The Heirloom Orchardist

The Heirloom Orchardist’s Lilacs

Each spring, travelers on a main roadway in my town are greeted with a pleasant surprise as they cross over a busy Interstate Highway.  Growing in the state-owned land is a healthy colony of white lilacs.  Right now, in May, these unattended shrubs are blooming gloriously.  Why would this familiar landscape plant be growing within the cloverleaf interior of a major highway?  Is this a subtle bit of pleasantry given by an aesthetically minded highway engineer?  Nope...not likely.

Lilac - Beauty of Moscow

Lilacs have a long history in New England’s domestic landscape. This provides insight toward the origin of these lilacs.  In turn, we receive a strong reminder that the landscape of my town is constantly changing, as is the landscape of most New England communities.

Native to the Southeast region of Europe, the Common Lilac (Syringa vulgaris) has been in human cultivation since the 1500's.  We can only suspect it to have been introduced to the New World during the colonial period, but we have conclusive evidence (Jefferson's copious notes) that lilacs were growing in the gardens of Monticello during the late 1700’s.  Today, there are few of us without a childhood memory of the family’s legendary fragrant lilac.

Lilac - Ludwig Spaeth

Lilacs are hardy plants.  They are not considered invasive, but they are tenacious.  Lilacs will often survive when those who planted them are long gone.  Since its introduction in the New World, the lilac has always been a domestic plant, never delegated to the field, always cultivated for pleasure in The Heirloom Orchardists’ house gardens throughout old New England.  As a result, when we find lilacs growing in "vacant land" (a term the Heirloom Orchardist would never understand) there are likely the remains of an old home site nearby.

So this spring, I went to visit these highway lilacs on foot.  I left my car in the parking lot of a mostly vacant strip retail building, then walked across four busy lanes of traffic into the state highway property.  There, I found our lilacs growing at the top of a ledge outcrop.  It is a large colony of plants, with multiple stems.  But most of these plants do not appear old.  In some of today's delegated “historic districts” we can be sure to find lilacs that are known to be over one hundred years old, with trunks having four to five inches of width.  Amongst these highway lilacs, I can find only one plant with a trunk exceeding three inches.

Lilac - Asessippi

 Lilacs have a tendency to "sucker".  That is, they annually sprout new twiggy growth from their base.  Those of us who are familiar with their care try to take advantage of this characteristic by annually pruning out the old woody stems, and allowing the young suckers to mature.  This ensures a crop of new growth each year, and keeps the height of the blossoms at a desirable low level.  (It also helps us to avoid having a lilac with a "leggy" habit.)  With successive generations of suckers, the unattended plant will colonize an area, and spread.  As the “parent plant” grows old, the expanding cluster of young lilacs will seek out, and move toward less crowded locations.  This is exactly what these highway lilacs have done.

Due to its larger stem size, it is easy to identify the parent plant within this cluster of lilacs.  But there are other obvious indicators of age: broken branches, a trunk scar, and a dramatic lean to one side.  This matriarch lilac has led a difficult life.  Adjacent to its large weathered trunk, I found what I’d come looking for: the remnants of a stone masonry wall; strong evidence that this lilac once graced the grounds of an Heirloom Orchardist’s home.

Lilac - Mme Lemoine

So, we are given a bittersweet vision.  This lilac once belonged to someone.  This lilac was once planted, nurtured and appreciated.  This lilac once gave blossoms, and brightened an heirloom orchardist's Sunday morning breakfast table.  Today, while the landscape of my town changes around it, this tired lilac endures, and her offspring flourish.

Change is inevitable, and when properly managed, change is often for the good.  But when we manage the historic landscape of any town, it is important to be reminded that history is not limited to particular structures or districts.  History is everywhere.  It's even in the Lilacs that we plant.  We only need to look.

The Beauty of Fruit Production

Why do we grow flowers?  Is it just ‘cause they’re pretty?  No, the reasons are much more complex than that.  I grow Lily-of-the-Valley not just for its drooping dainty bell-blossoms, but because of the boyhood memories that float to my mind when I smell its fragrance.  But it was not always this way for me.  As a young teenager, my first efforts in gardening were centered upon production.  I wanted to grow a bounty of fruit and vegetables for the table, just as the Heirloom Orchardist did!  Food was tangible proof that my gardening was worth the effort.

