Category: Archeology of Home

Re-Homing Stump-to-Lumber Ash & Elm

Today I’d like to touch upon a recurring theme: re-homing materials and items still potentially useful to others (if no longer to us). We’ve been fortunate over the years to pair Rosslyn’s storage capacity in the carriage barn and icehouse with local expertise — specifically sawyers with portable sawmills able to custom cut logs on our property — so that fallen and culled timber can be transformed into lumber. The stump-to-lumber ash and elm flooring that was so recently installed during the icehouse rehab, up-bumping the character quotient dramatically, was not completely exhausted during installation. In fact, there’s enough surplus that I’m hoping to use it on a future project. But a short term opportunity arose to share some of this material with my nephews for a small but soon to be eye-popping outbuilding in their Rock Harbor renovation.

Re-Homing Stump-to-Lumber Ash & Elm (Photo: Christoph Aigner)

That sneak peek above illustrates the handsome walls and ceiling in what will become a dedicated workspace located a short plein air passage from the house. Looks a lot like the new floor in Rosslyn’s icehouse, right?

Soon this stump-to-lumber paneling will be paired with more re-homed Rosslyn material: Brazilian cherry (Jatoba) flooring remaining from our 2007-8 dining room rehabilitation.

Reimagine, Re-Home, Reuse

From reimagining to rehoming and reusing, Susan and I have been pretty obsessed with creative ways to revitalize and reboot whenever possible. Yes, that’s a whole lot of re-prefixing! I did mention obsession, right?

Baked into the icehouse rehab (and sooo much of our +/-17 year love affair with Rosslyn) is the inclination to salvage and rehabilitate, to recycle and upcycle, to repurpose and reuse… we’ve been keen to reimagine obsolete and abandoned artifacts in new, useful ways. (Source: Re-Homing Exterior Door)

Another similar opportunity, repurposing a pre-hung door, came up recently.

In the spirit of reducing, reusing, recycling, and repurposing, it pleases us that Tony Foster will be re-homing this exterior door from the icehouse. (Source: Re-Homing Exterior Door)

Sustainability is intrinsically rooted in responsible innovation. We strive to incorporate full cycle, cradle-to-grave thinking into our creative endeavors. A half century of combined construction and renovation experience has taught Susan and me that every project is part of a bigger whole, a small arc in a much larger continuum. And Rosslyn’s endurance, a two century story of repeat reinvention, enriches our confidence and our commitment to responsible re-prefixing whenever possible.

So much of our good fortune as Rosslyn’s stewards has been inherited from generations before us. Responsible ownership, conscientious preservation, and magnanimous spirits account for the life we’ve enjoyed on this property. We endeavor to follow in that tradition… (Source: Re-Homing John Deere AMT 626

Yes, Rosslyn has been far more than a home. She’s been our companion and our teacher.

Rosslyn has tutored us in the merits of conservation and preservation, rehabilitation and reinvention, generosity and sharing. (Source: Re-Homing Exterior Door)

And so it has made perfect sense to extend Rosslyn’s generosities to others. And perhaps my nephews’ workspace will afford them a small reminder from time-to-time of the property where they made many memories between childhood and adulthood.

June 19, 2023
Preterprecocious Peonies
Sooo close to arriving at Rosslyn, but these peony blooms (Paeonia lactiflora) have exploded into exuberant bloom before I made it back. A false start. Preterprecocious peonies, at least from my present perspective.

Fortunately Pam documented these peony season precursors. (Thanks, Pam!) Beautiful debutants, welcoming Rosslyn arrivals. Our arrival. Shortly. But, inevitably rain will arrive, as if on cue, once the peonies bloom…

Preterprecocious Peonies (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

Preterprecocious Peonies Haiku
```
Pink plumage, printemps’
preterprecocious coquet,
flouncy peonies.
```
Perhaps micropoetry might capture a petal or three. And offering it up to the universe just might invite a rain free reprieve?

Preterprecocious Peonies (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

Bursting with color and perfume, peonies might seem an unlikely culinary accessory. But the roots and petals are, in fact, edible. Of course anybody who’s cultivated propones (preterprecocious or otherwise) would resist disinterring peony roots for eating. But the petals?

