August 14 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today Laura was here for the day, weeding in the Finley Lane orchard and the BRC. The orchards here require weeding almost daily all spring and summer. I went on a mission to Portland to visit the “Suite Eleven” tree in-town Portland and an ancient tree in Falmouth. The Falmouth tree should be DNA profiled and phenotyped to see if we can identify it. It is a great find. These are the vintage trees we’re looking for: hollow and nearly dead. They are the most likely candidates for being of historic value. Keep on the look-out for them, and if you see one, let us know.

The Falmouth “Deena” tree, August 14, 2024

August 13, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today Laura and I worked in the orchards. Laura cleared one of the paths in the “BRC” orchard.  The paths have been narrowing over the past few weeks. Without some attention we might not have been able to get to the chicken coop, let alone the apple trees.  It’s great to have lots of “companions” in the orchard—we encourage them—but you still need access! Later we worked together weeding and applying Neem oil to the trunks of the young trees in our neighbor Haskells orchard. That orchard is old but includes about 40 young trees we’ve provided to them over the years. The first of those—a Wolf River—is fruiting for the first time.  

August 12, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Clethra alnifolia

One of my favorite woody perennials is now in full bloom, Clethra alnifolia (coastal sweetpepperbush or summer sweet). We grow the pink flowering Ruby Spice but the common white flowering Clethra is just as fine a plant. Though it does not appear to spread from seed, it does spread from root suckers, and one small plant can spread to ten-fifteen across in ten years. It’s not tall. Our oldest plant is about four-five feet. Clethra is super attractive to bees and butterflies. Tonight at 7:00 there were still several bumblebees buzzing from flower to flower.

August 11, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today a quick word about Maine Apple Camp. It’s the event you should attend this summer if you’re reading this orchard report. It’s two days of fun, apples and people, the best combination in the world. Designed for experts, beginners and everyone in between. Open to all ages from 1 day to 1 century. Bring your friends, bring your family, bring your neighbors. If you love apples, come join us.  For more information and registration, go to the link below. And, if you’d like to listen to my 2023 Apple Camp keynote, go to the second link.

Maine Apple Camp registration 

John Bunker’s 2023 NY Apple Camp keynote

August 10, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Hayes picking blackberries - and eating them too

We had another 1.5” of rain in the past two nights - the Earth is well-hydrated. Blackberry season has now begun. In the orchard we call the BRC (Breathe, Rest, Center?) we have allowed the wild blackberries to have partially free-reign. Where they interfere with access to the apple trees, we cut the canes to the ground and let the snipped-off plants rot into compost. We have at least two distinct blackberry species. Our most prolific is the Common Blackberry (Rubus allegheniensis) which grows throughout the orchard. We also have what I assume is Dewberry (Rubus flagellaris). The fruit on both is black in color and relatively similar in shape. The Common Blackberry grows on long arching canes, while the Dewberry grows on a trailing vine. The porcupines love them, and you can often see signs of porcupine in our larger blackberry patches; the vines will be trampled and most of the fruit will be gone. Cammy and Hayes were out there picking blackberries today for an amazing dessert they concocted for dinner. 

August 9, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Bunk’s “Nearing style” compost heaps

I was interviewed for an apple article recently by an old friend I haven’t seen in years. One of her questions was about mentors. I was fortunate to have several. One of them was Scott Nearing. Although I never had a personal conversation with him, I did hear him speak several times in the 1970’s and early ’80’s. He was an amazing speaker as well as a pacifist, radical thinker and farmer. Just what we need more of! He wrote dozens of books about economics and political history and also about homesteading. The Establishment alternately dismissed or hated him, depending on how correct he was. He and Helen were instrumental in my early move to “the land” in Palermo. I visited their farm in Cape Rosier three times and did my best to study everything they did. Every time I build a new compost pile, I think of them. I loved their “heaps”, and ours are a direct steal. All our stone work, including our garden wall, is also a Nearing steal. Their book, Living the Good Life, is a classic as is his autobiography, The Making of a Radical.  I mention him today because I think of him on August 6 and 9 every year. The Atomic Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on his 52nd birthday—79 years ago. Nagasaki was three days later on the 9th. Let’s hope that never happens again.

