Summer Vacation Takes Root

As a couple with a predisposition toward all things growing, we don't exactly take typical vacations. It started pretty innocently with our trip to Sonoma Valley that resulted in us bringing wine home by the caseload, and has kind of snowballed from there. It's always fun for us now to try to bring home some of the local flavor of whatever region we're lucky enough to visit. Last summer that involved a trip to Wisconsin's Door County, an area famous for its cherry orchards.

Neither one of us really knew how much we loved tart cherries until we arrived at Choice Orchards and started picking. Having arrived right at the peak of the cherry season, the orchards were loaded with bright red fruits. They were tangy and juicy, and effortlessly pulled off the trees by the handful. We didn't stop until we'd filled several buckets.

When all was said and done (after two trips to the orchard), we ended up bringing home a whopping 35 pounds of cherries. What we did with them is perhaps a tale for another time, but we were certain of one thing: we absolutely wanted to grow this fruit in our own backyard. We didn't actually have a backyard at the time, but we do now! We ordered a dwarf Montmorency cherry tree from the Arbor Day Foundation this spring, and this past weekend it arrived on our doorstep.

Inside the package, our bareroot tree was packed with moist paper around the roots, and it looked like it had handled the trip well. We placed the tree in a bucket to soak, and got started digging. We cut a circle of sod about 3 feet in diameter, then dug the hole about 12 inches deep.

After soaking the roots for 3 hours, we centered the tree in the hole. We started with a small mound of soil at the base, to support and spread the roots. Then it was simply a matter of filling in the hole with the material we'd just dug out. It's tempting to add some enrichment to this soil, but you're actually better off leaving it as-is. This will encourage the tree to send out long, strong roots to find lots of nutrients. We gently firmed the soil as we went, being careful not to pack things down too much. When the soil around the tree was just about two inches below the surrounding ground, we stopped. This creates a basin in which water can collect to help keep the tree hydrated.

Finally, we covered those remaining two inches with a nice layer of mulch. In addition to looking nice, this is a permeable material, so rainwater can filter through the mulch into that aforementioned basin. We gave the tree a good soaking from the hose, which should be sufficient for a while unless we get a really dry snap. In that case, we can water about once a week to ten days, during the first year.

That may not look like much more than a stick in the ground right now, but we have high hopes for it. With any luck it will be producing fruit within three to five years. We'll have to do some pruning to help develop the proper shape and we'll keep an eye out for fruit tree diseases and pests. We might not get 35 pounds of cherries out of our one tree every year, but it's a lot closer to home than Door County.

This post has been shared with Simple Lives Thursday.

Space Invaders!

By this point, we've become pretty familiar with most of the yard as we've dug it up, planted seeds in it, or maintained it in some way or another. But one place that we haven't much dealt with yet is our back fence. From afar it looks like an overgrown row of shrubs and small trees, and from up close, well, it doesn't look much better. So yesterday morning we were strolling along, trying to figure out what to do back there, when our neighbor's nephew (the horticulturist we've mentioned before) appeared.

"Are you trying to figure out what you've got back there?" he asked. We had pretty much identified the whole thing as a mess, but accepted his help. He listed off a few plants, including mulberries, maples and wild raspberries, when he concluded with a chilling statement. "That right there is a Tree of Heaven."

In case you haven't met this beast, let us assure you, the Tree of Heaven, or Ailanthus, is nowhere near as pleasant as it sounds. Here's a description from the National Parks Service (link)

Tree-of-heaven is a fast-growing tree and a prolific seeder, that  can  take over sites, replacing native plants and forming dense thickets. Ailanthus  also produces chemicals that prevent the establishment of other plant species nearby. Its root system may be extensive and has been known to cause damage to sewers and foundations.

Also lovingly nicknamed the Ghetto Palm, this is an invasive species, not native to the US, and it has a history of choking out indigenous or desired plants. Oh, and if you cut into it, it gives off a smell of rancid peanut butter. Quite a charmer, really. And we had a major infestation of it.

