our domesticated apple. Today, apples, pears, plums, and cherries still grow in the wild in these forests and are sold in the markets of Almaty.  

Scion wood in Red Delicious Trunk

I took my scion wood home and grafted a Red Delicious tree with the Almata twig. Three years later, when this tree developed its first flower buds, I was surprised. Apple blossom buds are usually enrobed in a pink sheath, which then open to pale white flower petals. The Almata buds weren’t pink, but dark red, like the scarlet letter adorning Hester Prynne’s chest in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel. Four days later, when the orchard was a cloud of white petals, this tree’s blossoms opened to a lovely pink. When the leaves came in, they were not green but a bronzy color similar to some crab apples. After pollination, its dime-sized apples were dark red, not green, like every other apple in the orchard. 

Reddish Leaves on the Almata

All summer long I kept my eye on this tree. Friends walking with me through the orchard would remark, “What’s that?” pointing to the Almata. It was easy to see that this tree was marked. The apples were quite small, but perfectly formed and deep red. In mid-August, I stopped by the Almata to taste one of its fruits. My large bite of apple exposed deep plum-colored flesh. It was crazy and wonderful, and all wrong. It didn’t look like an apple at all, but more like a ravishing purple plum. It was hard and sour, not yet ripe.

Charmed, I hurried back to the house to share my discovery with my family. I looked up Almata and learned that this red-fleshed apple was developed by Dr. Nels Hansen at the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station. Dr. Hansen was inspired to breed a red-fleshed eating apple after seeing a red-fleshed wild apple on an 1897 trip to Russia. The Almata is the cross he made between a Russian apple, the Beautiful Arcade and Fluke 38, a crabapple.

Almata Fruit

Even though our Almatas were not quite ripe, I decided to use a few of them in an apple galette. The red Almata wove lovely red ribbons through the white apples of the dessert; it held its color even when cooked. I made a Russian apple cake next and was again delighted by the red slices of the Almata flowing through the cake.

Even when fully ripe, the Almata’s taste was still sharp. But biting through its deep red skin and into the ruby-colored flesh, the sensual appeal was greater than biting into any white-fleshed apple.

Although some people say that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was actually a pomegranate, I disagree. I can imagine the serpent winding around a branch, tempting Eve with a ripe, red-fleshed apple. How could she have refused? Would you have resisted? 

If you come for an orchard visit I'll show you the tree. But be prepared; there just might be a snake!

Detail from Apple Ladder: Sculpture LH (She's actually offering an apple to the snake)

The Fallen Tree

My neighbor, Ed, offered to help me right a fallen apple tree. This tree is large, one of the beauties in the orchard, and three months ago it fell over – onto its knees you might say.  The crop of fruit was so heavy it couldn’t support the weight. Leaning heavily to one side now, resting on some smaller limbs it waits. I know the roots must have been shattered, at least some of them, and it needs to be supported or it will fall over completely. But Ed thinks we should lift it back as upright as possible. I worry that we’ll do more damage. 

It’s this question that I am always encountering in the orchard.  How much do I control? How much in control am I?  I tell my neighbor that I hear what he is saying.  But I also know that this tree in the three months since it has fallen has done everything in its power to survive. Because nature wants to live. We all want to live. And it’s as much a question of spirit as it is about physical properties. 

Rudolph Steiner, the German philosopher, said that plants are intermediaries between the celestial bodies and the earth. This tree is alive. It connects the jays and the squirrels who bicker among the old, hanging fruit.  It connects my neighbor and me. We want to save it.

Two days later we meet. I have two wood two-by-fours for the tree’s support and we head to my shop to find bolts and nuts to put them together in an X shape. The fastener department in my shop is a medley of assorted screws, bolts, and other rusty paraphernalia. Ed picks up one bent bolt and says smiling, “Linda, you don’t really want to save this, do you?” Its curve echoes the crescent moon.  I see his point but I say, “I wanna keep it.” I keep most things, especially when they are worn, threadbare, or rusty. He puts it back in the drawer with the other straight ones. Then we take our doubled up two-by-fours, ropes, chains, a piece of rug to put between the support and the tree, chainsaw, and loppers.

He drives his tractor and I drive mine.  We position ourselves in adjacent rows on either side of the tree and string the ropes.  We put our tractors in four-wheel drive lo-gear so the pull will be slow and gentle.  I can’t hear Ed over the noise of the engines but see him nod, ‘ok’.  We both start backing up and the ropes and chains from the trunk to each of our tractors tighten and stretch. Ever so slowly, this huge towering beast starts to awaken from its slumber. There are no bumps or hesitations; the tree lifts up, a silent resurrection.

We stop pulling, keep the tractors running, and climb down to assess.  The tree is still leaning and Ed feels we should take it farther. The rising has been so easy and I don’t feel that we are further stressing the tree so I agree. We pull a little more and then decide it is enough. We install the support. Ed’s rope to his tractor is loose, but my tractor is still tethering the tree. Now is the test. As I drive forward and release the pressure will the tree support itself? I am anticipating that with the release there will be a settling back, but as I inch forward there isn’t the slightest movement of the tree.  It is magnificent standing there on its own with arching lower limbs.  Fruit still clings to its branches like holiday ornaments. 

I think about the moments when I am ‘bent out of shape’, when I am annoyed or frustrated, when there are things I would rather be doing than what I need to do. To what or to whom do I turn to lift me out of this bent state?  The meticulous attention required to right that tree and the act of working with my neighbor restored something in me. I remembered the bent nail in my studio fastener department. I decided to give it to Ed.

Wassailing the Apple Trees

On Saturday afternoon we will be wassailing the apple trees in the orchard at Old Frog Pond Farm. We want to thank them for such good harvest in 2015 and encourage their fruiting for 2016. Wassailing is an old English Christmas tradition where farmers would visit the orchards with bowls of cider and gather around one of the largest trees. They would pour libations on the roots and hang bits of bread dipped in cider on the limbs for the robins, the good spirits who would protect the trees. The farmers would of course drink the cider too, and then circling around the tree they would sing

Here's to thee, old apple-tree,
Whence thou mayst bud, and whence thou mayst blow,
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!
Hats-full! caps-full!
Bushel, bushel, sacks-full!
And my pockets full, too! Hurra!

Wassailing celebrates the gifts from the trees by returning a portion of what we have been given.  The ritual acknowledges nature’s generosity and our dependence on her. 

Bread and cider are the pagan sacraments for this orchard communion. Bread is food, a symbol for well-being, and physical sustenance. Cider quenches thirst — perhaps physical as well as spiritual. This golden juice is the sun, the rain, and the soil through the living tree.

Thoreau writes about wassailing in his essay, Wild Apples. He also mentions ‘apple howling’ where a group of boys would go out to the orchards and sing while knocking the trunks with sticks

Stand fast, root! bear well, top!
Pray God send us a good howling crop:
Every twig, apples big;
Every bough, apples enow!

This howling feels almost like a wake-up call, like the Zen masters’ use of the keisaku, the hitting stick to wake up their students and call them back to the reality of the present moment. “Don’t slumber too long, trees! We love you. We count on your fruit.”

For our Wassailing celebration at the farm, we’ll toast with our own hot mulled cider and listen to original poems written for the trees. We’ll sing and send out prayers that all creatures will have food, shelter, and bear fruit in 2016 — the microbial population in the soil,  sea turtles and polar bears, all people everywhere. If you’d like to join us, bring a little bread for the birds, and we’ll meet at 3 pm in the orchard.