August 8, 2024

Eupatorium in bloom

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

I’m always looking for herbaceous perennials that will form seedling populations in the orchards. Sunflowers, dill and poppies reseed in the vegetable garden with a vengeance. None of them have yet moved into the orchard. They may be too fond of open soil. Monarda (bee balm) and nettles, however, do not require open soil and have established themselves throughout our orchards without any help from us other than to set in a few plants. Another herbaceous perennial I love is the native Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum). I put in a couple of plants a few years ago, and it’s beginning to spread. It’s flowering right now. While not nearly as showy as Monarda and Goldenrod, it is a really cool plant. The blue-green leaves are long and pointed. The flowers are off-white. What it contributes to the balanced orchard ecosystem remains to be seen although the bees seem to love it.  

August 7, 2024

Buckwheat cover crop coming up after four days

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Didn’t get out into the orchards until 7 PM today, but I was immediately reminded that evening is the perfect time to be out with the trees in early August. The light is magical, and the temperature is cooling off but warm enough for short sleeves. The Bee Balm is still a massive bloom though it is beginning to wane, while the Golden Rod is approaching its peak. In the Finley Lane orchard it’s an ocean of pink and yellow. The Boneset is also reaching its peak. The buckwheat we planted four days ago is already up and covering what was the garlic bed. Everything is growing like crazy. I harvested the small crop of Tetofsky, the third apple to ripen. Those will go into sauce in the next couple of days.

August 6, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

This morning we ate the first apple sauce of the season made from Duchess drops. Tart but delicious. A big crew, including two of our grandchildren, descended on the larger hoop-house and picked a bucket of hornworms off the tomatoes. All agreed they are disgusting. Laura worked in the “Jurassic Park” BRC orchard, clearing path edges and mulching young trees with the trimmings. We also cut Gracious, Grenville, Hanska and Pembina plum budwood for Seth Yentes of North Branch Farm who will bud graft plums for Fedco. Budwood is the same new wood as winter-cut scionwood but is actively growing and therefore quite tender. We immediately snip off the foliage, leaving the petiole (leaf stem) and then put it in a cooler.  Unlike dormant scionwood, it doesn’t keep long so it must be grafted as soon as possible after cutting.

Plum budwood

August 5, 2024

“Olde fashioned” apple picking basket with first of the season Duchess drops

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today the rain came late in the evening in the form of two rolling thunderstorms, totaling a half inch. Conditions were fairly pleasant all day. We collected the Duchess drops, composted the funky ones and saved the good ones for tomorrow’s sauce.  Now is the time to check your summer apples daily. You can blink twice, and they’ll all be gone. We had a small plum crop this year, but a few trees have decent fruit. The oldest Purple Heart tree has a lot of plums which should be ready any day. It is outstanding fresh. 

August 3, 2024

First Yellow Transparent of the season, hand courtesy of Laura Sieger.

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Today’s weather pattern seems to be becoming the standard for the season: rain early for a couple of hours, followed by warm, humid and partly cloudy. During the rain, I showed Alyssa how to use my identification key, and she was able to identify the Yellow Transparents that ripened a few days ago. The key has its challenges, and it’s currently undergoing a major revision, but it has been a huge help in doing hundreds of ID’s over the years.

Once the rain clouds left, we weeded in the nursery and planted a cover crop of buckwheat in the recently harvested garlic beds. The cover crop protects the bare soil and adds nutrients for next year.  Everyone—even Big Ag—seems to agree that bare soil doesn’t do anyone any good.

We also began a log-building project today. We cut two hemlocks and peeled them with our bark spuds—the bark is still slipping nicely—and then set up the basic framework for what will be an addition to one of the cabins on the farm. Living in a clearing carved out of the forest, we are surrounded with an excellent source of logs for building. We also have a grade A supply of firewood, trellis material, tool handles, bean poles, garden stakes, pea-fence material and, of course, endless compost poles. We also get to breathe a blend of air, brought to us every morning by the hemlock trees as well as the pine, spruce, fir, maple, oak, beech, birch and, of course, a whole lot of apple trees. Not only is blended cider delicious, blended air is the best. Oh those blends!

August 2, 2024

The garlic crew harvesting this year’s crop

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Finally we had a sunny day so we could harvest the garlic and the wheat. The wheat could have been cut a week ago, but we’ve been getting rain nearly every day, and we need dry weather.  So five of us dashed up to Finley Lane and harvested both. We brought in an expert crew from Colorado to help us. The garlic looks great. The wheat is beautiful. 

