Applejack Order

Last weekend, I spent a few hours finishing up the rest of my fall garden chores.  The day was sunny but cool;  it was lovely to be outside and at work among the plants.  I've decided not to till my garden under this fall and will instead experiment with composting in place.  Come spring, I will till up the garden patch, add more organic compost and then till it again.   I use most of my leaves as mulch and many of them have been raked into the garden; I'll add some more later this month.  Rain is forecast for today, soon we'll have some snow and it won't take long before those leaves are a nice layer of rich compost enriching the soil in my garden. 

My canna bulbs have been dug up and set to dry.  This weekend, I'll wrap them up for the winter and store them in the basement.  The box pictured below was half full of bulbs when I planted in the spring.  Their doubled size tells me that the growing season was obviously good to them.

Like the rest of the trees in my neighborhood, the apple trees have lost the last of their leaves and are now ready for the coming cold season.  I find this point in the garden year a little bittersweet.  The growing season is over and the cold has yet to fully descend.  I'm months away from the green shoots of spring. 

And so I remind myself that this season must have its allotted time.  My garden catalogs have already arrived.  As usual, there are abundant zinnia seeds for me to dream about.  I hear tale that Santa will bring me some new gardening gloves.  Next fall I can expect a real apple and pear harvest.  All of these things are well worth the wait.

Today is the last of the apple tree photos on the first of the month.  Though they will certainly make occasional appearances, next year I plan to feature a new plant to start the first day of the month.

November 1st: Apple Cheeks

In early October, when a spate of cooler wet weather arrived, I put some grass seed down in the front yard.  Portions of the lawn had been trampled down to mud by a certain young man.  The summer drought and heat made the circumstances worse.  So the turf management team (me) declared the lawn off-limits while I worked on getting some new grass to grow and fill in the bare patches in the lawn.

JT loves to play outside and the front yard is his favorite play territory.  My announcement that the front yard was now off-limits was greeted with unhappiness.  He stomped about complaining for two days, at one point sitting sullenly in the living room making an effort to look crushed every time I walked by and happened to glance at him.

I love that he plays outside and didn't want to discourage that impulse.  But neither did I want to live in a house with a mud hole for a front yard.  In the meantime, there was an entire backyard where he could play.  The turf manager was resolute. 

Within two days, he realized that my will was stronger than his whining.  He took up his sticks and set out for the backyard.  He's been playing there ever since.  Twice last week I looked outside to see him running around trying to catch falling leaves.  That's a game with far more value than anything he could find on a computer.  I'm very glad that he's still outside, running around and coming back inside with sweet apple cheeks glowing with the enthusiasm of play and his imaginary games. 

The apple trees are happy to have a backyard companion.  Their leaves have begun to turn, another sign that summer has come to an end.  The final canna bulb has bloomed.  The last of my garden produce has been pulled up (pictures of that later this week), and I've started to plant some bulbs for the spring. 

In the quiet of the cool nights as I lie in bed under my quilts, I can hear the breezes rustle the remaining fall leaves.  It won't be long before I'll be raking up those leaves to mulch my garden for the winter.  And even then I'll be thinking ahead to the next season, and the prospect of some apples from my trees to pack in our lunchboxes.

Apple Update

After the summer's heat and drought, the month of September ended on a very wet note.  Yesterday, there were nearly three inches of rain in my neighborhood.  More is forecast for today.  The backyard lawn is growing like it's spring.  And my fruit trees are still dark green.

I know that the swampy warmth and rain won't last forever.  In fact, a close look reveals the start of fall color on the fruit trees.  Soon enough the cold mornings will linger and the trees will shed their leaves.  But for as long as it lasts, I'll enjoy the lush green of my backyard.

September 1st: Apple Pie Order

A normal summer would find me mowing the grass every week.  But this summer's high temperatures and dry skies weren't normal so the mower sat idle for all of July and most of August.  Last week, Mother Nature saw fit to help the grass grow again and so she sent some rain our way.  I fired up my slightly cranky 10 year old mower for another tour of duty in the backyard.

