May « 2010 « Amy Pollien

Archive for May, 2010

Playing defense

Monday, May 31st, 2010

We are past apple blossom time here on the island; past plum, cherry, pear and peach blossoms too, and the trees have all set fruit. With the warmer nights and continued good rainfall comes new growth and rapid development, and the first signs of insect damage.

There are many good sites on the web for information on fruit tree pests. Every variety, no matter how modern and resistant, has its own weakness manifested in an insect, blight, rust, virus, spoor or mildew. Full time orchardists have a repertoire of traps and sprays in defense of (nearly) perfect product and I admire that. I should know more about traps, for instance, and plan to do the research for 2011 – I like passive defense. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time or opportunity to be a specialist. I have to be at work five days a week, far from my trees, and often miss the first signs of mildew, or leaf curl, only to come home one day and the top third of the Clapp pear’s foliage is deformed by mites. It can be discouraging.

Then I discovered Surround CP (cue the music for the dishwashing detergent commercial). I use it on all the fruit trees plus roses and vegetable crops. Although it is promoted as an insecticide I find it also inhibits the spread of rust and mildew. From the Fedco website:

Forms a particle film which coats the surface of leaves and fruits, creating a barrier which acts as a broad-spectrum crop protectant, reducing damage from various insects, mites and disease-carrying pests. Recommended for controlling European apple sawfly, plum curculio, Japanese beetles, leafhoppers, CPB, thrips and other maleficial insects on fruit crops and field crops, effective against cucumber beetles on cucurbits. 95% kaolin clay, Surround’s layer of white particles creates an unfamiliar environment for the attacking insects, prevents them from recognizing their target, and, if they land, the particles rub off on them causing irritation and excessive grooming. The white surface also reflects sunlight, preventing sunburn and heat damage.

Notice that this product is 95% clay (most of the other material is food grade wax) and about $40.00 for 25 pounds. I have 20 trees and often grow food crops around and beneath the foliage so an inert material that is inexpensive (compared to most pesticides) is a good thing. I begin spraying just after petal fall and build up a good coating with two or three applications over a two week period and then one or two more over the course of the season depending on rainfall amounts. Surround does not wash off readily but it will strip off faster over a rainy summer. It has a helpful secondary effect of turning the foliage ghostly white after a fresh application making it easy to see where you’ve been and areas you’ve missed!

Which begs the question – is it visible on everything else? Yes, but it comes off the plastic chair and marble paving stones much faster than it does from foliage!

Tags: garden, spring
Posted in gardening, horticulture, orchard | 1 Comment »

Pinched spruce

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

I could have taken a better picture of this tree. When I’m hustling down the garden path at the crack of dawn to go to work the morning sun gently highlights each branch and I think – I should get a photo of that! And I don’t. Tonight I was trimming the last few branches and took an evening shot of the final product.

“Finger-trimming” is actually a bonsai technique. The buds are pinched back as soon as the casing breaks over the end of the new growth. After five years or so the tree has a full and soft appearance and the overall growth is much reduced. The process takes time, and most years the task coincides painfully with mosquito season, but it is meditative work and well worth it. This little tree would be out of place in the lower garden at its natural height of 15′ or so – headed for 50′. I look forward to putting in some effort to keep it in proportion to its surroundings for at least the next 20 years.

Tags: garden, spring
Posted in gardening | No Comments »

Pluck not the wayside flower;

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

It is the traveler’s dower.
~William Allingham

Last May I was wandering down our gravel road and found a ladyslipper growing in the dust and slash on the shoulder. It was beautiful and fragile and I looked for it as I went to and from work, wondering if someone might have driven over it or innocently picked it to bring home to mother. The blossom lasted through June and then shriveled naturally in the heat of July and the leaves blended with the weeds.

I checked today, and this year there are two!

I wonder what Spring 2011 will bring? Will they be able to form a proper colony in such an inhospitable place?

