North Star Orchard

It seems like just about everything nowadays is tending towards instant.

Online, of course:
-Connect to the internet, in an instant
-Order a book for your Kindle, in an instant
-Download a song (or a whole album) to your iPod, in an instant

But even in real life:
-Drive-through Starbucks; get your coffee, in an instant
-Order a refill for your prescription at the pharmacy, in an instant
-Know where you’re driving to via your GPS system, in an instant

In this day of ‘instant’, it’s nice to be aware of and appreciate things which do not take an instant:
-A long walk on the beach just prior to sunset
-The growth of your child from babe to functioning adult
-Following the cycles of the farm, from planting, to care, to harvest

I was startled one day in late winter when I received a phone call for someone looking for instant. In this case, an instant orchard. What they were looking for were adult Asian pear trees to put on their property. Not just one or two to fill a spot or two in their landscaping, as I was originally thinking, but an orchard’s worth.

The usual cycle of an orchard starts with ordering trees from a nursery. It can take anywhere from one to three years to receive the trees, depending on the nursery’s supply, how rare the variety is, etc. The trees arrive generally looking like long sticks with a few stringy roots attached. Planting, training, and waiting follows, followed by more training and waiting. And more training and waiting. Finally, several years down the road, you are (hopefully) rewarded with a fine crop of fruit to eat, share, and/or sell. Along the way, you, as an orchardist, make mistakes, learn more about how to be a better orchardist, and attempt to fix mistakes you previously made. In the end, if you haven’t made too many mistakes, the trees have grown tall and strong and pay you back in many ways for all earlier troubles.

This sounds oddly similar to parenting, actually, although we don’t get to (usually) pick out the specific variety of baby we want to raise.

So, these folks who want an instant orchard…well, it just makes me kind of cringe. First off, pulling a fully-grown tree from the ground and transplanting it elsewhere is a very delicate (and expensive) operation. The tree will be in shock. It may not survive the process, much less grow and be healthily productive. I suppose if you have enough money to throw at the project, chances of success would be better, but no matter what, it would still be hard on the tree.

And what of the heart of the orchardist? Carefully selecting and nuturing plus years of care and mistakes are all part of what makes a fulfilled orchardist. We feel great pride when our ‘children’ grow and become the best that they can be.

But an ‘instant’ orchardist? I can imagine that the only pride to be had is in the ability to stroke one’s ego. “Look, I spent $X and have an instant orchard”. Indeed; one that has been shocked through transition and struggles to survive with a caregiver who perhaps hasn’t even read a “Dummies Guide to Orcharding”. The heart and soul just wouldn’t be there, much less the knowledge how to help those struggling trees reach their full potential.

Instant is great for lattes, MP3s, and streaming videos, but for growing children, be they human or tree, I’ll take the long road any day.

We all have to make tough decisions from time to time.  Today, we’re witnessing the result of our decision to cut down three large Norway maple trees in the yard. It’s a difficult thing to watch, and it’ll take some time getting used to them being gone. And the timing of this event with Earth Day/Week couldn’t be more at odds. How can I justify our actions?  How can I say goodbye to the trees?

Justification is fairly easy, if I think with my head rather than my heart.  One of the trees has been slowly dying since it was hit by lightning several years ago.  And the other two?  Well, they just make it extraordinarily difficult to see traffic when pulling out of our driveway – so it’s a safety concern – especially when we have CSA members and farm helpers coming and going. Of course, when those trees were first planted, this road wasn’t nearly so busy.  But having a relatively new Walmart and Home Depot up the road brings not only a bunch of trucks but a bunch of shoppers by everyday.

But, it’s still hard to say goodbye to trees.

I can also justify our decision with the fact that since we bought this property, we planted more than 1400 new fruit trees.  Trees which are even now blooming and will soon be loaded with wonderful fruit. I can justify our decision with the fact that we’ve taken a 10-acre piece of monocropped, worn-out cornfield soil and in a few short years have transformed it into a healthy and productive small farm.  I can justify our decision with the fact that we will plant new trees around the house (likely sugar maples), but this time they’ll be placed in better strategic locations.

But, it’s still hard to say goodbye to trees.

And where will they end up?  Well, the larger wood will go to farm helper Josh’s house, where he’ll use it next winter to heat his house.  The smaller branches will be chipped and used as mulch around our fruit trees, providing them some protection from weed competition.

But, it’s still hard to say goodbye to trees.

How can I say goodbye to these trees?

I guess I’ve done so right here. Thanks for listening.