The fruit trees have endured the hard summer with greater ease than some of the other plants in the garden.  The summer's heat has meant that the trees have had to sink some deep roots to get the nourishment they need.  Fortunately, they are planted in the back of the yard, near the garden.  While the rest of the lawn suffered from the lack of rain, I always made sure that the garden was getting the water it needed.

There is no apple or pear harvest in my backyard this fall ----- the trees are still a bit young for that.  But gardens are all about promise and prospects.  They are a lesson in the virtue of patience.  I can wait.

It's On

I was down to just one apple on the trees, a perfectly reasonable development for my young fruit trees.  Though I figured I'd have to share with JT, I was looking forward to eating the apple come harvest season.  Then Pesky the Squirrel beat me to the punch.  I probably could have stood losing the apple to the garden wildlife staff; these things happen.  Bet Pesky didn't just eat the apple.  He ate it and then left the core where he could be sure that I would find it. 

Hear me now, Pesky:  You may have won this round but I have opposable thumbs and  I'm looking into weaponry.  Don't rest too comfortably.

August 1st: Upsetting the Applecart

I missed my regular apple tree posting on July 1st because I was in Alaska (I so love being able to write that), but I'm back on track now.  I had nearly a dozen apples on the trees earlier this spring, but the master gardener (hi Dad!) warned me that the trees wouldn't be ready to handle it, so I culled the crop per his instructions.

The bunnies and other backyard wildlife staff took care of the rest and I am now down to just one apple.  That's okay, because the trees are still toddlers and they need time to mature before I can turn my backyard into my personal you-pick farm.

In the meantime, things in the garden are coming along fairly well, especially taking into account the summer's heat.  I've only watered the garden, so the back half of the backyard looks great while the rest of the lawn struggles (e.g., cuts down on my mowing chores).  In the photo below, you can see the sun-burned hostas to the left; it's been an awfully hot, dry summer.

The cannas planted in full sun are looking impressive.  The tomatoes look promising.  There are fresh garden flowers in the house.  I'm just a few days away from enjoying fresh tomatoes.  My garden overfloweth.

How 'bout them Apples?

The other night, JT and I headed out back to check the emerging apples on our trees.  There are more than 2 dozen apples on my young trees, enough for a pie with some lunchbox apples left over.

Word from my Dad gardening guru is that some of the apples on these branches should be trimmed.  The trees are just two years old and too heavy a crop could damage the branches.  The rule-of-thumb for a dwarf fruit tree this young is one piece of fruit every 6 inches.  So later this week, I'll remove some apples.  But that will still leave enough to harvest a pie. 

In other garden news, the primrose is suddenly quite lovely. 

JT and his 4 year old fan Miss G, had a turn in the sprinkler this weekend, a prelude of the days ahead.

 Within the week, I will be able to be in the garden every morning. I'm looking forward to weeding and mulching, pruning and clipping, and all the other ways that I care for the garden, feeding my soul as I grow beautiful things.

The Apple of My Eye

Usually, I post photos of my apple trees on the 1st of each month.  I did get the photos made, but it was a whirlwind of a weekend and it's taken until now to get them posted. 

Between Little League, cutting the grass, planting the garden, and getting ready for the bathroom demolition that starts today (more on that later this week), things have been just a tad hectic at Sassafras House.

But the trees, they are green and lovely; lush like the rest of the backyard, and in terrific health.  Things in the back of the yard are so green that it's hard to see the trees at all.  They are the gatekeepers to my enlarged garden patch (another weekend project) and they are enjoying the recent spell of warmth.

Lovely.

April 1st: Apple Dapple

Things are look quite promising out here in apple tree land.  The buds on the trees and the light in back yard is particularly lovely to look at in the morning as the sun comes up.