Peony… petals taste lovely fresh in salads, or lightly cooked and sweetened. (Source: Edible Flowers Guide, Thompson & Morgan)

While I’m hoping to catch these beauties in person shortly, at least I can rest assured that foraged flower petals will be an option.
June 15, 2023
The Art of Home
The Art of Home (Photo: Geo Davis)

The art of home is a tidy title with an unpretentious posture. And yet it’s idealistic and evocative, ample and ambitious. Frankly, its restrained and self contained first impression is a little misleading. Maybe even a little ambiguous. What do I even mean? I’m not offering a catchy epithet for design and decor. Nor architecture. And yet, it certainly may include some or all of these. When I describe the art of home, I’m conjuring several things at once.

In conjoining art and creativity with home-ness, I’m alluding to my own personal outlook on an intrinsic relationship between the two as well as an aspirational goal. Home isn’t science. Or, home isn’t only science (or even mostly science.) Sure, there’s science and math and all manner of practical, detail and data driven inputs in transforming a house into a home. But there’s much more. There’s a profoundly personal, subjective, intimate relationship at play in the act of homemaking. And, in the best of circumstances, essential circumstances in my opinion, home becomes a sanctuary for creating, an oasis for art.

All of this binds art-ing and homing. The art of home is a look at the homeness of art and the art of homing. It is an attempt to discern what allows one’s domestic sanctuary to transcend mere utility (a garage to cache one’s car, a grill to sear one’s supper, a nest within which to sleep, a shower with which to wash away the sleep and sweat), to transcend the housing function and become a place of growth and nurturing, an incubation space, a revitalizing space, a dreaming and dream-fulfilling space,…

In the photograph at the top of this post you can see the icehouse, mid-rehabilitation, tucked in beside the carriage barn, both frosted in snow like fairy tales illustrations or gingerbread confections. After a decade and a half my slowly percolating art of home has matured from a pipe dream into a concept into a clutch of sketches into construction plans into a creative collaborative of many. And for a few short weeks I’m privileged to participate daily, to engage in a real and hands-on way after participating from afar, participating virtually. It’s a peculiar but exciting transition. An ongoing transition.

The Art of Home: Poem Excerpt

I’ve been excavating through layers of creativity compressed into, and coexisting within, my notion of homeness. While shaping a house into a home is in and of itself a creative art — indeed a nearly universal creative art, even among those quick to volunteer that they are not artistic, not creative — I’m deeply curious about my awn associations with home as a cradle and catalyst of art. I’m trying to tease apart these different layers of art in a still embryonic poem, so I’ll include only a section about gardening, a creative pursuit that I inherited from my mother decades ago.
```
...composing a garden,
my own personal patch,
from selecting seeds —
corn, radishes pumpkins,
tomatoes, and sunflowers —
to turning the soil,
working compost
into last summer's
stems and stalks,
into clay clodded dirt,
into July-August hopes.
Watering and weeding,
thinning, scarecrowing,
suckering, and staking...
```
Composing a garden is but one of the many instances that the art of home means something to me. Cooking. Writing. Telling stories. Pruning the orchard. Entertaining guests. Landscaping. Drawing. Adapting old buildings into new lifestyle enabling and enriching spaces.

The Art of Home: Documentary

At the heart of Rosslyn Redux is a quest to discern and describe what I’m learning about the art of home. But there is still more question than answer. I’m still untangling my thoughts, still reaching for some sort of clarity that might improve my ability to communicate concisely what I have found so captivating, and why it has obsessed me for so long.

But I’m not there there. My journey is ongoing. So I will, for now, offer another perspective on the art of home, a captivating documentary that obliquely sheds light upon our Santa Fe / Essex home duality.

Two indigenous artists create new works reflecting on their tribal homelands, the Wind River Indian Reservation. Ken Williams (Arapaho) is a Santa Fe art celebrity and Sarah Ortegon (Shoshone) is an up-and-coming actress in Denver. Both artists travel to Wind River Reservation to reconnect with their ancestors and present their art work to a somewhat isolated community. (Source: The Art of Home: A Wind River Story, PBS)

Intertwined with Sarah Ortegon’s and Ken Williams’s extended meditation on the relationships between art, creative expression, identity, home, culture, family, and belonging are the perspectives of other Native Americans including George Abeyta who touches on home as a place of strength.