“This brings me to a theory I have about the growth of farmers’ markets. The conventional explanation is that people are rediscovering local food. That’s certainly true. But I think people are as hungry for the community experience as they are for the fresh broccoli. Several years ago, a group of sociologists from the University of California-Davis followed people around as they shopped in a supermarket. They found that your chances of having a conversation with another shopper are about 1 in 10. They then tracked people at farmers’ markets and found that your odds of having a conversation in this setting are nearly 70 percent. It’s this social pleasure that I think is driving the very modest, but noteworthy, regeneration of local businesses in some communities.” – Stacy Mitchell in Yes! Magazine

I just read this quote the other day and did a mental cheer.  It’s such a true statement, now. It certainly didn’t used to be this way.

Sixteen years ago, we and a small group of Chester County farmers started the West Chester Growers’ Market.  It was somewhat of a grand experiment, really, as there were literally NO producer-only markets of the kind in the area.  None.  So, the experiment was: will the farmers come? Will consumers come? Will this be a success?

Having worked at a farm in New York in the late ’80s, I was familiar with the successful Greenmarkets of New York City, but in Pennsylvania there existed no such thing, so we were really breaking new ground.

And here we are, 16 years later, with producer-only markets popping up in towns and cities all over the place.  And….new small farms are popping up all over the place. It took awhile for the concept to catch on, though. I remember the early years when we farmers at the West Chester Growers’ Market had plenty of time to chat with each other during market time. And the buzzwords of ‘organic’, ‘local’, ‘sustainable’, and ‘grass fed’ were not in general use.

My, have times changed! People are indeed hungry for not only good food, but connections with other people and the farmers who grow their food. CSAs and farmers’ markets provide good food and great community connections; to the point where some people can’t imagine life without them.  Great changes, indeed.

Now’s the time of year when farmers’ markets and CSAs are getting started for the year – and we are so looking forward to seeing our good friends again after a long winter.

If you or someone you know is in need of help finding some local markets or a CSA this year, please look at Local Harvest.  Simply by plugging in your zip code, you’ll get a list of all the markets, farms, and CSAs in your area. Tell your friends about the markets/farms/CSAs you love. Tweet and Facebook about them. Get the word out. You’ll love the connections as well as the food!

My first job ever was at a strawberry farm. At the age of fifteen I had no idea that this endeavor would be the beginning of a career in agriculture. At the time I didn’t really think I was cut out for it. I hated how my hands got so cold planting muddy strawberry plants on a frigid spring day, I was terrible with a hoe, my arms ached at the end of the day. But then again, I got to eat all the strawberries I wanted for free, and I never got sick of them. So maybe I should have seen this coming…

But what I started out to say was that when I closed my eyes at night after strawberry-picking, all I could see was red on green, as my mind’s eye continued the search for ripe berries. Nowadays, when I close my eyes to fall asleep, I see tree branches and potential pruning cuts. While I’m long done in the orchard for the day, my subconscious apparently hasn’t stopped looking for the right branches to remove from its imaginary trees.

On a good day, pruning fruit trees is the best kind of farm chore – repetitive enough that you get into a rhythm, stimulating enough that it keeps your mind active. It’s just you and the trees, the sun is shining, there’s the promise of spring in the air as the buds on the trees start to swell. You can feel your whole winterized self starting to thaw out. A pair of hawks soars and screams overhead, and time flies by as well.

On a bad day, you’re freezing, you can no longer feel your toes in your soaked-through insulated boots (good to -40°, ha!). You’ve had twigs up your nose, in your ears, and almost gouged out your eyes a few times. You’ve been whiplashed by branches in the face, and your brain has turned to mush. You stare at the trees, and while an hour ago you knew just what to do, the branches now have morphed into utter chaos. You’re tromping around, tripping over prunings, weighed down with at least ten extra pounds of warm clothing and hassled by the saw hanging from your belt. And if you were still picturing something too Zen, too romantic, add in the diesel roar of the Brownie (the hydraulic lift used for orchard tasks), the stench of the mushroom farm wafting over from next door, the slog through the rotting pears that have frozen and thawed a hundred times over.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying my first full season of winter pruning. I especially like having a solid answer to that perennial question all farmers face: “So what do you do all winter?” Working on the website, ordering seeds, and generally getting ready for the season doesn’t seem to cut it as an answer. No, I know all you non-farmers still picture us eating bon bons by the fire or lounging on a beach somewhere warm reading trashy novels. The idea of seasonal work is rather novel in our office cubicle culture, and I know it can sound pretty inviting when viewed from that nine-to-five perspective. People are curious what it’s actually like on the ground and hope their romantic suspicions are confirmed.