July 31, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

I gave a long tour of the orchards to an old friend and her husband who traveled to Maine from California. Marcia was my fifth-grade girlfriend in 1962, sixty-two years ago. Neither of us has changed a bit! Cammy and I had visited her and her husband, John, years ago on a trip out west. It was fun to see them again. Fortunately the orchards and nursery look beautiful at the moment, although the BRC looks about as mind-bogglingly jungle-esque as ever.  The fireblight is gone (Hooray!), and there is enough fruit in strategic locations so that the light crop looks heavier than it really is. Sometimes it feels like we should be working in the orchards, not giving tours. But, why not? If we’re going to change the world, we need to take time to give presentations and show folks around when they come to visit. Plus, it gives us a chance to see what better get done tomorrow.

Other big news today: the first perfectly ripe apple dropped two days ago. Can you guess what it was? The summer apples are coming.

Bunk and friend Marcia by the grape arbor

July 30, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Night time spraying Hewe's Virginia Crab at Finley Lane

Today Laura cut fireblight out of the orchards down around the farm. Although most trees were spared, a few have gotten hit pretty hard; and after the cutting, they looked grim. It was a tough to do, but it had to be done.  There’s more fire blight to cut out, but hopefully the worst is over.

In the evening we sprayed the fruiting trees on the farm and up at Finley Lane with “Monterey Garden Spray.” MGS is a spinosad which is derived from soil bacteria and is toxic to many insects including Apple Maggot Fly (Rhagoletis pomonella) - aka Railroad Worm - which appears in the orchard in July and can do a lot of damage to the fruit. The commercial name for the spray is Entrust. It is a powerful tool for the organic orchardist, and it must be used with great caution because it is toxic to bees. We use it sparingly for that reason and don’t begin to spray until after the bees have retired for the evening. Last night we finished spraying at 9:00.  It was tricky spraying the last trees in near-total darkness.  

July 29, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Ancient Baldwin tree on Mount Desert Island

Today I took a drive downeast to Mt. Desert Island (MDI) where I gave a noon-time talk to a group in Bar Harbor, followed by a visit to one of the oldest apple trees on MDI.  It is a huge and impressive Baldwin which dates to the mid-19th century. 

Laura was on the farm today, weeding trees up in the Finley Lane Orchard and making herb teas to spray on the trees once they ferment: Comfrey, Monarda, Nettles, Chives, Horsetail and Willow.

I also pulled out my books and apple key and identified an apple sent to me from Pennsylvania. It is known locally at the “July Apple.” Although the specimens were marginally representative, I believe the apple is “Early Harvest”.  Let the ID season begin.

July 27, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Fall Webworm on our Kaleidoscope ornamental crabapple tree

Sometimes it appears as though the orchard is just an endless set of challenges, one right after another. One minor challenge is fall webworm (Hyphantria cunea). Although it might be more accurately called “summer” webworm, the webs—or nests—are difficult to miss. They look like faint whitish-tan cotton candy—or maybe superfine fish net—enveloping a section of a branch or even several branches on apples, cherry, ash, willow, oak, birch, elm and other deciduous trees and bushes. Fall webworm typically arrives in the orchard and forest in mid-July and sticks around the rest of the summer. Because the apple trees—and others—are already fully leafed out and advanced in their annual cycle, fall webworm will rarely kill a tree. The nests are unsightly and can make picking fruit a drag if the webs cover branches of fruit. You can live with it—as we mostly do—or spray Dipel (BT) on the trees when the webs appear. Today Laura was working on the farm and “spot-sprayed” the fall webworm with Dipel using a backpack sprayer.  They’ll be back, and we may spray again—or not.

July 25, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Japanese Beetles on our grapes. Where’s the bucket?