“Your home, it’s a place of your family. It’s a place of warmth and comfort and strength and happiness. It’s the place where were you look forward to going because that’s your stronghold. That’s your place of prayer.” — George Abeyta

In the context of beadwork Abeyta is examining it feels seamless and comfortable the way we moves from beading motifs to home as a bastion of strength, as a stronghold. Also a space where family, warmth, comfort, happiness, and even prayer coexist. Perhaps even where they are rooted, where they thrive. The subject of his reflection, a beaded ornament akin to a necktie, is an intricate work of art, and as such it functions as a vehicle or a vessel to showcase and honor these fundamental elements. This notion of home, and more specifically the art of home, as a sort of sacred space for strength and belonging, for identity and connectedness, for family and for happiness resurfaces throughout this documentary. I encourage you to make time (just under an hour) to appreciate it from beginning-to-end.

What do you consider the art of home?
February 28, 2023
Ready for Radish Time?

Spring-into-summer is a celebratory parade of gastronomic gateways. Nettles, ramps, fiddleheads, asparagus, rhubarb,… So many seasonal ingredients and tastes. And now it’s radish time!

Ready for Radish Time? (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

These early French Breakfast Radishes are almost impossibly delicious. Crisp and spicy. Uniquely refreshing.

The French Breakfast Radish (Raphanus sativus) is [an] early summer classic — and perennial staple of Rosslyn’s vegetable garden — [that]… tends to be mild (less “spicy” than other standard radishes) if harvested and eaten early… (Source: French Breakfast Radish)

Ready for French Breakfast Radish time? (Illustration: Geo Davis)

Perhaps four years living in Paris account for my preference, but these early season benisons — as enticing to the eyes as to the tongue — beguile me year after year.

Radishes (my favorite are French Breakfast Radishes) celebrate precocious summer’s spicy return with vibrant, bye-bye-mud-season colors, a super satisfying crunch, and tastebud reviving explosions of peppery sweetness. (Source: Radishes and Radish Greens)

Such sweet springtime seduction. Love at first crunch. New and invigorating each year despite familiarity and anticipation.

And that’s just the red and white taproot. To be sure, the tuberous vegetable is what we envision when radishes are on the menu. But they’re only part of the radish time rewards.

Radishes aren’t just crunchy eye candy for crudités. Radishes are nutritious. Especially the radish greens! (Source: Radishes and Radish Greens)

That’s right. The lush greens you snatch to lift a ripe radish from the soil are a delight themselves.

As with standard radish varieties, the “radish greens” of the French Breakfast Radish can also be eaten. Washed and tossed into a saucepan of olive oil (or avocado oil), garlic, and onion, this wilted green is a delicious accompaniment… (Source: French Breakfast Radish)

Whether wilted alone or mixed with spinach and shredded Swiss chard, these nutrient rich greens will improve your plate. And radish greens sautéed then puréed with cream (or nondairy alternative such as Macadamia milk) make a delicate soup as pretty as it is piquant.

These are the delights of radish time…

June 6, 2023
The Farm Backstory

As we hurtle toward completion of the icehouse rehab, I catch myself in barn reflection. Again. Yes, I consider the icehouse a barn. And, yes, migrating my books and artifacts and works in progress from a bedroom-turned-office (aka study/studio) in our home into the almost renovated icehouse is enthusing me beyond reason. It’s also catalyzing reverie and rumination into my farm backstory. Let’s dig a little deeper?

Undoubtedly my affinity for barns is rooted, albeit subconsciously at times, in early to mid 1970s recollections of a tumbledown farmstead tucked into a wooded holler in Cossayuna, New York.

