Our Trees are in Bloom

As an apple orchardist I pay attention to the buds. Will they be strong? Are they healthy? How will I take care of them, because I know—left alone, an orchard in New England will become a massive tangle of brambles, invasive vines, and diseased fruit.

We’ve already sprayed the apple trees with fish fertilizer, seaweed, a little copper, and two different biological fungicides to make sure our buds are protected from the spring diseases. Microscopic fungal spores will rise from the soil beneath the tree in a light rain and land on the leaves. There they find purchase and grow. Once the fruit develops, the fungus jumps to the fruit, ultimately making scab-like forms covering over the developing fruit. Once infection begins, it’s hard to reverse. Spores are released over the four-to-six-week period until we reach 100% release.

Every year I have to be prepared for scab, the nickname orchardists use for the fungus, Venturia inaequalis, one of the early apple diseases and one of the worst problems for organic orchardists in New England. I remember when I first learned to spray. Suited up in protective gear, spray tank filled with 300 gallons of water and the spray materials, the tractor settings in low speed, 3rd gear, at 1700 rpms, I was told that the spray for scab needed to renewed before every wetting period. It seemed an overwhelming proposition. If it rained one day, and then four days later, I needed to spray again because the material would have washed off the trees.

First Spray

Since that time, I’ve learned to time our sprays to most effective for the maximum spore release. I’ve planted many new scab-resistant varieties in our orchard, and removed some of the scab magnet trees like Macintosh. And since 2006 when Old Frog Pond Farm received organic certification, new bio-fungicides are available for organic orchards.

Orchardists have their own language to describe the stages from bud to blossom. Dormant describes the trees in winter, when the buds are gray-brown and tightly closed. They wait for the right combination of temperature and length of daylight to awaken. The outer sheath on the bud is a winter quilt protecting the folded blossom inside. When the apple bud breaks dormancy, the covering of the fruit bud opens slightly to reveal light gray tissue, silver tip.

Then comes green tip. The buds plump in response to warmth and light. The bud opens further to reveal a green plant tissue. The next stage, half-inch green or mouse ears, is an apt description as two tiny oblong-shaped leaves appear. Tight cluster follows with a rosette of green leaves around a tightly packed flower bud. Pink stage is next, as this singular flower bud separates into five or six individual pink-sheathed blossom buds.

This is the most exciting moment in the orchard, for each of these flower buds, if pollinated, will become an apple. In the center the king blossom opens first. It’s the strongest and largest bud. The others follow; reserves for the tree in case something happens to the King. Full bloom is when all blossoms are open. Pollinators arrive from far and wide to drink sweet apple nectar and unknowingly pollinate the trees.

Our trees are in full bloom, and I won’t spray again until the petals fall. Bloom is the time when I walk through the orchard rows and feel overwhelming gratitude to be part of such fragile beauty.

May 4, 2021 Old Frog Pond Farm

How is the Orchard?

It’s the question I am most often asked, and it has become my least favorite question to answer. Have you ever been in this situation?  That which you most don’t want to talk about is exactly what elicits the most interest. The old Zen saying—you find your fate on the road you take to avoid it—is apropos.

No one asks, “How is your spirit, Linda?” A few ask, “How is the studio?” or about the children and about my husband, Blase. But a disproportionate number inquire, “How are the apples?” They know we’ve had some bad years.

To the apples, then. Well, maybe. . .

You see, I just don’t want to write about them. I love the trees, the land on which they grow, the wildflowers, the seasons of their lives, the bare branches in the winter, pruning, the blossoms, the buzz of pollination. In 2015, we had a magnificent bloom and gathered for apple blossom viewing with shakuhatchi music floating out from a hidden speaker in one of the trees.

Apple Blossoms Macintosh Apples

The blossoms turned to fruit, and we had a splendid crop.

But the truth is that 2015 was the last year we had a munificent harvest. In 2016, we had no fruit because of an early frost. Last fall, we had a bumper crop, but horrible scab rendered all our Macintosh and Golden Delicious apples unsellable. Out of the last four years, we’ve had one great year and one all-right year. We need to look honestly at what is happening despite the amazing 2017 Honey Crisp harvest.

My daughter, Ariel, picking Honey Crisp apples in 2017.