From the Vermont Ladyslipper website:

Cypripediums, like all orchids, begin their life cycle when their seed (pro-embryo) is invaded by a microscopic fungus (endophyte). Since orchid seed has no endosperm (stored starch reserves that kick start most other plant species), the fungus in essence forms a surrogate root system for the seed.

If the soil nutrient levels and pH are correct, the fungus becomes a symbiont and provides small amounts of carbohydrates to the growing seed(protocorm). This is a very delicate process whereby the fungus infiltrates the growing orchid seed to a certain stage and then the orchid seed defensively responds by producing a group of chemicals that actually dissolves the fungal filaments back.

After having its filaments dissolved, the fungus will then reattempt to invade the protocorm and supply more carbohydrates and the protocorm will grow again ever so slightly. This process is repeated until the protocorm has grown large enough to produce a small dormant eye bud and root system (seedling). Once this occurs, the following spring the cypripedium will produce it’s first green leaf and begin to use photosynthesis as its primary energy source. Once the seedling relies on photosynthesis, the cypripedium will reject the micro-fungus almost completely. This heterotrophic phase can take anywhere from 3 to 7 years to occur in nature. It can take an additional 5 to 10 years to reach flowering size which means the Cypripedium can take anywhere between 10 to 17 years to bloom, in the wild, from initial seed dispersion!

This above heterotrophic growth sequence only occurs when all the habitat and soil conditions are right. This is the primary reason for the natural rarity of cypripediums and not that the fungal symbiont they use is rare. Indeed, under many soil conditions, the fungus that the orchid requires can become a pathogen and destroy the orchid seed. There are several micro-fungi that have been isolated in cypripedium roots and the truth is that there are probably many more that could perform the symbiotic function given the right soil conditions.

Tags: garden, perrenial, spring
Posted in gardening, horticulture, the neighborhood | No Comments »

Columbine season

Friday, May 21st, 2010

Aquilegia, the Columbine (Latin from columba, “dove”) is in full bloom. This spring we’ve had enough rain that flowers are appearing in the margin of the gravel driveway and in the walkways where last year’s seed hitched a ride on the soles of my shoes.

This year the plants are over four feet tall. They are remarkably generous and tolerant of neglect, and the deer don’t seem to bother them. I had dark red blossoming plants from my parents (A. atrata) and a few of the bright blue A. caerulea that is the state flower of Colorado to start with, but over the last 10 years I’ve accumulated every shade of purple, pale pinks and creams and a few that are nearly black. I don’t think about them much at all, except that lovely interval in May when they bloom above healthy, lush green crowns of foliage and then retreat again before they can become boring – the botanical version of a house guest with perfect manners.

Tags: garden, perrenial, spring
Posted in alpines, gardening, horticulture, perrenial | 3 Comments »

Bee day

Saturday, May 15th, 2010

The perfect time to disturb a colony of bees is when most of them are away from home. A perfectly still, hot day when the sun is at the meridian and the air is full of pollen means that every field bee will be out foraging, stopping home only to unload and taking off again like B17s in the African theater. Yesterday was not that day. The Maine spring can be cool – it was 60 degrees with a brisk wind blowing the apple blossoms apart on the Russian crab and making my full English bee suit comfortable, instead of stifling. However, a beekeeper with a day job will work with whatever weather happens on her day off (short of drenching rain), and be thankful. *

This hive was new from a package three weeks ago. When I dumped them in they persisted in a forming a bulge above the frames. Since they had obliged me by exiting their box at all, I gave them a spacer when I put the hivetop feeder above them. I had hoped to deconstruct the whole arrangement before they built comb to connect the frames to the feeder, but no such luck. They have been busy, busy bees. I finally had to cut away quite a bit of comb (full of fruit blossom honey, poor beekeeper!) and carefully settle the new super on top. I wore the full suit because this colony is new to me and I was going to be elbows deep in their territory, but I didn’t need it. They traveled calmly over my hands, and went about their business with only a very casual fly-over from the guard bees.