The Farm in Cossayuna, New York (Painting: Louise Coldwell)

The painting above, made by my godmother, Louise Coldwell, has hung above my study/studio fireplace for the last 15 or so years. In this façade of the first home I remember, the two small windows at the top, right were my bedroom. Below my bedroom, the dining room. To the left of the entrance doorway, the living room. My parents bedroom was above the living room. I say, “the first time I remember”, but there were others. An apartment in Manhattan and another in Bronxville. Also, overlapping, a house in Glens Falls and another in Lake Placid. Itinerant years when my parents were still primarily living and working in New York City and then orchestrating a shift upstate. I’ll sit down with them to try and map out these years and lodgings. I muddle these memories in part to offset the fact that The Farm stands out for me. I’m not 100% certain why, but it is the first home the main impression on me, a home that still conjures poignant flashbacks.

Recently I’ve been sifting through memories and mementos of those few-but-formative years, and I’m coming to suspect that my association between barns — especially old, weathered, rural farm barns — and “home” (as well as “homing” and basically all matters related to “homeness”) is intrinsically rooted in my early childhood adventures at The Farm.

Omnipresent: OMC and The Farm (Photo: Geo Davis)

Note the painting, partially cropped, in the photograph above. For a decade and a half this is what I saw when sitting at my desk, if I turned away from Lake Champlain to look at the fireplace. And if you allow your eyes to drift down to the cluttered mantle above the fireplace, you’ll see a black-and-white photograph.

That’s me as a shaggy, bowl-cut youngster, with OMC, a family friend and neighbor when we were at The Farm. He was also my godfather and, in many respects, a surrogate grandfather. The initials stand for Old Man Coldwell, a nickname he used to sign the pottery he made (including the enormous bowl featured in this post: “Generosity of Friends: Lemons from Afar”).

Memories of The Farm and OMC overlap for me. Not always, but often. His presence and guidance, his physicality — apparent in this photograph — and his wonder-welling words. Our time together was guided by adventure. Riding an old tractor through a field to round up a cow that had gotten out. Riding an old tractor through a field to round up a cow that had gotten out. Walking to a distant meadow where he kept a rowboat and fishing rod ready on a pond bank. Squatting among strawberry bushes hunting for the largest, ripest fruit. Harvesting honey from a hive and eating it, thick and warm from a spoon. Massaging clay and squishing it through my fingers when he and my mother were potting…

At The Farm with OMC circa 1974-5

My parents’ friendship (and eventual falling out) with OMC remain intertwined with their memories of The Farm as well. I’ll inquire what if any memories they might share. Until then, I’ll loop back to the property itself.

My parents, living and working in New York City, had purchased an 1840s farmhouse on 85 acres in Greenwich, New York five months after getting married. I was born less than two years later. Although The Farm served primarily as a weekend getaway for the next five years, it dominates the geography of my earliest childhood. A stream of nostalgia gilded memories flow from this pastoral source: exploring the time-worn barns, absent livestock except for those conjured up by my energetic imagination and the swallows which darted in and out, building nests in the rafters, gliding like darts through dusty sunbeams; vegetable gardening with my mother; tending apple, pear and quince trees with my father; eating fresh rhubarb, strawberries and blackberries; discovering deer and raccoons and snakes and even a snapping turtle. (Source: The Farm)

Bucolic. Burnished, no doubt, by time’s spirited sentimentality.

I weave The Farm in Cossayuna (aka “The Farm“) into a conversation, a blog post, a social media update. Why? Not sure. Maybe the omnipresence of The Farm as a defining point of reference in my own life? (Source: Preservation by Neglect: The Farm in Cossayuna)

I’ve explored elsewhere the overlap between my lifelong fascination with barns (and barn vernacular) and my early memories at The Farm. The chicken or the egg? Which came first?

Woven into the earliest tapestries of my childhood are fond associations with barns. (Source: A Barnophile of Bygone Barns)

I wander my patchwork memory map and wonder, wandering, wondering, where is the margin mocked by tides and waves, the littoral boundary of fact and fiction, fluctuating with wind and moon? What was The Farm? And what have I imagined into it?

I inevitably distort history, omitting and abbreviating and emphasizing, distilling the vast landscape of data into vignettes. These accrete gradually, revealing the narrative design of my story. (Source: Remembering and Recounting)

Are these memories of The Farm in Cossayuna accurate? Reliable? Are they actually defining details in my life, reliable anchors tethering my current contemplation of homeness?