But I’ve learned that “pruning” is not a sufficient answer for the curious. Pruning is a bit mysterious to most people. Everyone can picture what weeding is like, but what exactly are we doing out in the orchard on a winter’s day armed with saws and loppers? Pruning is a task that needs to be done to some degree in a managed orchard every winter. You prune while the trees are dormant (“winter pruning” is also called “dormant pruning”), and while you can better see the form of tree without its leaves. Though you’re removing wood from the tree, winter pruning is invigorating. In other words, it stimulates growth, so we hope to encourage that growth to go in a desirable direction and fit the chosen form for the tree.

One of our main goals is to manipulate the vegetative and fruiting balance of the trees. The tree only has so much energy stored up, and that energy is going to be divided between vegetative growth (roots and shoots) and fruiting growth (pears, apples, and peaches!). As farmers and eaters, we’re hoping for a steady supply of high-quality fruit. If you’ll think all the way back to junior high life science and remember that lesson on photosynthesis, you can extrapolate that sunlight = fruit. One of the most important things we do when we prune is to “let light into the tree” so that sunlight can reach the fruiting wood. When summer pruning, you can see immediate results – take away a branch with all its leaves and sunlight streams into places that were previously shaded. In the winter, you have to use your imagination a bit. You also have to be able to look into the future of the tree… what will that branch look like after a season’s growth and with the weight of fruit hanging on it?

We’re also looking to correct any problems that have arisen since last year’s pruning (a beginner’s mnemonic I learned is “The 3 D’s”: damaged, diseased and disoriented). Last season was a rough year for fire blight – a bacterial disease that thrives in warm, wet weather and can wreak havoc in apples and pears – so we’re always on the lookout for fire blight “strikes” where individual branches (or worse) have died from fire blight.

Each variety of tree requires different attention, as do young trees and older trees. Just as you master one variety and get lulled into the rhythm of the cuts, it’s time to reset your brain for the next. This is not easy work, taxing on the brain as well as on the arms. Lunch is a welcome break, as is the end of the day, which often comes a little early on pruning days. Throughout the day I balance all the calories burned with steady doses of chocolate. Not quite like eating fresh strawberries all day long, but at some point I usually pull out a Gold Rush apple, stored away for winter, still firm and sweet after four months in the cooler and a fine reminder of the fruits of our labors yet to come.

(For more of Erin’s musings on food and farming read her blog, Fruits Unheard Of)

This year, it seems, is one that will be filled with education.  So many people are getting interested in where their food comes from and how it is grown.  Films like “Food, Inc.” and books like “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” have got people thinking, talking, and asking questions about their food.  Blogs, Facebook Fan Pages, and a legion of Twitterers (or is that Tweeters?) are talking about the issues.

At the farm last week, we were host to two groups of high school horticulture students from the Chester County Technical College High School (TCHS).  We discussed what it means to be a small, diversified, sustainable farm.  We looked at grafted trees, our intensive gardening system, and our methods of farming in an ecological manner (birdhouses, solar, reusing irrigation tape, soil blocks instead of plastic seedling cells, etc.)

One of the highlights of the day was when the manure hauling tractors went by to spray liquid manure onto our neighbors 80-acre corn field.  “There’s ‘big Ag’ for you!” I said.  Some of the students were stunned at the sight (and smell) of the operation.  Having recently watched “Food, Inc.” in class, one young woman earnestly asked, “So…what we saw in that movie is really for real?”

“Yes, indeed” I replied. “No movie special effects there!”

So, while the TCHS students got a bit of a taste of small scale farming which focuses on safe, ecologically-grown food (literally, too as we had a few Gold Rush apples left from last year to munch on), they were also reminded about the current state of most of our food industry.  What a difference!

Many folks are asking for more information – more this year than ever.  Next week, I’ll be talking to a class at the Delaware County Night School.  The folks there are worried about GMOs, factory-farmed food, and what questions to ask farmers at a farmers’ market.

We’ve also worked with a local MOMs club on these issues, and corporate entities such as ING have worked with us to get information about buying local foods to their employees.

There are fantastic things going on in the world of education.  The more we can all get info out there to consumers and potential small farmers, the more people will be able to make informed decisions about the food they eat.

Remember Wendell Berry’s quote:  “Eating is an agricultural act.”  Indeed.  Every time you choose something to eat, you are making a vote for the type of food you want and the type of community you want to live in.

“One of the greatest assets of a farm is the sheer ecstasy of life.” -Joel Salatin

Indeed.  And spring is when we are so reminded of this.  The greening of the grass and weeds, the pink and white blossoms popping out from the trees, the buzzing of bees and other insects as they busily work pollinating said blossoms, the return of bluebirds and tree swallows (our favorite insect-eaters) to the 90+ birdhouses around the farm’s perimeter.  Everyone working on the farm has an extra bounce in their step (whether this be due to the lovely warm and sunny weather or the freedom from bulky winter gear is not known).  Even the dog, who almost seemed depressed during the deep snows of winter, is happily chasing trucks, mice, and the aforementioned birds and insects (luckily, not catching either flyers or trucks).