We certainly didn't want to harbor an invasive fugitive on our half-acre, so our first thought was to cut it all down. Fortunately we did a little research online before we took action, because Tree of Heaven, again from the NPS, "resprouts vigorously from cut stumps and root fragments." If we'd taken our shears to it all, it would have just returned with a vengeance. That meant it was time to go nuclear.

You know we don't like chemicals in our garden or even in our lawn really.We're trying to garden organically, building up the soil with natural compost. But in a case like this, where the invader literally could pose a threat to all our plants, we had to take drastic measures.

Concentrated Glyphosate. You probably know it better as RoundUp, the herbicide that will kill almost any plant it touches. This particular product is 41% the actual herbicide, and in nearly any application, it would be significantly diluted. This was no ordinary application, however.

We needed to kill this tree dead and then some. So we weren't interested in just spraying the poison at the base or on the bark of the tree. We needed a direct route to the roots, and the best way there is through the plant's own phloem and xylem. So we did end up using our pruning shears...

Followed immediately by a thorough application of the herbicide. Notice the use of protective gloves to keep this dangerous poison off our hands. If you ever are forced to use this stuff, be very careful!

The brush method worked well for all the smaller shoots and suckers, but unless we killed the parent tree, there would continue to be more. This became complicated because of two factors. 1) The parent tree was about 8 inches in diameter so the loppers couldn't possibly cut through it. And 2) It was literally growing through the fenceline, so ownership of the tree is a bit of a gray area. We opted to go for the hack-and-squirt method from the safety of our side of the fence.

We drilled a row of holes with the biggest drill bit we had, deep into the center of the tree. We angled these slightly down to ensure that they could be filled.

With the holes neatly drilled, we then proceeded to pour the concentrated glyphosate into each until they couldn't hold any more. This is a pretty big tree, and it's possible one dose won't do it in, so we also left plenty of room for a return attack. Hopefully this process is successful, and we can rid ourselves once and for all of this stinking (literally), invasive pest.

Keep in mind, this was truly a desperate effort, and our hand was forced into using chemical means by the vicious nature of the invader. We were loath to buy an herbicide, but truly felt we had no other choice to protect our homestead and the surrounding ecosystem. We won't make a habit of using this stuff, so don't expect to see much more written about it here. We'll be back to organics by our next post - promise!

Tim-berrr!

Most of our backyard plans involve adding things to the backyard to create our little urban farm.  We'll be building, planting, raising, and growing all sorts of things.  But shortly after we moved in it had become clear that one aspect of the backyard was just going to be in our way; so a little destruction was in order.

Fruit trees are wonderful.  We've taken lots of trips to orchards where we could spend time amongst the trees and pick our own apples or cherries.  But these fruit trees were not so wonderful.  They were over-grown, unpruned, diseased, and hadn't borne fruit in many years.  The apple tree had a giant dead section devoid of any leaves, and the pear had so many suckers growing out of its base that it was hard to see the actual trunk. Though we wanted to find a way to save them, it was pretty clear that it wouldn't be feasible.

That opinion was echoed by the convenient horticulturist next door - our neighbor's nephew who stopped by to chat about our plans for the yard and diagnosed our trees as unsaveable. He then casually mentioned that he had a chainsaw and would be happy to cut down our problem trees. Naturally, we took him up on the offer.

Before this happened, we were actually toying with the idea of cutting these "small" trees down by ourselves.   Renting a saw, maybe watching some YouTube instructions, and winging it from there. We sure are glad that we didn't!  Trees look a lot smaller when they are standing in the air than they do when they come crashing to the ground.  We tried to look busy dragging branches around while our new friend with the chainsaw did most of the work.  He even tied a rope around each tree to guide its fall away from our fence and garlic bed.  So we can't really take much credit for this project, but that didn't stop Stacia from posing for this triumphant shot.

What you can't see in this photo is the decomposing interior of the tree trunk. Some portions of the tree were so decayed it was like dirt, inside the tree itself. That helped us feel better about cutting the trees down, showing us definitively how unwell they really were. So, with relatively clear consciences, we found ourselves with a humongous pile of brush and a stack of firewood we will be challenged to ever use up.  We hope to remain carbon-neutral by replacing these two with a couple of new trees next year, but that will be a project for another day!