I don’t seem to have been the only boy with that attitude toward gardening.  Michael Pollan expressed my teenage opinion perfectly in his bestselling book The Botany of Desire.  Speaking of his early gardening efforts, Pollan states:  “I approached gardening as a form of alchemy, a quasi-magical system for transforming seeds and soil and water and sunlight into things of value, and as long as you couldn’t grow toys or LP’s, that more or less meant groceries.” 

But attitudes change as we grow older.  We gain perspective, we gain experience and new ways of appreciation.  We get a bit sentimental.  This transition is natural, and I like it.  I’m sure it happened to the Heirloom Orchardist too.  Take this passage from the May 21, 1853 issue of the New England Farmer:

Old Apples Trees:
   Reading the advice (given in an earlier issue on how) to graft old trees, I thought of some trees in the neighborhood which had undergone that process, and wished the editor had appended to his advice a rap over the knuckles of (the farmers that) follow it so badly.
   Old trees of quite a decent and respectable figure in their native state, are sometimes converted into a mere collection of bare, crooked limbs, with brushes on the ends, perhaps improved in fruit, but an eye-sore and nuisance to all who love to see the fields adorned with fine trees as well as fruit.  There is no need of the trees remaining in this awkward fix…”

This mid-nineteenth century orchardist thought he had written an article on how to properly rejuvenate an orchard, with proper grafting techniques.  But I know better.  Like me, this orchardist was a sentimental old guy.  He simply loved the beauty of orchards.  He didn't know it, but he admitted this clearly, stating that such orchards are “perhaps improved in fruit, but an eye-sore and nuisance to all…”  I'd coax it out of him: Well, you old-timer (I'd say), if growing things is all about production, then to have your trees “improved in fruit” would be the primary desire, right?  “Ah yes,” he’d say, “but not at the expense of their beauty.”

Hoe Time!

After having established what a weed is (my last post), it seems appropriate now to discuss that quintessential fruit and veggie garden implement, the hoe.  I think the hoe is a forgotten tool.  Or at least, the use of a hoe is a forgotten task.  But the Heirloom Orchardist knew his hoe quite well.  "Oh yeah," you say, "The hoe!  I know that tool.  I've even got one.  It has got a long handle, with a flat thing on the end that's bent.  It looks like this:"

Yup that's a common hoe. You've got one, I've got one.  And a few of us may even have a prong hoe:

Funny thing is many of us don't really use our hoe properly, or to its full advantage.  I think this is a factor of the busy lives we have nowadays, because to take advantage of this useful implement you've got to time it right.  You need to start when the weed seeds are just germinating; when they are showing green on the surface of the soil.  In my hardiness zone, that's now.  And once the hoe is out, it stays out.  You'll be hoein' all season (unless you mulch).  But if you don't start using it now, if you wait another few more weeks, forget it.  Leave your hoe in the shed.  Because then you're gonna be on your knees, pulling weeds.  And that takes a lot more effort than hoeing.

In the May 28, 1853 issue of the New England Farmer, we find this instruction:  "The clear hot days are the days for hoeing; leave the weeds on the surface a few hours at such a time, and they will trouble you no longer...No weeds should be allowed to grow among your hoed crops; and the ground ought to be stirred once in 10 or 12 days, if there are no weeds!"

What's the New England Farmer saying?  We should hoe if there are no weeds? What's that all about?  Well, I go back to my contention that hoeing is a lost art. I'll delve into my old book "Gardening for Pleasure: A Guide to the Amateur in the Fruit, Vegetable and Flower Garden"  (there is a reprint available) to figure this out:

The Common or Draw Hoe - Its principle (use is) to clean the surface of the ground from weeds...
The Prong Hoe - This is one of the most useful of garden tools for stirring and pulverizing soil.  It cannot, it is true, be used where weeds have been allowed to grow to any considerable height, but then we claim that in all well regulated gardens, weeds should never be allowed to grow so large that they cannot be destroyed by the prong hoe.