While life is on-going at the farm all year long, it is this time of year that really grabs our attention….when we are so, happily, aware of the ‘sheer ecstasy of life’.

Happy spring!

Don’t you just love a parade? The big kind with floats and bands and huge lumbering balloon characters? Of course, I’m thinking the big one, here – Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Have you ever marveled at the folks who handle those huge balloons? Maybe you’ve never really thought about them much, but were engrossed instead in watching to see if Mickey Mouse would make it around the next corner without hitting the lamppost, or if Underdog’s paw would somehow manage to avoid patting the heads of the cheering Boy Scout troupe below. But on the other hand, maybe you’ve thought it might be neat to be one of those balloon handlers. (and just how does one come by that job, anyway?)

Well, have no fear – a solution is here. Next time you’re feeling like being a balloon handler, contact your local farmer sometime. Better yet – contact this local farmer. I’d be pleased to give you one of those balloon-handling ropes. Our balloon is not as colorful or fancy as Garfield, but we can provide you that much sought-after experience, complete with an audience.

Our balloon handling experience began in the spring of 2007 when we were building our new greenhouse. It was a new experience for us and involved lots of learning and mistake-making (and the subsequent mistake-fixing). Just getting the structure ready to cover with plastic was a challenge enough, and will require its own story. Here, of course, we are focusing on parade balloons, which is what the plastic covering of the greenhouse was to become before we got the job done.

Imagine a large piece of plastic. No – larger than that. Mmmm – maybe a bit larger still. Ok, a 50 ft. by 50 ft. piece. This is rolled out on the ground alongside the 15-foot high metal whale-rib structure of the greenhouse. The question is, how the heck do we get this plastic over that whale?

The first step is to get a series of ropes up and over the structure, which is best performed by someone with good archery skills, like Robin Hood. Lacking him, however, we had to make do with a rock and a lot of pitching practice.

Next, enter our high-tech solution (and this comes straight from the greenhouse engineering geniuses) – several balls of crumpled-up newspaper. This gets so technical here that I’m reticent to describe it in detail, lest I pass along some sort of patented trade secret. Suffice to say, we get the plastic, newspapers and ropes connected, and then the fun begins.

After waiting for a calm day and roping in a few unsuspecting balloon handlers (or in our case that year, grabbing a couple of employees), we set to work.

Now, it is my opinion that a ‘calm day’ is a definition open to interpretation. After waiting through the frigid and windy months of January and February, we were feeling anxious to get this job done. The greenhouse needed to be functional in March, so by the end of February it was becoming imperative that the darned plastic get on it. Heating a greenhouse to grow plants would be mighty difficult without sides or a top.

So Ike determined that ‘Wednesday’ was to be the day, gosh darn-it, before the next winter storm was supposed to hit. The weather guys were all talking calm weather conditions. Evidently those weather guys have never handled a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloon.

As the four of us heaved and hauled that huge piece of plastic up and over the metal greenhouse skeleton, a wind kicked up. And by wind I mean a breeze that would be unlikely to stir a bit of fluff off the top of your head. But to that huge piece of plastic, it was a gale-forced hurricane howl of a wind.

Two of us spent the next two hours holding on to various parts of the plastic (now masquerading as a sail for a tall ship), while the other two tried to not only attach it to the frame of the greenhouse, but make sure that it was ‘square’ in the process. In this case ‘square’ refers to the state of the plastic covering the whole greenhouse without having some goofy crooked spot left over without any covering.

All of this was bad enough as the force of that plastic trying to sail away to the next county was making my shoulders feel as if they would pop out of their sockets. But on top of feeling crucified, we also had an audience to witness our folly. Our new farm is located right on a pretty-darned busy road, which at rush hour is nearly bumper-to-bumper with traffic. What fun those drivers-by must have had watching us deal with this wanna-be balloon. Some of them must have been wondering why we had this pale grey version, however, when there much more entertaining shapes and colors to be had – like Snoopy.

We finally managed to get the darned thing secure, thankfully. And it was even fairly ‘square’, as long as you ignore that one little wrinkle in it. However – and here’s something maybe you didn’t know about greenhouses – they need TWO layers of plastic! Arrgghh!!

Fortunately, the next morning was a calm one by our newly educated definition.

You may think that this means we don’t need the help of more wanna-be balloon handlers. Don’t fret however, I’ll take your application for the job. We need to replace all that plastic in every few years, and I have a feeling that our original balloon handlers would rather be watching the festivities next time around (preferably from the comfort of their own homes).

Send your applications to Lisa@northstarorchard.com; we’ll be replaying the above fun and games this coming fall!