“Life is not what one lives, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it.” — Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Living to Tell the Tale (Source: Remembering and Recounting)

This rings true to me. We are our story. Our stories. And The Farm, embedded inextricably into my attraction to Rosslyn, has provided a sort of scaffolding for many of my homing initiatives since about 2005.

As I bring this meandering meditation to a close, it’s worth noting that I’ve shared images of The Farm over the years. Always the farmhouse, never the barns. Peculiar that I don’t have any images of the barns. I’m almost certain that I took a few photographs when I visited within the last decade, but I haven’t managed to put my fingers on them. I will keep looking, but in the meantime, I’ll ask my parents if they might have an old photograph or some other representation of the outbuildings at The Farm.

June 5, 2023
High Tunnel Tomato Plants, Take Two

High Tunnel Tomato Plants, Take One: Frost Damaged Tomato Plants, May 18, 2023 (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

Sometimes, when I’m trying to explain the many merits of gardening, I describe the cultivation of plants as a quasi-religious force in my life. Sincerely. Hyperbole? Perhaps, but there’s much in the practice of planting and sowing, cultivating and composting, even weeding and pruning and grafting that underpins my worldview, informs my optimism, and provides a circular and self sustaining system of belief and practice. What constitutes a religion is a debate for another blog. But tossing this into the mix may help contextualize the significant ache I was veiling in my recent High Tunnel Hubris post.

I tried to remain matter-of-fact, sidestepping the debilitating discouragement that sidelined me for a day or two after a severe frost shocked dozens of the plants that I’d helped transplant.

High Tunnel Tomato Plants, Take Two: Suckering Back to Life? (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

So… when we jumpstarted our spring starts in the high tunnel, I was fueled with fervor and faith. We’d have tomatoes by the end of June!

But a severe frost reminded us that BLTs and gazpacho aren’t a matter of pipe dreaming alone. Yes, nature humbles.

High Tunnel Tomato Plants, Take Two: Suckering Back to Life? (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

No blame, except my own optimism. I understood the stakes. I understood the risks. And I understood the consequences. Although the perspective is pretty bleak, at this point, I’m tentatively hopeful that some of the tomatoes may recover. If the soil was warm enough, the roots may remain vital. If a sucker shoots in, we can cultivate it into a new plant. The prospect, of course, for tomatillos is less good. But I’m not prepared to give up yet. The possibility of new growth might yet eclipse the discouraging dieback we’re now witnessing. After all, I’m not aware of anyone who has ever died of optimism! (Source: High Tunnel Hubris)

And so I fell back on optimism. Pollyanna optimism. We left the cold-shocked tomato plants in the ground. And little by little *some* regrowth has occurred. A minority, but an inspiring minority of our zapped tomato plants have rebounded, sending up new growth as “suckers” that we’re endeavoring to cultivate into new stems, new productive tomato plants.

High Tunnel Tomato Plants, Take Two: Suckering Back to Life? (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

It’s still early, as you can see in today’s photographs. They may endure. They may thrive. They may produce a robust tomato crop. Or, they may not. But we’re tending them. Loving them. Believing in them. We’re fertilizing these resilient tomato plants with optimism. If fortune so chooses, we’ll have learned from our hubris *AND* we’ll be able to celebrate our wisening with the sweet tangy sacrament of Black Krim and Green Zebra tomatoes!

June 4, 2023
Holistic Orcharding: Kaolin Clay

Holistic Orcharding: Kaolin Clay (Photo: Tony Foster)

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 from holistic orcharding guru, Michael Phillips.

We deal with two “petal-fall pests” in the eastern half of the United States… Plum curculio larvae get their start in a crescent-like scar the female weevil makes to prevent the growing fruitlet from crushing her egg; European apple sawfly larvae first scratch the surface of a pea-sized fruitlet, and then go on to eat the seeds in another three or four fruitlets… Those petal-fall pests… can be held effectively in check with a nontoxic white clay covering applied over the entire surface of the tree. The kaolin clay panicles confuse the insect adults and prove incredibly irritating… Application begins as the blossoms start to fall and needs to be thorough. It takes two or three initial sprays to build up a thick enough base to repel these insects. Renew the clay weekly for the next month. (Source: Holistic Orcharding: Michael Phillips)

Sure, spraying kaolin clay onto the trees creates a curious camouflage look, but it’s proven quite an effective deterrent.

