Working the Orchard

And a scary surprise.

I was at the orchard last weekend, prepping the ground for some new fruit trees. Hard to see in this picture but there are six flags in a line along the fence. I dug 6 new holes, there was one hole I did not fill last year, and six trees that died last summer, most of which were pears. All the trees that died did so during the summer. It appears everything else survived the winter, about 45 trees total.

[post too long for email, mostly pics]

This is what I ordered this year. Hopefully the pears do better. I did not order many plums last year, and one of them died.

256A — Cabot Vermont European Pear, 1 — 1 × $38.00 = $38.00
259A — Dana Hovey European Pear, 1
264A — Patten European Pear, 1
268A — Vicar of Winkfield European Pear, 2
275A — Hendre Huffcap Perry Pear, 2
277A — Yellow Huffcap Perry Pear, 2
280A — Kosui Asian Pear, 1
283A — Yoinashi Asian Pear, 1
319A — Black Ice Hybrid Plum, 1
322A — Hanska Hybrid Plum, 1
324A — La Crescent Hybrid Plum, 1
328A — Pembina Hybrid Plum, 1
332A — Toka Hybrid Plum, 1

I dig each hole about a foot deep, and about 2ft wide. I will dig deeper depending on the root of each tree. I pile the root mass around the hole, to kill off the grass immediately around the hole and create a basin for water. This east side is the high point of the orchard, though last year when I set the sand point well the water table was only eight feet down. It should only take a few years for the tap root of each tree to reach the water table, especially closer to the wetland.

These were the three articles I discussed building the orchard, with pictures. Later in the summer I added a second fence, a 4ft chicken-wire fence about 40in out from the poly fence. Deer might try to jump a 6ft+ fence, but not two fences.

Everything in the blueberry, raspberry, regent serviceberry bed looks healthy.

Strawberries, hard to say. There is a lot of new growth, though I’m not sure how the mother plants did. I raised this bed, adding a four inch layer of clay and then 4-6in of dirt, over soil I turned over - though in hindsight I should have made a trench like I did for the other berries. As I add strawberry beds, they will be trenches.

This is the line of peaches, along the north side of the fence. They all survived the winter, if none of them put on a lot of growth last year. There were a few branches on each that were dead, but that is common for peaches this far north. I don’t know of any peaches further north than this, actually. There are 12 peaches total. They are so small yet it is hard to see more than the first two. Peaches might survive, the real question is, can stone fruit grow in this sandy soil? In black dirt in Minneapolis I ate my first peach in the fourth summer after planting. They are going to have to grow a lot this year to meet that milestone.

I did a bit of pruning, mostly dead branches. The only pruning of live material I did were branches starting low to the ground. Most of the trees I did not prune, as I figure the more leaves the more growth, at this stage. That and when I start pruning in earnest I want to be ready to graft those cuts, to make more trees.

I made a gate on the west end, so I can move soil from the wetland.

That hole in the middle of the shallow pond I dug last year is an exploratory well I dug last fall. There is about 12 in of black dirt, about 16 inches of sandy clay, and everything 4ft below that is sand and gravel.

It is a lot drier this early spring than last. There is currently no standing water anywhere in this wetland. It hardly snowed or rained last March-June, not much at all last year. There was no snow cover most of this winter.

I don’t want to fill the holes I dug until I plant the trees, and I don’t want to haul it to the orchard to drop on the grass, so I just prepped the soil, removing the roots from enough soil to fill the holes I dug, and then some. After that, I went back to the trailer, had some lunch, did some reading, fell asleep….

Woke up and looked out the window of the trailer at this. The orchard is on the north end of the field, this is the south end. The wind was coming from the southeast, gusting to about 35mph. I threw my guitar, computer, clothes, the propane tanks into the van fast as I could and raced to the road, the only access out.

The fire got within about 60 ft of the trailer.

Fire trucks arrived just as I got to the road. There were three tanker trucks, three pickup trucks with tanks, and several small side-by-sides, one with treads. There were about 20 guys, all between about 28-40. Most of the trucks were from a small town north of here of about 300 people. There are not 50 people who live within a 3mile radius of this place. All the guys seemed to know what to do, most did not need a lot of direction. They really wanted to keep the fire from crossing the road, as it would have burned all afternoon out of control, without easy access

Most of my dad’s beloved pine planting survived, though I saw at least one explode.

Looking south from the west edge of the pond. The fire started on the neighbors property just up the road behind those trees on the left. Last year this was all standing water in cattails and water grass.

Looking north. There is a corner of woods, about 4 acres, to the left of this picture.

This is the only sizeable pond for five miles in any direction. Crystal clear, spring fed. There are three duck nesting boxes visible, my dad and I set a few weeks ago. There are a pair of nesting Canadian geese, and maybe a pair of swans.

There was a crew running chainsaws in this woods several hours into the late afternoon. Close to the wetland there was a lot of dead, dry blow down, mostly ash and aspen. Some of the trees continued to burn into the night, the wind dying down and rain coming.

It did not burn most of the woods, but one thin line did make it to the road on the west side.

My theory is, someone threw a cigarette butt out the window of their car, up there in the left hand corner where the road turns south. The top of the drawing is south. A few people use this road as a cut-through, between two N-S blacktop roads, who don’t live here (I might see maybe ten cars a day on a weekend.) You can see the thin line that burned through the woods up to the road on the right. The Forrester gave the neighbor a warning though, as he has an outdoor furnace, and puts his ashes in a pile rather than a steel can. Neighbor told me he shut the furnace down two weeks ago. I believe him. He loves this land as much as I do, he would never deliberately start a fire on a dry windy day. Hard to say, there was no clear answer how it started.

West of the trailer you can see my chicken scratch homestead. There are three dots, three ancient willows planted in a line probably 150 years ago. There is an old foundation, but another 80yr old neighbor tells me there has not been a structure here as long as he has been alive. All three trees appeared to burn extensively. That was sad. Willows on top of a sand hill, for 150 years. Thankfully, there is another ancient willow that looks like it belongs in a tale of enchantment, just north of the trailer that did not burn.

If this be an enchanted world, what is the message of such a fire that burned so close to the trailer, right before a solar eclipse and a “devil” comet, the first fire on this land as long as I remember, that did not burn anything but woods, fields and wetlands? Well, I wasn’t prepared to haul this trailer on wheels out of here on the quick. I was afraid for awhile it was going to burn, while I watched helpless. I’ve been wondering too, where are all the young, impressive, salt of the earth men? Turns out, they are working in part as volunteer fireman. That made me feel much better about the culture here, in rural mostly white country that gets such a bad rap, thought so low of in the media, DC, cities and on the coasts. Personally, I’ve not been feeling a lot of fire lately, dragging, drinking too much, gaining weight - wake up! If that wind had been just a little more from the south, SE instead of ESE, that fire might have been on me before I could get out safely. Wake up in a trailer on fire surrounded by fire, my vehicle on fire, half full propane tanks around? The world is on fire dude, you need to be prepared.

If I could though, I would burn all of this land every five years or so, the field and the woods, to keep it healthy. Forty years spending time here and this is the first time I have seen fire, to this extent, anywhere near. But fire is hard to contain; as few neighbors as there are, there is less danger but still danger. Prescribed burns cost money too, to do safely. Potentially much more expensive if it gets away from you.

It will be very interesting late spring and summer, to see the difference between the land that burned, and the land that has not burned in many generations.