A bit about Japanese Beetles (Popillia japonica). Native to Japan and introduced to the US in the early 1900’s, Japanese Beetles are no where to be found some years and a major pest in others. This year they are a major pest. They are feeding right now. A couple of weeks ago, in a panic, a friend sent me a photograph of one of his apple trees. The leaves were “skeletonized.”  At first I wasn’t sure what was up. Then a couple days later I was in our orchard and immediately realized what had happened to his tree: Japanese Beetles.  Although they won’t kill an apple tree, they do make a mess of it and don’t make it easy for much photosynthesis. They also cause havoc on grapes, plums, roses and raspberries. They are even eating our blueberries this year. When you go to squish them they fly away or drop to the ground and hide. But there is a way to outsmart them. They “go to sleep” right out in the open in the evening and don’t become active again until mid-morning. We position a jar or bucket under the foliage where they’re sleeping and gently jiggle. They drop conveniently into the container. We put a couple of inches of water in the bucket with a little detergent. That does the trick.  Out in the orchard, the Goldenrod is now beginning to flower. The Bee Balm is spectacular. So many flowers!

July 24, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Old barn in Somerset, England, with ancient cider press against the far wall. Photographed by JPB in 2011.

Today we got more rain. We’ll take it, especially when combined with more moderate temperatures. We had planned to spray Dipel on the webworms that have invaded the orchard, but that will have to wait. Laura arrived early ready to spray, but instead got to work on the computer and the DIRK (Data Identification Research Key) project. Unfortunately, fire blight is back in the orchard, and we’ll be cutting it out again as soon as we can.

Yesterday I attended a two-hour zoom call with fourteen apple historians and scientists from the UK and four of us from the US. Our objective was to discuss identification of historic apples through DNA profiling and how to collaborate with one another and transition to the newer SNP process. Their challenges are similar to the ones we’ve faced here in the US as we’ve developed collaborations with one another across the country.  One of those attending was John Teiser who I have worked with for the past twelve years to import UK historic cider apples through the USDA APHIS program (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service). To date we’ve imported about two dozen, many of which have been released and are now growing in our test orchard at Finley Lane.  When we go to the UK this fall, we will see many of those who attended yesterday’s meeting, most for the first time in person.

July 22, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

The two pronged Magna Grecia fork hoe

Today the temperatures were in the high 70s . The orchard is dry and could use an inch or two of rain - perhaps tomorrow. The webworms are out in full force. Time to load up the Dipel. The Bee Balm (Monarda) is approaching full bloom. The bees are humming. The Queen Ann’s Lace is six feet tall and approaching full bloom.

We have hundreds of seedings growing up through the sod all over the orchard and nursery which we often topwork to known cultivars. We dig out the sod around their small-diameter trunks to create an open space about 2-3 feet in diameter. This enables us to check for borers, fertilize as needed, mulch with chips etc. The tool we use for this job is the Magna Grecia hoe. It’s a hand-forged, two-pronged “fork hoe” made in Italy, and, as far as we know, was long long ago a common tool among farmers and orchardists. The prongs are quite long: 10”. The hoe blade is 4”. It is an excellent tool for turning over soil and prying up even the most stubborn sod. We have two of them, each with a long (58”) ash handle we made on the shaving horse. The tool has incredible leverage so you have to pry with some respect. You can snap the handle if you really lay into it. You can purchase cheap versions at Home Depot and probably on Amazon. But beware!  They are far inferior to the real thing. 

July 21, 2024

TODAY IN THE ORCHARD

Our Red Haven peach tree, freshly mowed and thinned today.

Today the temperatures were much more acceptable - barely 80 degrees with a few light showers in the early morning. As always there was a lot of weeding to do; no sooner do we arrive at the end of the rows of young trees than the weeds are popping up in the rows where we started. At least for today the nursery looks great. We also updated and replaced missing tags in the orchard. Hard to document what’s going on if the tag is gone.

In the afternoon we thinned the fruit on several peach trees. Our magnificent old Red Haven tree is approaching twenty-five years old and produces a great deal of fruit.  The other peach trees are younger and are producing more fruit each year.  Most peach trees don’t grow to be very old, especially in colder climates. Every year or two we plant a couple of new ones to replace the inevitable victims of cold winter temperatures. We try to thin the peach crop as close to July 4th as possible.  First we remove diseased and damaged fruit. Then we thin the remaining fruit to about 4-6” apart. We try to leave only 3-4 fruits on a branch so the branches don’t get too heavy and break, but sometimes we leave a few extra because it’s hard to discard perfect looking peaches. This year is not a banner year for peaches, but it does look we’ll be eating our fill in August.