Holistic Orcharding: Kaolin Clay (Photo: Tony Foster)

And, given that the alternative, fruit marred with plum curculio larvae and European apple sawfly larvae isn’t particularly pleasant, we’ve found that several coatings of white kaolin clay early in the fruiting season is a super solution.

Holistic Orcharding: Kaolin Clay (Photo: Tony Foster)

Thank you, Tony, for following up installation of the Tanglefoot wraps with round one of kaolin clay spraying. Round two as soon as the rain begins to diminish the white mottling…

June 1, 2023
Holistic Orcharding: Fruitful and Deer-full

Holistic Orcharding: June pears (Source: Geo Davis)

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

Holistic Orcharding: Mulberry fruit ripening in June (Source: Geo Davis)

Holistic Orcharding: Mulberry fruit ripening in June (Source: Geo Davis)

Those bright red mulberry will darken as they soak up sun and begin to sweeten. They’re still pretty mealy (though the birds don’t seem to mind at all!)

The photograph at the top of this post shows a couple of small pears. A couple of pear trees set a pear or two last summer, but they dropped (or were eaten by critters) before I ever tasted them. Most of the pear tress are still fruitless, but a couple small green and red fruit are looking promising.

Holistic Orcharding: Young peaches in June (Source: Geo Davis)

For the first, our peach trees are setting fruit. Heavy winds and rains have resulted in steady fruit drop, but I’m guardedly optimistic that we may actually be able to sink out teeth into a few fuzzy, nectar-sweet peaches soon.

The peaches are the most fruitful of all the trees at this point. In fact, a couple of trees are so laden that I’ll probably begin thinning fruit as they grow larger, culling the runts and least healthy fruit and leaving the best.

The photo below on the left offers a wider perspective on a fruitful peach, and the photo on the right shows a young and almost equally fruitful nectarine tree.

Holistic Orcharding: Young peaches in June (Source: Geo Davis)

Holistic Orcharding: Young nectarines in June (Source: Geo Davis)

The three nectarine trees are 3-4 years younger than the peaches, so I’m curious why two of them are already setting fruit. The third nectarine tree has never been very healthy. Dwarfish and sparsely branched, leafed, I’ll try for one more summer to help it along. If it doesn’t begin to catch up, I’ll consider replacing it next year.

Like the apricot that I replaced this year…

Holistic Orcharding: Transplanted apricot tree (Source: Geo Davis)

We’ve struggled with apricots. Few of our apricot trees are thriving, and one died last year. We replaced it this spring with the Goldicot Apricot above, the only variety that seems to be adapting well. I can report good new growth so far on the transplant, but another apricot has died. Both are lowest (and wettest) on the hill, so I plan to address the drainage this fall. Perhaps the heavy clay soil and high spring water table is simply to much for the apricots to withstand.

Deer-full Orchard

Unfortunately it’s not all good news in the orchard. We remain committed to our 100% holistic orcharding (thanks, Michael Phillips!) mission, but we’re still playing defense with Cedar Apple Rust and other pesky challenges. I’ll update on that soon enough, but there’s another frustrating pest that provoked my frustration yesterday.

Holistic Orcharding: Apple tree browsed by deer (Source: Geo Davis)

Can you see the munched leaves and branches?

Holistic Orcharding: Apple tree browsed by deer (Source: Geo Davis)

Another munched branch (and early signs of Cedar Apple Rust).

Holistic Orcharding: Apple tree browsed by deer (Source: Geo Davis)

Ive you look just below center of this photograph you’ll see where a large branch has been snapped right off. It was laying on the ground below. Also plenty of smaller branches and leaves chewed.

The two apple trees which were targeted by the deer were planted last spring. They’d both established relatively well, but they were short enough to offer an easy snack. We keep the trees caged during the fall-through-spring, but we had just recently removed the cages to begin pruning and spreading limbs (see red spreader in image above?), so the trees were easy targets.

And there’s worse news.

