Taste the Spirit of Sustainable Agriculture

On March 31st and April 1st,  I had the honor of presenting a paper at the Spirit of Sustainable Agriculture Conference at the Harvard Divinity School. My talk was “Feed the Body, Feed the Spirit: Agriculture, Art, and Community at Old Frog Pond Farm.” Farmers, spiritual leaders and academics from all over the country and a few from distant continents gathered. One of the many presentations I attended was about Vedic Agriculture, something I knew nothing about.

The Vedas are ancient Hindu texts of prayers, philosophy, and practices written down about 5000 years ago. Dr. Appachanda Thimmaiah, the presenter, said quoting from one of the Vedas, “The whole of existence is an interplay of matter and spirit.” I felt instantly in tune with this way of talking about the world. I believe that spiritual practice has to be grounded in the physical world. And like our approach on the farm — respect for the earth and an appreciation of life — we have to put this into practice with healthy agricultural practices.

In the Vedas there are very specific daily practices for individuals, like asking forgiveness when you wake before putting your feet on the ground of mother earth, and rubbing your hands together to evoke the seven sacred rivers of India. Three times a day, at the transitions — midday, late day (dinner time), and before going to bed — there are specific prayers to express one’s gratitude and reverence for the earth. I know how often I am swept up with the workings of daily life. I know that stopping for a few moments of conscious reflection throughout the day would be helpful.

Many Vedas also speak directly to agriculture. There is specific timing information — what to plant, when and where — and how to create rhythms on the farm for health, balance, and integration not only for plants but for livestock. There are performances to enliven the creative intelligence of both the plant and the farmer. I thought of our mid-January Wassailing of the apple trees when poets and friends of the farm gathered to ‘toast’ the trees and encourage the new crop. We weren’t reenacting a traditional ritual, but with our own new words and songs we were awakening joy.  

Lynn Horsky reading her wassail poem.

We know that food provides joy as well as nutrition. In the Vedic tradition food is our life force. Dr. Thimmaiah said that food grown following Vedic practices will nourish every level of life — body, mind, heart, and consciousness. He added that he is certain that by growing our food in the violent ways of industrial agriculture, we create the conflicts and wars that are happening around the planet. If he is right, we need to nurture the earth and make sure that all beings have good food, and only then will we create a world of peace. Our relationship with food affects the social, political, and environmental future of the earth.

Attending the conference made me more certain that this ancient knowledge can’t be lost or forgotten. It’s in our bodies and in our bones. We are of the earth. We eat from the earth. We return to the earth. It’s not necessarily about specific practices, it’s about appreciating all of life, and most importantly, our own. “When one’s food is pure, one becomes pure.” (Chandogya Upanishad 7.26.2) It’s not so different from the slogan, “You are what you eat.” What if we unconsciously absorb the emotions behind the growing and preparation of our food?  Mega tractors rip through dry, chemically destroyed soil . . . the underpaid, bitter factory worker. . .

This week, I spent Thursday and Friday in New York City. I stayed overnight near Columbia University and in the morning went inside the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. This great church has a long history of political and artistic activism. To my amazement, their exhibit, The Value of Food, had just closed, but some of the works were still up. The curators’ statement on a panel at the entrance to this glorious cathedral’s central nave said, “ The Value of Food explores the dynamic and organic materiality of food and its integral role in sustaining life. . . Pull up a seat and join us at the table. Food becomes a meal when it is shared.”

Food Altar at St John the Divine, New York, NY.

First Orchard Spray - March 22-24, 2016

I asked my partner Blase if he would hook up the sprayer to the tractor. That’s something I can’t do myself — the weight of the bars and jostling them into place. I need his hand strength and his way of banging with a hammer or whatever tool is nearby to coax the connection of the sprayer to the tractor’s power takeoff.

Blase wished me luck and then left me to go about my spraying. I filled the tank with 150 gallons of water and pulled the sprayer away from the house to test the workings. There are eight nozzles, four on each side, which each send out a fine mist of spray. Two of the eight sprayed water; the other six drizzled. I need all eight to work for good coverage. I started opening them up, removing the whorls, discs, and washers. Bits of black debris blocked their tiny holes. I cleaned them and flushed the nozzles out again, but they continued to clog. By this time it was almost 5pm.

I called my savior but he didn’t answer his phone. His name is Denis Wagner. He taught me how to prune the trees. He was my first consultant in the orchard and we have remained friends since.

