Tag: Orchard
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Rain Drenched Orchard
To say that it’s been soggy lately would usher restraint and understatement into new chapters. Yesterday’s super saturating deluge came on the heels of day-after-day drizzles and downpours. This evening’s rain drenched orchard snapshots hint at some pros and cons of rain, rain, rain,… Let’s start with the lush tree foliage and grass. The verdant…
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Holistic Orcharding: Kaolin Clay
Kudos to Tony Foster for completing the first kaolin clay treatment in the orchard. Spraying Rosslyn’s fruit trees with kaolin clay is part of our nontoxic, organic, holistic orcharding regimen. It’s an effective way to reduce plum curculio (Conotrachelus nenuphar) larvae and European apple sawfly (Hoplocampa testudinea) larvae without resorting to toxic pesticides. Here’s the scoop…
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Loft Office View
A new perspective is emerging as Hroth frames my future office window (from the icehouse loft). Looking east (actually southeast in this photo), this will be my morning view. Panning to the left 10 to 15° the view will be filtered through the enormous American Linden (basswood) tree and across the upper lawn, through the…
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Autumn Vibes
Sugar maples ablaze between the orchard, gardens, and barns. What a season! Thanks, Pam, for capturing the autumn vibes from this fun vantage point in the nearest of Rosslyn’s meadows. Although leaf peeping fiery fall foliage is inevitably and justifiably the cynosure this time of year, autumn vibes are aroused insubtler ways as well. Ripe…
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Orchard Harvests
Recent nights are feeling more September than August, and even some of the days. Dry heat (trending cooler) during the daytime, and crisp-to-chilly at night. This bodes well for apples, pears, grapes,… And so my mind is in the orchard. Holistic orcharding has forged a gradual, intimate familiarity with my trees and with their habits.…
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Peaches This Year
Glorious indeed it is to report that our peaches this year are the tastiest I’ve ever grown. Also the biggest, juiciest, sweetest, and IMHO the prettiest. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! — Lewis Carroll I’m chortling in my joy. Imagine, if you dare, the decadence of lifting a sun warmed peach, freshly plucked from the branch,…
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Mulberry Meditation
There is much to admire in a mulberry tree.The handsome habit and height. The luxurious leaves. The shady canopy.The concentrated blackberry-esque burst of inky sweetness. While you may have a fuzzy notion about mulberry wine,…
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First Peaches
It’s but a month and a day after Independence Day and we’re eating our first peaches of the season. Eureka! So memorable a moment each summer when I savor the first bites of the first peaches of the season that I’ve begun to wonder if we might need to create a floating holiday. It’s hard…
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Holistic Orcharding: Fruitful and Deer-full
I’m excited to report that we may finally be able to enjoy Rosslyn peaches, nectarines, and even a few pears and apples this summer. For the first time since we began planting an orchard, several trees have matured enough to set fruit. Fruitful Orchard Those bright red mulberry will darken as they soak up sun and…
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Holistic Orcharding: Michael Phillips
For several years I’ve been absorbing holistic orcharding and gardening wisdom from Michael Phillips. I no longer recall how I came across the pied piper of organic, non-toxic fruit tree propagation, but it’s quite possible that my first introduction was an article in Mother Earth News titled, “Organic Apple Growing: Advice From Michael Phillips“. If you’re…
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How to Use Tanglefoot (And Why Fruit Trees Need It)
It’s time for a follow-up to my Organic Orcharding post, specifically a detailed look at how to use Tanglefoot for non-toxic pest control in a holistic fruit tree orchard. For readers wondering about zone compatibility and looking for a regional reference to help you evaluate the relevance of this post to your individual growing conditions,…
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Organic Orcharding
For the last few years I’ve made brazen claims about holistic, organic gardening and orcharding. No pesticides. No way; no how. Period. No exceptions. I’ve refused to spray our fruit trees to inoculate them against all of the baddies that lurk in an orchard’s tender places. I’ve refuted the discouraging oracles who assure me that I will fail; that a…