Holistic Orcharding: Young persimmon tree browsed by deer (Source: Geo Davis)

That’s a young persimmon tree that we just planted a couple of weeks ago. It was a replacement for a persimmon that arrived dead from the nursery last year (another drama for another day…)

Not only did the deer browse the persimmon, but it ate both leads, presenting a serious hurdle for this transplant. Not a good situation. I’ll pamper this youngster in the hopes that one of these blunted leads will send up another lead, or—more likely, but far from guaranteed—a fresh new lead will bud and head skyward. Fingers crossed.

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June 22, 2017
Organic Orcharding
Apple Blossom, Spring 2016

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 successful orchard requires, requires, pesticides and fungicides; that neighboring fruit tree growers will consider my bad judgment not only an ill-informed mistake but a dangerous threat to their own trees.

Apple Blossom, Spring 2016

I’ve soldiered on, resolved to make Rosslyn a toxin-free, organic, healthy environment. I’ve poured over alternative gardening, lawn maintenance and orcharding resources. And I’ve experimented. Sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully. The orchard alone has required about a 5-10% replant rate over the last 3+ years. Which is discouraging. And frustrating. But it’s also remarkable that most of the trees have survived and thrived!

But I am slightly evolving in my thinking. Less dogmatic. More informed. And my black and white “Pesticides: No Way, No How” line in the sand is yielding to alternative, non-toxic, but considerably more proactive approaches to fruit tree growing. (Much credit is due to Michael Phillips (Grow Organic Apples: Holistic Orchard Network) among other holistic orchard mentors. Thanks, Sir Phillips!)

Last summer I added three new “tools” to my orcharding, and I’m going to focus on each of the three in separate posts in order to keep the topics focused and useful to others exploring the realm of healthy, non-toxic fruit tree propagation. Here are the three:
- Tanglefoot: How to Use Tanglefoot
- Neem Oil
- Kaolin Clay
Organic Plum Trees in Bloom, Spring 2016
June 1, 2016
Holistic Orcharding: Michael Phillips

The Holistic Orchard: Tree Fruits and Berries the Biological Way, by 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 uninitiated, Michael Phillips is the owner (along with his wife, Nancy, and their daughter, Gracie), steward, and chronicler of Lost Nation Orchard in New Hampshire. His book, The Holistic Orchard, is the bible for organic apple growers. Here’s a trailer for the companion DVD, Holistic Orcharding.

The book is outstanding. As is The Apple Grower: A Guide for the Organic Orchardist. And I’d also recommend this YouTube playlist of Michael Phillips’ organic orcharding videos.

Holistic Orcharding Tips

Whether or not “Organic Apple Growing: Advice From Michael Phillips“, the article in Mother Earth News, was my introduction to Michael Phillips’ ideas about holistic orcharding, there are some great takeaways that I’ll highlight here:

Q: How big of a hole do I need to dig for planting a tree?
A: The size of the tree hole needs to be large enough to accommodate the roots without bending them. A 3-foot diameter hole generally fits the bill. (Source: MOTHER EARTH NEWS)

Q: A friend told me I should buy a mycorrhizal product to boost the growth of my trees. Does such a product have any worth?
A: Plants have developed an incredible symbiotic relationship with certain fungi to help get nutrients from the soil, as well as to ward off pathogenic organisms. An apple tree has specific mycorrhizae that interact with its roots in the humus layer in these ways. You can inoculate your soil by finding a healthy wild tree and then bringing a few scoops of the soil beneath its branches back to your ground. Ecosystems adapt to the needs at hand without our necessarily having to buy a packaged product. (Source: MOTHER EARTH NEWS)

Q: Some bug is tunneling into a lot of my fruit when it’s just the size of a nickel. What’s up?
A: We deal with two “petal-fall pests” in the eastern half of the United States that easily could be your culprits. Plum curculio larvae get their start in a crescent-like scar the female weevil makes to prevent the growing fruitlet from crushing her egg; European apple sawfly larvae first scratch the surface of a pea-sized fruitlet, and then go on to eat the seeds in another three or four fruitlets. (Source: MOTHER EARTH NEWS)