Ah...now we understand.  Hoeing is a method of getting weeds before they become established plants; before they become a problem.  By occasionally stirring the surface of the soil, we're disturbing those infant weed seedlings just enough to cause them to desiccate.  The New England Farmer is giving us a rule-of-thumb (of sorts).  It's telling us that if we can see the weeds, it may already be too late to affectively use a hoe.  And that would be our first sign of a not-so "well regulated garden."  Hoe wants that?

So, What's a Weed?

What’s so wrong with weeds?  Here’s one old-timer’s opinion:

The New England Farmer
May 21, 1853
Vol. VIII, No. 21
WEEDS.
Weeds, it should be recollected, are always more exhausting to soil than either roots or grain crops.  They are indigenous, consequently gross feeders, and abstract from the soil only those elements of fertility which are essentially and indispensably requisite to sustain the more valuable and cultivated crops.  It should ever be a rule with the farmer, to allow no plant to perfect its seed on his premises, that will, in anyway, diminish the productiveness of his soil.

As you know, I have a lot of respect for the old timers' opinions.  But this time, this Heirloom Orchardist disagrees with the above writer, who was probably one of the editors of the New England Farmer.
First, we don’t really know whether the above writer's “weeds” are more exhausting to soil than root or grain crops.  That’s a pretty broad opinion, particularly since we don’t know which weed we’re talking about, and also because both root and grain crops themselves are pretty darn exhausting to soil.
Second, we know that (of course) not all weeds are indigenous.  And many of the worst weeds, the most invasive types, are aliens.
Third, maybe it’s not so bad to “allow plant(s) to perfect their seed(s).”  Maybe that’s part of the surprise of gardening….hmm…it all depends on what you consider to be a weed…

So, what’s a weed?  Well, here’s my definition…and I immodestly take complete credit for this definition, ‘cause I thought it up.  But I understand that it’s so darn obvious, that someone else much smarter than me, probably thought it up first:

A weed is any plant, growing in the wrong place.

This definition allows me multiple options on what to do with that weed…that plant…that thing growing in my garden that I know I didn’t put there.  Not all weeds need to be pulled up, and placed in the sun to desiccate.  I can transplant a weed!  I can leave it alone!  It’s up to me.  Here, take a look at my patch of Bleeding Heart (Dicentra spectabilis):

This early spring bloomer always cheers me up in May.  Sure, it disappears in mid summer, and might leave a void in the garden. But there are so many other things going on by that time, that I hardly notice.  Look closely at the ground in front of my Bleeding Hearts….what’s all that green fuzz?  Those are seedlings.  Weed seedlings?  Maybe, I didn’t plant them.  And they’re just the right size to get with my hoe.

But I’m not gonna get them with my hoe.  I’m gonna let them stay.  There’s a good chance these seedlings are little volunteer Bleeding Hearts .  We shall see.  If not, well then, I’ll declare them to be “gross feeders” taking from my soil “those elements of fertility which are essentially and indispensably requisite to sustain the more valuable and cultivated crops.”  And those more valuable and cultivated crops would not be weeds, of course, they’d be my Bleeding Hearts.

Compost Happens

Spring is the season that we start thinking seriously about soil amendments.  Organic matter.  Black gold.  And now, when "green living" has become the trendy flavor of the day, this topic inevitably turns to composting.  Everywhere, you can find information about how to do it right, opinions on the best way to speed-up the process, the best way to keep the microbes and worms happy, the best way to keep you happy.  But I'm going to give you the Heirloom Orchardist's instructions on composting.  Here we go:

Pile up all your organic material from your lawn, garden and kitchen in one spot.  Watch it decompose.

