Lessons

Things have been a bit bleak lately. My plums are being massacred by insects, my strawberries are being ripped up by neighbouring horses, my blueberries look like they're burning from the leaf edges, my grapes are stunted. 

It's all my fault.

I frequently visit other people's orchards. Usually they are an abandoned side project and I've been proud to see that for the most part my trees look like those in orchards that were planted several years ago. My bubble burst when I visited my best friends who planted their orchard at the same time as I planted mine. Their trees have at least twice as much new wood, three times more leaves, and no apparent evidence of insect damage. 

I hated them.

Only briefly. (C'mon, a little jealousy keeps you human!)

Their orchard is very near their house, which allows them to water it daily. They need to. Their soil is sandy and has trouble holding water. Daily water and the endless heat and sunshine that we've had this summer are the perfect recipe for plant growth. 

I've started a new job this summer and with the busy whirl of finding my feet in a job that has me travelling around the province I've been neglectful of my orchard. I've only been watering Eden's Rise once a week, sometimes even less. No wonder my trees are being ravaged by insects, curling their leaves up, turning yellow, and my two weakest plants (weak since being planted too early and getting a hard knock by the frost) have finally died. 

I realised that far from being on par with those older orchards, I was on the road to having my orchard stunted and looking much as it does now even 4 years from now when ideally I should be in full production. Tough love is not what these young trees need.

Like a procrastinator who has realised the deadline is now only 2 days away I've been pushed into action by panic. I have been watering my orchard every day for 4 days now. To see change overnight seemed too good to be true and yet change is here!

My elderberry plants have added an inch of new wood in 3 days, my plum which had lost 60% of its leaves to insect damaged has now sneezed out a huge tuft of new leaves which totally hides the half eaten massacre within. The blueberries with crusty leaf edges are pushing out some fresh green leaves and the grapes which have been lacking in action nearly all summer have finally sent enough tentacles to reach the first wire of my trellis (about 4 feet) (not all of them, some varieties seem to be struggling more than the rest). 

Seeing an immediate result to my extra work is exactly what I needed for morale. I should have known thirsty plants don't have the energy to fight off predators, etc.

Things will be back on track now at Eden's Rise. It may take 2 hours a night to water my orchard, but let's face it. What else would I be doing?

Have a lovely week!

-Eden

Obsessed, mulch?

Strawberries plants are often mulched. Mulch keeps the berries clean (no direct contact with soil), it also acts as a temperature buffer and reduces moisture loss from the soil to the sun. Best of all for the farmer with a bad back; mulch suppresses weed growth!

Strawberry beds kept tidy with use of mulch

My little field has been fallow for at least seven years. That's seven years of grass growing and dying. Mulch can be expensive for the organic gardener, but for me it was only a matter of raking for 10 minutes to get enough old grass together to cover one bed. 40 minutes later all my strawberry beds were mulched!

Blueberries mulched with pine needles and grass

The result was so good (particularly on the weed side) that I figured I should do this for all the plants on Eden's rise! The blueberries have a mixed mulch of pine needles (to increase acidity) and grass. All trees, bushes, and vines have a small circle of coconut coir mulch from planting day that has now been covered by a larger circle of grass mulch. I am grateful that I began this little project after the first full week without rain. There has been very little rain so far this summer and the field is in the full sun all day when the temperature is frequently above 30 Celsius. The mulch keeps the weed competition away for the base of my plants so when I waddle over with water for each tree I know I am not wasting that water on weeds. Thanks to the layer of mulch the hot sun also loses much of its opportunity to steal the water and the soil does not bake. 

Those are the often praised advantages of mulch, but I enjoy mulch for another reason. Bare soil, as the soil would be if I managed to keep it weed free, is subject to erosion. Anyone who has ever had a passing interest in sustainable agriculture knows that loss of topsoil is a serious problem in areas that are routinely cultivated. Erosion from wind and rain can hit hard on fine soil particles (like my clay soil). Since the soil depth on my hill is only about 1.5 feet to bedrock, every bit of soil is precious. The mulch will eventually rot down and be incorporated into the topsoil with the positive effect that in this case agriculture adds to the topsoil rather than depleting it. 

Two rows of asparagus, mulched around the edges with plastic
 and mulched in between with grass

There is always work to be done on Eden's Rise, I will leave you at that! Have a lovely week.

The grass looking fairly well combed after a raking session to mulch the apple trees.

Water on Eden's Rise

Let’s say you plant an orchard and then the rain doesn’t come. Your orchard does not have a well, and it is far from the main road. How do you cope?

The Eden’s Rise solution has been to carry water through the woods to the back acre slice that is the orchard. It’s not an elegant solution, but a working one until I can convince the sky to drop some water down into the field and find a way of collecting it.

We are expecting rain today, at last. All the plants are trembling with excitement (or is that the wind?). As you can probably see from the picture of my plum tree, the leaves are hanging a little low and look visibly dehydrated. Carrying water back in a large barrel is all right if you just want your trees to survive, but I am convinced had they had proper water this past month they would have grown twice as much. Every day I’ve been worryingly watching the forecast, rain kept disappearing further and further away. I know that I can’t hope to have my trees strong and healthy if I cannot deliver a proper soaking at least once a week. The weather for the past two weeks has been hot, dry, and sunny.

Today I am holding my breath until the rain comes, then I’m counting each drop of rain like a blessing.