Q: What’s up with the new kaolin clay spray?
A: Those petal-fall pests identified above can be held effectively in check with a nontoxic white clay covering applied over the entire surface of the tree. The kaolin clay panicles confuse the insect adults and prove incredibly irritating… Application begins as the blossoms start to fall and needs to be thorough. It takes two or three initial sprays to build up a thick enough base to repel these insects. Renew the clay weekly for the next month. (Source: MOTHER EARTH NEWS)

Q: Why did my grandparents hang open jugs of vinegar and molasses out in the orchard?
A: Such homegrown traps usually target adult fruit moths such as the codling moth. Unfortunately, all sons of bugs end up drowning in this brew, some of which might have been beneficial allies. I prefer to control codlings moths with well-timed sprays of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a biological pesticide stomach-specific to caterpillars. Others have had some success wrapping corrugated cardboard around the trunk of the tree, where the larvae crawl to continue their development. Then at the end of the summer, the cardboard is removed and burned. (Source: MOTHER EARTH NEWS)

Q: When do I hang those red sticky ball traps?
A: Apple maggot flies (AMF) are the culprits drawn to these effective traps. The new generation emerges from the soil beginning in late June, with females seeking fruit in which to lay eggs throughout July and August. The sticky balls mimic the best apple to be found in the orchard. The female alights on the trap and stays put because of a layer of sticky goo called “Tangletrap” covering the red sphere… Two to four traps per tree generally suffice to keep AMF larvae from ruining a good harvest. I set out traps on early maturing varieties by the first of July, then scrape off the dead flies and renew the sticky material when moving the traps to later-maturing varieties in early August. (Source: MOTHER EARTH NEWS)

Books by Michael Phillips

The Holistic Orchard, by Michael Phillips

The Apple Grower by Michael Phillips

The Herbalist’s Way, by Nancy and Michael Phillips

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July 14, 2016
Home is Wherever I’m with You

Sailing in San Diego, April 27, 2023 (Photo: Richard Darmanin)

Homecoming! After a week in the Gila Wilderness with John Davis and other Rewilding friends I’m reunited with my beautiful bride. The photo above has *almost* nothing to do with my backcountry adventures in the middle of 3 million acres of New Mexico wilderness. That image was taken about a month ago when Susan and I were sailing in San Diego. The common denominator? “Home is wherever I’m with you…”

Instead of getting tangled up in words and thoughts about homecoming, today’s post will lean into the lyrics of the song “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros… “from Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros’ debut album ‘Up From Below’…”

Oh, home, let me come home
Home is wherever I’m with you
Oh, home, let me come home
Home is wherever I’m with you

Sometimes it takes being away from home to identify “homeness”. I’ve been meditating on this question of what makes a house a home for a looong time. And I’m not ready to offer a definitive answer yet. But juxtaposing glimpses — one above, and the other in my unplugged memories of six days and nights in the Gila — reminds me that a BIG piece of the puzzle is Susan. Home is wherever I’m with you!

If you don’t know this catchy song by by Alexander Ebert and Jade Allyson Castrinos, here’s the full adventure.

“Home” is a song written and recorded by American group Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. It was released in January 2010 as the second single from the album, Up from Below… The song is a duet between Alex Ebert and Jade Castrinos, with portions of spoken word from both. (Source: Wikipedia)

A quick post for a contemplative homecoming. Ideas percolating…

May 30, 2023
Artichoke Time Prequel

Just as there’s a time for asparagus (and tulips and dandelions and radishes and maple syrup and…) there’s a time for artichokes. As it’s only just beginning, today’s post is more of a prelude, an artichoke time prequel.

Artichokes Ready to Transplant (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

Look at those healthy artichoke starts ready to transplant into Rosslyn’s garden! We were actually ready a week ago, but the damaging cold snap tempered are enthusiasm. So we post plowing to our planting until we know that temperate weather is here to stay.

Artichokes Ready to Transplant (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

At this point, we’re probably safe, but if you more days of delay, can’t hurt. We’re still crossing our fingers and waiting to see if any of the frosted tomato plants recover, so at this point, we’re experiencing the gardener-equivalent of “gun shy”, I guess.

Once these beautiful thistles are thriving in the ground, I will post an update. And then, the next magical moment will be the formation of the chokes!

May 29, 2023