Alleviating Ignorance—Part 2

A third struggle caused by our ignorance of rural life had to do with trying to grow fruit trees. For a few years we planted and nurtured numerous kinds of fruit trees and even began enjoying apples, peaches, plums, and cherries. In our naivete we had no idea that our mini-climate here was a dangerous one for fruit trees. We live in a small hollow that gets good sun. In early spring the sun's warmth encourages the trees' blossoms to pop out in bloom too soon, because a frosty night will inevitably follow. Cold air flows down hollows, chilling itself even more as it goes. Our vulnerable fruit blossoms regularly got killed by the frosty air, thus killing our chance that year of enjoying fruit.

What few fruit trees managed to survive spring frosts later began to fall prey to fungus and other pathogens drifting in from the surrounding woods. I unknowingly aided these attacks by transplanting some lovely wild plum trees from the woods—native trees that had a natural resistance to the diseases, but were also carriers of them. The imported attacks promptly proceeded to infect our tender nursery fruit trees. Unwilling to use powerful chemical sprays, we mourned as one tree after another succumbed. We eventually did find a way to grow fruit: strawberry plants do not catch wild tree diseases.

A fourth fiasco we encountered was to acquire a few hens, in order to enjoy a steady supply of our own fresh eggs. Doesn't everyone who moves to the country get some chickens and enjoy fresh eggs? A friend gave us several laying hens, to set us up in the egg business. Our mistake was to allow the hens to free range—not wanting them penned up. We hoped they'd also go after bugs, as well as not have to deal with the mess of caged chickens. After all, we'd moved to the country to enjoy the freedom of the great outdoors; why shouldn't our chickens also be free? Well, they sure enjoyed their liberty. The hens sauntered into the woods to lay their eggs in secret places, then came out happily cackling, defying us to find their stash. It was as if they were laughing at us, as if they were smarter than we were (and maybe they were!). We rarely found their eggs, or not until they had rotted. Before long, forest critters like raccoons and foxes solved the issue by dining on our free-range chickens.

A fifth and final example (although I could relate many more) of our ignorance turned out to be a fortunate one, resulting from our free-ranging dogs. (Running free didn't work for chickens, but it sure did for the dogs.) We live far enough out in the woods that our dogs can run free—as their spirit surely requires. Our ignorance in this case was that we did not know what damage deer can cause to a garden. We did not know, for example, that nearby residents were being constantly invaded by deer, and had to resort to expensive solutions like electric fences, tall fences, or purchasing pricey repellents like cougar urine. Our garden—very modestly fenced—remained deer free. Why?

It took a few years for us to realize that our neighbors either had no dogs or that they tied or fenced their dogs. Deer are smart. They will quickly discover that a restrained dog is no threat, and simply move in to dine—even seeming to take some degree of amusement from their surreptitious deed. In contrast, our dogs ran untethered—free to joyously chase any deer that wandered near. This is one good example of our ignorance leading to a happy result, rather than struggling with chiggers, voles, and spring killing frosts.

I could go on with a score of other examples of what we learned—how we alleviated a few more ignorances. These many lessons helped us endure, and yes, even thrive out here. Many of our lessons could have been learned from fellow travelers and from public media, but there will always be many more that are unique to one's situation, and that you have to stumble into on your own. Our major transition from city professionals to rural hicks—like any radical change—challenged us in many ways we could not have imagined. Many factors have led to our still being here 35 years later. I'd like to think that flexibility and intelligence played a significant roll, but some luck and stubbornness were probably just as important.

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…