Apple Woes (and Hope?)—Part 1

In the quarter century that we have been occupied with our country living experiment, we’ve had countless failures and successes in the plant cultivation department. We’ve tried growing scores of varieties of vegetables, trees, bushes, flowers. Most of our failures can be attributed either to ignorance or arrogance—either by not knowing that a particular plant simply will not grow here or by having the impertinence to think that we could pull it off anyway.

In contrast, many of our successes have, in hindsight, been luck. Looking back, we can see, for example, that it was a serendipitous choice to decide to plant a particular kind of tree where we did. Last but hopefully not least, there’s also been a learning process: by dint of our mistakes (and prodigious reading), we begin to make informed choices. I’m convinced that, if we’re granted another half century here, we could cultivate an Eden.

One of our more consistent failures has been fruit trees. I’ve had more of them pine away or provide a miserable crop than I care to remember. Chief lesson: I’ve learned that attempting to grow an orchard in a hollow at our latitude is an exercise in perennial frustration. Early spring sunny days warm the fruit tree, enticing its buds to bloom; then an errant cold night sends its killing frost flowing down the hollow, ruthlessly slaughtering most every blossom. Without viable blooms, the tree will be fruitless, and so will we.

If it wasn’t the frost that stopped us, numerous varieties of insidious bugs would enjoy our fruit—either greedily removing leaves or invading the tiny fruitlets and rendering them inedible to humans. And if it wasn’t bugs, it would be some ugly fungus or disease that would transform a potentially gorgeous peach or apple into a gelatinous black mess.

And finally, if a tree happened to survive all these menaces, it was still vulnerable to the midnight invasion of larger beasts. The local deer and squirrels and raccoons seem to be in possession of this amazing psychic talent of knowing exactly when I consider pears to be harvestable, and then beating me to it by about 12 hours. It is demoralizing to watch a pear tree slowly ripen its crop of several dozen fruits over many weeks, only to go forth one morning with picking basket in hand, to be greeted by the sight of a completely fruitless tree. How did they pull this heist off in one night? Why didn’t they wait until tomorrow night?

Certainly we could have had more success in our fruit-growing endeavors if we’d opted to spray the trees with various chemical witch’s brews. The bugs and fungi and diseases could likely have been held at bay with the support of Dow Chemical. That would have evened the odds a bit more: just us against the invading fauna. Maybe it would have even tipped the scales in our favor, but at what cost to the environment and to our health? No, it’d be fruit without nasty chemicals or no fruit at all.

The one (the only one!) fruit tree that has been successful is a sour cherry tree. Is it the in-your-face tartness or the tree’s robustness that helps the cherry to do well? Even the birds—normally being accomplished cherry pickers—have left our cherry tree pretty much alone. We do lose some cherries to them, but are willing to share with these less greedy poachers. Maybe the local critters are having a little pity and allowing us a wee bit of success?

On to apples next time…