There were plenty of eggs in the newly filled frames, and a wealth of pollen stored up in rainbow colors. Now I hope they continue the good work in their new second story – May is halfway done and winter’s coming!

* I feel I should mention that I’ve heard British beekeepers work on their hives at night, while the bees are asleep. Do bees sleep? Does this technique work? I can’t find much about this on line and it has the feel of fable, somehow. . .

Tags: beekeeping, bees, spring
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Potato cage match

Monday, May 10th, 2010

Every year I try a new way to grow potatoes. Maine is justly famous for the huge tracts of land, mostly in The County, dedicated to the potato harvest. Aroostook County schools are scheduled around the harvest – one of the last holdouts of agriculture over curriculum in the US, and there are “potato bucks” and enough tuber-related traditions up there to fill several books. My Uncle Cyp tells the story of his younger brother held by his ankles down through the door of the potato cellar, gathering dinner from the great piles stored beneath the house. But Northern Maine has soil for big fields, where the seed potatoes are planted and harvested with huge machines and hand-sorted on conveyor belts. Here on the island I need to conserve space and dirt is scarce, especially for what is esentially a root crop doing its best business in the dark and deep. Enter the potato box.

The boxes are constructed of pine 2 x 4 x 8′s (cut in half as a 2 x 4 x 4′) and 2 x 6 x 10′s cut into 2′ lengths – very economical. I’ve fastened the bottom two boards in place. I’ll fill it halfway up with soil (6″ or thereabouts), plant the seed potatoes and then fill to the top board. I’ll probably throw some mulch or landscape fabric over the top. When the plants have grown out of that much soil, the next layer of boards go on, soil is added (not to cover more than 2/3 of the plant at one time), and so forth until the top board goes on and you just let the plants spill out the top. At harvest, one bottom board is removed and the oldest potatoes harvested first.

This method seems to be a good use of soil and appropriate plant habitat – and I like the option of an early, partial harvest. There’s nothing better than new potatoes in late August, yet that’s way too early to dig up a whole plant. I have lumber cut for another four boxes to accommodate plantings of: All Blue, Dark Red Norland, Salem and Nicola. Proof will be had in a creamy leek and potato gratin along about Labor Day.

Meanwhile, it has been a beautiful Spring. Woad is blooming in the door yard, with red columbine and blue Chinese forget-me-not.

Tags: construction, garden, perrenial, spring
Posted in gardening, horticulture, vegetable garden | No Comments »

At your mother’s knee

Friday, May 7th, 2010

I am beginning work on a illustrated collection of excerpts from my family’s letters. My son and I talked about the examples I’ve used so far and found that his recollection (of my communications with him) is vastly different than the advice I heard from my parents. This is a partial list for Mother’s Day 201o: amusing, and not a little weird.

In no particular order, although I suspect the examples that he remembers most vividly come first:

Baba Yaga eats people. Always has. Always will.

Never play cards for money in a place you can’t leave.

Always trade up.

There’s nothing that can’t be fixed with the judicious amount of accellerant.

Sleep is a weapon.

Never fall in love with someone with more problems than you. And, there are a lot of people out there with more problems than you. (I should add that this rule has been flung down and danced on in our household.)

Dress like you had to walk home.

If you get to salt water, turn around.

If you don’t know what color it is, it isn’t purple.

That’s higher than it looks from down here.

The Rent-a-cop won’t think it’s funny. Don’t take it personally.

Remember where you parked.

Wish my mom had told me the one about Baba Yaga. . .

Tags: rememberance
Posted in family, Holida | 3 Comments »

Screen door season

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Today we put up the screen door. (That’s the royal we.) The screen door goes on at exactly the cusp between “too cold to leave the door open” and “full on bug assault”. Living at the edge of a swamp in coastal Maine, that change can happen over the course of a single day. Now the house is open to the breeze (and closed to the mosquitoes) until that afternoon in November comes around that looks like snow.