That would be when the sun comes up......rain and flooding has been the theme around here for the last month and my backyard, which has never before had standing water, had plenty of standing water for nearly the whole of the month. 

I'm ready to put down some extra grass seed and a bit of turf builder for the lawn.  But that requires a 48 hour period with above-freezing temps and no rain.  Insert your own hollow laughter here.  Thankfully, a long weekend beckons and sun is forecast.  I'll be out here every spare moment and though I can't quite eat apples from my trees just yet, the sun and the warmth, the buds and the green.....they will feed my soul.

Forbidden Fruit

We had a cold and very snowy February.  For almost half of the month, there was so much snow in the backyard that I couldn't easily get to the compost heap, let alone the apple trees that stand in a line at the back of the yard. 

I don't worry about that; there aren't many garden chores in this season.  All living things require rest to face the demands of the growing season and a dormant winter provides that rest.  But I have grown accustomed to frequent winter walks through my quiet backyard for the opportunity to daydream about the things I will plant in the spring.

My garden stockpile from the fall is nearly exhausted.  The local market's store of fall apples is considerably shrunken.  All of this is more bearable come March, when the cold dark days begin to yield to days with temperatures in the 40s, then the 50s, and soon enough day after day in the 60s.  When that happens, these trees will come alive, with tiny green buds and the prospect of apples and pears. 

But at the moment, with cold snow on the ground, it seems so unlikely that I will have buds of prospective fruit in this garden.  So I remind myself that there is a season for every growing thing.  And a patient gardener will eventually be rewarded.

Apple Dreams

We had a particularly cold January and the only warmth to be found is from cuddling up with garden catalogs in my flannel nest at night.  Despite the cold, I'm out in garden every few days to empty my kitchen composter.  When I'm there,  I stand by my stark and slender-limbed fruit trees and think about all the things I'll plant this spring and pick later this summer.  The warm days that the seeds will require seems like a fantasy here in the midst of the silently cold winter. 

Things don't look promising at the moment.  But my seed order will be placed later this week.  The sunlight lasts just a bit longer every day.  And I remind myself that the cold can't last forever.

January 1, 2010: Year of the Apple

For the past couple of years, the blog entry for the first of the month has featured a picture of something in my yard.  In 2008, that was the big tree in my backyard.  Last year, on the 1st day of the month, I took a photo of the hosta bed by my garage and garden.  It's the first of the month in a new year, and it's time for a new garden photo collection to get started. 

In the early spring of 2008, I arrived home one afternoon to find three Stark Brothers dwarf fruit trees on my front porch.  For as long as I can remember, my father has planted this style of fruit trees in his backyard.  And now he'd sent some to me; it was my turn.  JT and I planted the trees, pruned them, and then kept careful watch.

A dwarf tree is carefully grafted to ensure that the tree won't get much larger than 12 feet.  The tree will stay smaller, ensuring that it can be easily harvested and that gardeners won't be overwhelmed with produce.  A dwarf tree takes 2 to 3 years to reach full-production (regular size trees usually take 4 to 6 years to mature into full production capacity).  Typically, the dwarf apple harvest comes in late-August and early September.  I planted two apple trees with a pear tree in between; the pear will help with pollination of the apples.

My trees were a year old when they arrived, so I didn't anticipate any harvest in the fall of 2008.  Last fall, one of the apple trees yielded a tiny harvest of two apples.  This fall, I can expect a more fruitful yield.  And with that in mind, 2010 will be the year of the apple (with some gratuitous pear tree shots thrown in).

Seen here, the trees have only recently lost all of their leaves.  They look bare but  I know they are sturdy.  They've got some winter mulch protection around their base because it looks good, but they are plenty hardy.  I took this photo at twilight, my favorite time of the winter day, and I now think a daylight photo would have been much better.  Tune in on the 1st of each month this year to see how my apple farming efforts  are coming along.