First thing this morning, before I was willing to admit to actually being awake, (It is the one year anniversary of my retirement afterall) my husband said "let's go to Home Depot early this morning (like before breakfast) and get your apple tree".
More about that later.
 |
| A Beautiful Sunny Spring Morning |
This has been a fairly busy week, but I haven't blogged anything because until now I haven't finished anything. I've been whittling away slowly at things. The weather hasn't been bad, but it hasn't been good either. There haven't been any really good "let's do a bunch of projects" type of days. It has been more a "dash out and work for an hour" type of week.
We dug a big hole out from under the front pavers that heaved in the winter and filled it back with gravel. We got the new load of beautiful fresh, aromatic mulch. but did not get back to mulching because it has been too wet. Really freakin' wet. We got a dump truck load of rocks for a creek bed expansion. The truck got off the edge of the drive and got really stuck. The load got dumped in the middle of everything just to get the truck out. My husband spent a whole afternoon sorting that problem out. I spent two or three partial days preparing planting areas but not actually planting anything. Things came in the mail. Thoughts piled up. Goals finally got accomplished.
 |
| My potato shipment came and is on the garden shed counter "chitting" |
 |
| My spring bulb order came and was inspected but isn't ready to plant yet. |
 |
The cauliflower transplants got broken up into three tasks. First the bed was raked and fertilized. Then I drilled all the holes for the frost cover supports for this bed and another bed. On the third day I rounded up the right frost cover and the shade cloth and installed that. Then yesterday I transplanted the ones that were ready. This freed up a spot under my grow light in the basement so this morning I seeded tomatoes.
This morning the third planting of peas went in with a side dressing of lettuce.
The first peas are looking nice, and the second row is just starting to poke through and will be visible in two or three days, right on schedule. Those pots have teeny tiny carrots too. Too small to photograph.
 |
| Closeup of peas and lettuce |
Now back to that apple tree. For the past year or so I have known that I needed to plant an apple tree near the garden as a cross pollinator for the two Northern Spy trees. Away in the corner of the backyard we had three trees that the last owners had planted about 70 years ago. One, a Yellow Transparent, we cut down a few years ago because we never got any apples from it and as an early, soft apple it was an absolute pest magnet. Between the crows and the squirrels and the deer it was a feeding frenzy. Sure its nice to feed the wildlife but I didn't want to draw them into our yard just to eat all those apples and then stay for the next batch too.
This left us with a Macintosh and an Empire. In a good year we might get a bushel of apples which made really sweet applesauce. And at least they cross pollinated the Spies. Last year the Empire tree finished dying and we pushed her over and hauled her to the burn pile. I knew the Mac wouldn't last much longer. We talked about putting a new tree in the spot where the Empire was but there were two problems with this. #1 it was too close to the woods so there wasn't enough sun and #2 it was too close to the woods so the squirrels could jump from the woods trees right into the apple trees. We had trimmed back some of the woods limbs but it was still not a good spot. We needed to pick a spot in the garden area where we could defend our crop. Yes, the main reason for planting it would be cross pollination but when you go to the expense and trouble to plant a tree you want to eat the apples too.
We have all of this room, but still there aren't a lot of unused areas. You have to take into consideration what surface the apples are going to fall on and how it might affect your mowing and if it is in a high traffic area for squirrels and deer so on and so forth. And it shouldn't be too wet and honestly, just about everywhere is too wet. I decided the only possible spot was along the chicken run where we had planted a triple paperbark birch some years ago. The birch didn't survive but it is a pretty good place for an apple tree.
We hooked up the trailer and went to HD first thing this morning. We hit all the lights just right. The parking lot wasn't crowded. I picked out my tree, put it on a flat cart and rolled it in to the service desk. The Garden Center check out isn't open yet this time of year which makes check out of large garden stuff a little but of a hassle. So I asked them nicely to check me out so I wouldn't have to fiddle with the self check out or wheel it all the way down to the Contractor desk. Then I wheeled it right back Out the In door. We wrapped it up and secured it in the trailer and headed home. The sun was shining. Everything seemed perfect. As if it were meant to be.
 |
| This Gala apple is a late bloomer like the Northern Spy |
After breakfast I planted the tree. I wanted to get it settled before it breaks dormancy and the weather forecast is cool and rainy which will help too. At this point, the beautiful sunny, calm morning changed to overcast and windy. Really, unpleasantly windy. Gusting 40 mph. It blew over wheelbarrows and shovels and relocated anything not nailed down including the tarp covers on the mulch and gravel piles. It was seriously irksome.
I had finished planting the tree and was waiting for the first can of water to soak in before adding another. I decided I had better put in some T-posts and wire in some supports right away otherwise by morning it would likely be leaning. I went to the garden shed to get the T-post pounder and I heard sort of a "crack crunch". I thought "I'll bet we are going to lose some trees in the woods" so I stuck my head out and sort of scanned around and I saw....
This is one of those "I'm not kidding" moments.
The Macintosh. The last old apple tree the wasn't good for much other than pollination.... was lying on her side. She held on to the last possible moment and when the new tree was planted and it was OK for her to go. She went.
I walked out there and gave her a pat and thanked her for her service.
And then I hurried away from the woods and all the other potential falling trees!
No comments:
Post a Comment