Denis pruning in 2005

Denis had been the orchard manager at Nashoba Winery in Bolton for many years: he knew about apple pests, but not about growing apples organically. Denis went with me the first time I attended the annual meeting of a group of holistic apple growers in western Massachusetts. (The men outnumbered the women thirty-five to two.) At that meeting we heard about Permaculture and Biodynamics, about the organic pesticide Entrust, the organic fungicide Serenade, the names so poetic.... It was far too much information for me to absorb in one sitting.

When I was about to call it a day, Denis called back and said he would come right over. A house call — doctors don’t make them anymore, but orchardists do. He first took off the two pump filters; they needed cleaning. I had forgotten all about them — I am so not a machine person. We then proceeded to clean all the nozzles again. Finally when all was done, the sun had long since gone down, the moon was rising, and Denis headed home. I put away the tools and went in to make dinner, leaving the sprayer lounging outside to enjoy the splendid full moon.  

Before I sat down to eat, I checked the hourly weather forecast. I wanted to make sure we wouldn’t have freezing temperatures. I’d already been watching the weather for days, but I needed to be sure. Once we wake the sprayer from its winter slumber, it has to be covered with a king-sized blanket and tucked in with a light bulb for warmth if the temperature descends below 32 degrees.  

This first spray of the season is always a juggling act — warm enough to spray and yet not too warm that the buds have broken dormancy. I was planning on a couple of pounds of copper for fire blight — a bacterial infection that can travel through an orchard by way of open blossoms — and mineral oil to serve as a spreader. I thought the mineral oil might also help to control winter moth. This insect has recently moved westward from the coast and will easily defoliate a tree. In apples, the caterpillars crawl into the buds and destroy them.

To make this spray effective, the orchardist wants no rain for 24 hours following the spraying. The wind speed also needs to be low or the spray will go everywhere but where you want it. I checked the hourly weather again and watched the numbers. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day? There was wind and a low chance of rain both days, but spring had arrived, so I felt the pressure to get this spray on as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the sprayer sat connected to the tractor filled with water waiting like a patient dinosaur.

Two days later, I suited up, added the materials to the spray tank, and headed out into the orchard. The wind came up and was stronger than I liked, the sky clouded over, but I continued at my 2mph speed down and up each row and emptied the tank. In the middle of the night I woke to the sound of a good solid rain. And now there’s snow in the forecast. There’s always this unknown, and life doesn’t always turn out the way we hope. 

When I attended the holistic apple growers meeting again this year. I heard something new.

Calm the trees.

Many trees grow too many water sprouts, those upright shoots that can grow 3 feet long. Calm trees will have 6 -12” of new growth and have better fruit flavor. Calm trees need a calm orchardist. I decided not to worry about the first spray. 

Hawkeye Apple

Last week I wrote about the red-fleshed Almata apple. In that blogpost, you might have sensed some disdain for the Red Delicious apple. I wanted to clarify my position. Today, not many people want to eat or pick Red Delicious apples. They associate this variety with the mealy, tasteless apples sold throughout the commercial supermarket system. In truth, the Red Delicious apple was once delicious. That’s how it got its name!

In Peru, Iowa, in the late 1800’s, a farmer, Jesse Hiatt, tried to get rid of an old apple stump from his field, but the tree persisted in sending up shoots. Finally he let it grow, and when it bore fruit, he was so excited by its taste, he named it Hawkeye. It must have had a tangy sharpness. I imagined a taste almost villainous for him to choose such a strong name. Though recently I read that Iowa’s nickname is the hawkeye state . . . so much for poetic imaginings.

Over the years of breeding and grafting, that Red Delicious apple changed, becoming more like a cheap red table wine compared to a complex Bordeaux. Instead of its original creamy interior and variegated outer skin, the apple became more red. I can imagine the growing chant, redder is better. Consumers wanted ruby-red apples like the red apple in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. As far as the grower was concerned, the apple needed to be really red, have the Red Delicious characteristic elongated taper, and travel well. Taste was of little concern. Intention equals outcome. Over time, the Red Delicious apple lost much of its original flavor.  

Then in the late 1980’s, the public’s desire for Red Delicious slowed down as new apples, the Granny Smith from New Zealand and the Fuji from Japan, entered the marketplace. Supply and demand. The public no longer wanted to buy Red Delicious, and the apple industry that had relied so heavily on this one apple almost collapsed. 

The Red Delicious trees that we grow here at Old Frog Pond Farm are tasty apples. The flesh is dense and the fruit is both sweet and sharp. Its skin is striped, and it has the traditional five knobs on the blossom end. Picked right from the tree, I always enjoy them. One year I actually tried to promote them with the name, “Hawkeye,”; but no one seemed interested in that name either.

Maybe I will just have to graft more of them over to Almata apples. No one seems to be able to resist that red-fleshed bite.

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)