Suquamish, WA - 9 Jun 2024
Yesterday was a hot one. Many folks complain, but when it gets like this I am in my element. My comfortable sits at around 80 degrees and if the sun is out that is an extra bonus. The best part, those hot days make for warm mornings which make cycling all the more wonderful.
Another plus with the sun and the heat is the garden. I do not have a green thumb and need all the help I can muster when it comes to that little bed where I grow my vegetables. Right now most things seem to be stunted. They are growing, but at a slow rate. I think they may be lacking nutrients. I really don't know how to remedy that other than to find a way to introduce more organic material. My neighbor keeps chickens so there is no shortage of that. I may have to do some collecting.
Some things, however, are going very well. The Romaine lettuce is huge and if I don't do something with it soon it will bolt and go to seed. Not a good thing. When that happens the plant takes all its energy and puts it toward seed production and not leaf growth. The Swiss chard is going well too and I am one who does well with a plate of greens, so that makes me happy too. But the one plant that has me grinning like Mr Sardonicus is the little apple tree I planted many years ago.
When I planted the tree it was no more than a sapling. Not unlike Charlie Brown's Christmas tree it was a spindly thing with no real branches. I stuck it in the ground on a lark to see what would happen. What happened is that the little shoot struggled. It was a hard life.
Like most trees, the first years are the hard years. They compete with other nearby plants for water and nutrients. Being the new kid on the block, the effort is hard and getting es-tablished in the neighborhood takes persistence. But, persist it did and in several years it began to grow and produce branches. It was still small at about a foot and a half, but it looked more like a tree than a twig. Then it blossomed. I thought we would have something.
Another season or two passed and the tree was looking like a tree. I figured it was a matter of time before I might see fruit. Then the plague hit. The year of the caterpillar was upon us. Every so often Nature throws us a curveball and we are overrun with the little crawly things. Not bunches, not hundreds, but virtually millions upon millions of the fuzzy brown wormy things carpeting the land. You could actually see them crossing roads on some days in a mass march to wherever it is they were going. As they make their way across the area they move into trees and consume every scrap of leaf before moving into their dormant stage before becoming moths. Unfortunately, they only seem to be interested in the flowering trees so the pear, cherry, plum and sadly apple trees are at their mercy.
The big trees I can save with a rather severe haircut. I climb up into the trees, saw in hand and mercilessly remove the branches, leaving just enough behind to ensure new growth in the spring. But the little apple tree can't stand that treatment. In this case, I have to physically remove all the caterpillars by hand. That is not as easy as it sounds because they will literally reappear as fast as I can remove them. It seems there are reserve troops that will march in to replace them. After many hours the job is done. I set up barriers to keep any future attacks averted and then trim off what I can leaving enough to make for another growth to take over in the spring.
I was fortunate. Spring brought new life into the little tree and it managed to get itself going again with new branches and ultimately blossoms. Here we go again - or so I thought. The folks who live adjacent to us got a fancy riding lawn mower and decided to be neighborly and cit the grass in our yard. I am not one to refuse a kind gesture. Turns out that neighbor Charley like riding on machinery and continued to keep our grass under control and that saved me having to do it. Cutting the grass is an all day affair and it was nice to have the time for other things. Unfortunately, Charley doesn't see very well and one year he rode his mover right over the struggling little tree. Disaster.
Fortunately, hardwood trees are mighty hardy and since our little apple tree was now established, as small as it was, I chose to leave it and see if Nature could breathe a second life into it. It did. The little soldier met muster and came back with vengeance and determination. In a season it had returned to its now two foot high stature and threw out more branches and leaves. It also sent a load of little sucker branches up in an effort to stay alive. Suckers grow well, but sap the tree of energy. They are a survival mechanism.
It was years before I saw any potential in this tree. Last year, my wife decided to set up little island like plots around the yard and put in ornamental plants. It really spruces up the landscape and in her efforts, built a nice little oasis for the apple tree. It had a new home with a solid, mower proof barrier around it. I pruned it down to a single trunk and soon it was looking like a tree again. The season went by and the tree went dormant for the winter.
This year's spring came with lots of rain and sun and that got everything growing as if it was the last season on Earth. The tree flourished and bloomed. As a special bonus we got a load of bees through early in the spring and they stayed doing what bees do best, pollinating. Trees need those busy bees to procreate. Mother Nature was kind to us and not only do we have lots of lettuce and greens, but we have dozens of little red orbs swelling and filling the little apple tree with a mass of fruit.
I will make a deal with the deer to be kind and spare some of that fruit for us to enjoy in the fall while our little soldier proliferates and conquers its assailants.
Keep on truckin'
-Mike