Done.  That's it.  You're composting.  Detect a little sarcasm?  Yup, it's there.  But my point is not to cast aspersions at composting.  Today, composting is a critical part of gardening.  I just don't think the process needs to be so darn involved.  Sure, my method is going to result in a much slower decomposition rate (I don't recommend you hold your breath while you watch the stuff decompose).  But I've been using this method for years.  It works.  Compost happens.  I've got so little time, and so much to do in my garden, that creating an intensively managed compost pile has never been a priority.  Here's what my passive compost heap looks like:

One purpose of this blog is to present an interesting perspective.  I like to analyze the methods of the 18th and 19th century farmer/orchardist, and compare them to today's organic/sustainable farm and garden methods.  Did the 18th or 19th century farmer think about composting?  Well, yes...kinda.  He knew it was important to mix some types of manure (such as chicken or hog manure) with dry bedding, straw, or sawdust, and to let the mixture sit in a pile to "mellow" before using it in the field.   That period of "mellowing" was a form of composting.  But the procedure applied only to those very rich manures.  Mostly, the Heirloom Orchardist amended the soil in his fields and orchards with common barnyard manure.  You know, the kind that comes from the back ends of cows, horses, or oxen.  This stuff was plentiful, even if you didn't own livestock.  Take a look at this passage from an 1884 issue of "The Cultivator and Country Gentleman:"

"I am now drawing to my farm from the city fresh horse manure...There is quite a large quantity of rye straw in the manure, which rapidly rots by forking over the pile two or three times."

So why did we (Not you and me. By "we" I mean the early 20th century farmer/gardener/orchardist) start using synthetic fertilizers like there was no tomorrow?  Is it because the stuff is so much easier to use?  Well, yes (in part), but that's not all.  The other reason is because of Henry Ford.  Yup, you read that right.  It's 'cause of Henry Ford, and his Model-T.  Read this, from my 1921 issue of the Garden Guide, The Amateur Gardener's Handbook:

"Owing to the almost universal use of automobiles and motor trucks, the rapidly increasing demand for farm tractors, and the consequent enormous decrease in the number of horses employed on farms and elsewhere, the supply of stable manure has diminished to such an extent that it is all but unobtainable for gardening, or even farming purposes."

There ya go.  After the Model-T, there just wasn't that much sh-t to spread around.  Don't blame the prolific use of synthetics on their obvious effectiveness.  Don't blame it on their ease of use.  Blame it on Henry.

Here's our conclusion: Now-a-days, if you want to feed your garden and orchard without using synthetic fertilizers, and you don't have a cow, you're probably gonna have to start composting.  And the process doesn't have to be a fancy intensive affair, unless you want it to be.  Because, as I've said, Compost Happens.

White Winter Pearmain: Like a worthless friend?

In my last post, a book review, I mentioned the differences in how writers describe fruit.  Sure, the older descriptions are adequate.  They do the trick.  But in my opinion, they are flawed by their accuracy.  Here’s a sample piece of Charles Downing’s (The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America) description of the White Winter Pearmain, ca. 1881:

"Basin uneven.  Skin pale yellow, with slight blush or warm cheek, thickly sprinkled with minute brown dots.  Flesh yellowish, tender, crisp, juice very pleasant subacid.  Very good."

Okay, Okay.  Downing is trying to be objective.  He knows that beauty (and flavor) is in the eye of the beholder.  He’s describing the characteristics of hundreds of fruit varieties in his book, and he must use uniform terminology.  But I’d like to know something about the life of this apple!  The personality!  Give me some metaphors!  Consider the following, written about the same time,  by J.M. Hasness, the Secretary of the Holt County Horticultural Society, for the Report of The Missouri State Horticultural Society, 1884:

"Some varieties, like men, start off well, make a brilliant record for a few years, than so utterly fail as to disgust their warmest friends and admirers.  Of such is the White Winter Pearmain, famous in Northwest Missouri fifteen years ago, and at that time really a fine, delicious variety, but now I pronounce it worthless."

Now, there’s an opinionated comment. It sounds as though Mr. Hasness has been let down a few times by the people in his life.  Poor guy.  He then got an axe, went out to his orchard, and took out his frustrations on his worthless White Winter Pearmains.

Of course I’m not being fair.  These two writers were trying to accomplish two very different things with their words.  As I said, Downing’s words are deliberately dry, in order to give an objective description.  But in doing that, he doesn’t express the passion in horticulture.  This time of year, I find myself every morning walking into my backyard garden simply to see what may have popped up from the soil.  I’m checking the buds on my pear trees every day, to see if they’ve opened.  Whether you grow fruit or flowers, there’s too much emotion in horticulture to ignore.