Growing organic apples was never part of a get-rich scheme. When I moved into the farmhouse in 2001, the abandoned orchard across the road and I shared many characteristics. I was hurt, confused, and without solid ground under my feet. The orchard grew brambles, poison ivy, but no fruit. Bringing back the orchard became an artistic as well as spiritual passion; it grew and flourished as I healed, grafting a new life.

There is a great demand for local organic apples, and the orchard proved to be economically sustainable. However, our experience in recent years is changing the equation. Blase and I are questioning the orchard’s future. With a demanding schedule of time and resources for orchard care, growing organic apples on our scale is proving to not be sustainable. It’s not emotionally supportive: It’s downright depressing.

And why aren’t there any apples this year?

Among the multitude of interrelated answers, some I know and many I don’t. Thinning is certainly one reason. Most apple orchards thin their trees with chemical thinners when the fruit is only a few millimeters in size. This reduces the number of apples, fooling the tree into thinking it needs to produce a decent crop the following year to guarantee long-term survival. We thin our small trees by hand, too much fruit will impede healthy growth, but the mature trees are simply too big and too many so they produce a copious crop one year, and a pocket-sized one the following year—biennial production. I also think last year’s wildly successful scab fungi weakened the trees. Earlier this spring we took out seventy-five old trees—fifty Macintosh, the scab magnets, and twenty-five old. undesirable, meaning unsellable, Red Delicious trees. Fluctuating weather patterns accelerated by climate change are creating new challenges for orchardists and farmers in New England. Even though we have bees, the struggles facing our native pollinators makes pollination of apples in a cold spring a concern. Bees don’t go out of their hive unless the weather is over 55 degrees and they loathe rain. In spite of this litany, except for recent deer damage, the trees are leafy and healthy. Of course they are: No stress with no crop!

But the inexorable problem remains—there is no crop once again. This orchard that has meant so much to me, fed and nourished many others for the last fifteen years, this orchard that has been my companion, my lover, and a great teacher, is not sustainable. We are caring for some four hundred trees, too many to do this work part-time and unprofessionally. If we had a small mixed orchard it would be different.

What are we going to do?  Blase and I are beginning to talk about how to make some kind of change. I have friends who decided reluctantly to move out of their house once their children fledged. I have an artist friend who moved with her husband to San Miquel d’Allende, Mexico, where, because the dollar stretches further, they built a magnificent glass and stucco house and studio. But we don't want to move. We don’t want to leave the farm.

Blase and I are both creating new directions as we live the decade of our sixties. Blase is organizing community events here and working with people one on one. He’s also returning more often to his woodworking shop in Maynard and fixing up his camp on the marsh on the North shore. He still tends a large kitchen garden and he repairs every dang machine that breaks, and they all do . . . .

I work with our part-time women farmers, Holly, Julia, and Hannah three days a week. We pull invasives, pick fruit, weed, mulch, and create new planting beds. Strawberry harvest is over and blueberries are next. On the last 90 degree Friday, we netted the blueberry rows. We were so fried by the heat, I let everyone go home at 4 o’clock instead of 5, had a shower, and promptly collapsed, forgetting about my dear friend Marion Stoddart’s party (I am so sorry, Marion).

Together, we also make art! Holly made a snake with all the sticks that needed to be picked up among the wildflowers near Paul Matisse’s Olympic Bell. Julia painted the signs for Which Way?  Hannah has created some of our most memorable Instagram posts.

Planning is underway for our 12th Annual Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit, and the artists will be installing their work in August. I love finding just the right location for each sculptor's work. This year, artist Anne Eder, known at the farm for her extraordinary installations of mythical creatures, will be overseeing her students from the Harvard Ceramics Studio with their own interdisciplinary sculptural installations. And my studio will be open on September 15 & 16th, part of the Bolton Harvard Open Studio. There is much work, both farm and art, to do. In some ways it is a relief not to have a big apple crop, I have more time for other projects. Yet, when I look at the photo of Ariel and the Honey Crisp apples, I cringe with disappointment—no apple-picking, no biting into juicy organic apples, no cider-making. 

What is our fate? And what road am I on trying to avoid my own? It’s right in front of me—and I can only say I am grateful. 

The Earth, experiment with found object, watercolor, and bronze figure, LH