The Heirloom Orchardist

My Rotten Potatoes and Howatt's One-Eye System

  "Something stinks in here" said my wife, peering into the cupboard.  She removed a bag of soft, partially rotten (but sprouting) potatoes.  Carefully cupping her hand beneath the the bag to be sure nothing dripped on the floor, she passed it to me and suggested that I  "Please bring these to the compost heap right now."

There's something very humble about a potato. Very simple and unassuming.  Very practical.  The Heirloom Orchardist likes that.  So, as I walked toward the compost heap, I inspected those little sprouts emerging from the potato "eyes," and detoured to the garden. Hmm...look at my rotten potatoes now:

In the days of the Heirloom Orchardist, crop yield was very important.  The Heirloom Orchardist wanted to grow as many potatoes as possible, with the least amount of effort.  And after harvest, the Heirloom Orchardist wanted to use or sell most of the potatoes he grew.  That's why potato "eyes" were important to him.  Potato eyes?  Yes, those little buds on the tuber, where the new growth originates.  In the early 19th century, it was common for entire potatoes to be planted to start the new season's crop.  But then it was found that one needs to plant only a single eye, carefully cut from the potato, to get a new plant to grow.  From then on, the Heirloom Orchardist could sell or use the vast majority of his crop, and still have plenty "seed potatoes" for next year.

Those who grow potatoes today, may be surprised by this.  It may seem intuitive that one needs to plant only a portion of a potato in order to get a new plant; providing that portion includes at least one eye.  Hmmm...certainly anyone who saw my partially rotten potatoes (before they went in the ground), would realize this.  But to the Heirloom Orchardist, this was not intuitive. A Mr. Jonathan Talcott of Rome, New York  made specific reference to the novel "one-eye system" in his letter to the editors of the The Cultivator and Country Gentleman, published on January 17, 1884:

"I believe it is 26 years this coming spring that I sent my first order for seed potatoes, and that was to Gerald Howatt, for Prince Albert.  Ever since that time I have been an admirer of Mr. Howatt's writings on the subject of potato culture.  When Mr. Howatt says he originated the one-eye system, I have no doubt he is sincerely honest in his belief.  I also know that the system was practiced by my grandfather in 1783, in the town of Glastonbury, Connecticut."

But all this may make the process of growing potatoes sound much more technical than it is.  Believe me, potatoes are easy.  Particularly if you're not very concerned about getting the maximum yield.  This is how you can grow them:  Just stick a few in some loosened soil and stand back.

The Enriching Properties of Clover in Your Lawn

Do you consider clover a nuisance weed?  The Heirloom Orchardist didn’t.  Although the nitrogen-fixing property of legumes (clover is a legume) was not understood by early orchardists, the benefit it brought to soil fertility was well known:

“The ordinary rotation in most parts of the Union is corn, oats, rye or wheat with clover.  In order to secure the enriching properties of clover, even in this rotation, it is said to be profitable to sow the clover with a view of turning it under for rye, or wheat, in the fall.  The expense of seed is but trifling when compared with the benefits resulting from the pasture thus afforded.”  The Yankee Farmer, July 6, 1835.

Of course, many of us don’t grow fields of corn, oats, rye or wheat.  So how can we take advantage of clover’s enriching properties?  Well, it’s easy: we can allow it to grow amongst the grasses in our lawn.  But first, we need to change our perception of clover, back to the way we perceived it several decades ago; as a valuable component to any healthy lawn.  Back to before the successful marketing efforts of the Scotts Company turned clover into a noxious weed.

Yup, that's right.  The primary reason that clover is generally considered a lawn weed today is simply because we were told it was a lawn weed…by the Scotts Company.

Would you like some supportive documentation?  Here’s a passage from my 1875 edition of Gardening for Pleasure:

“When the lawn is too extensive to be sodded, the following mixture of grass seed may be used, which we have found to make an excellent lawn:
     8 quarts Rhode Island Bent Grass
     3 quarts Creeping Bent Grass
     10 quarts Red Top Grass
     10 quarts Kentucky Blue Grass
     1 quart White Clover"

Or, you may consider this statement from a 1906 USDA Farmers’ Bulletin (No. 248), appropriately entitled “The Lawn”:

“Upon soils of a lighter character…, in localities where precipitation is greater, such grasses as redtop,  Rhode Island bent-grass, and white clover are more to be relied upon for lawn making than bluegrass.”

So what does Scotts have to do with changing clover from a desirable component of turfgrass, into a weed?

In the 1950’s, having known that the weed killer known as 2,4-D (2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) was affective against broadleaf “weeds” (such as dandelions) but not against grasses, Scotts accurately predicted the stuff could be a very profitable product to sell to suburban lawn enthusiasts.  The trouble was that it killed clover too.  So rather than going back to the laboratory, they went to their marketing department.  They changed public opinion.  Presto.  Clover is a weed.

But I'm not beating up on Scotts here.  They've got a good product.  I use their "Super Turf Builder with Plus 2 Weed Control" product on my own lawn.  I just don't broadcast it everywhere, the way they prescribe on the back of the package.  I walk about my lawn, judiciously sprinkling the stuff by hand on the target areas, mostly where dandelions may have taken hold.  It's an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach.  This Heirloom Orchardist doesn't have many weeds in his lawn.  But I've got lots of enriching white clover.

When seeding your lawn, either with or without clover, consider a hand-held seeder spreader from MasterGardening.com.

The Heirloom Orchardist’s Lilacs

Each spring, travelers on a main roadway in my town are greeted with a pleasant surprise as they cross over a busy Interstate Highway.  Growing in the state-owned land is a healthy colony of white lilacs.  Right now, in May, these unattended shrubs are blooming gloriously.  Why would this familiar landscape plant be growing within the cloverleaf interior of a major highway?  Is this a subtle bit of pleasantry given by an aesthetically minded highway engineer?  Nope...not likely.

Lilac - Beauty of Moscow

Lilacs have a long history in New England’s domestic landscape. This provides insight toward the origin of these lilacs.  In turn, we receive a strong reminder that the landscape of my town is constantly changing, as is the landscape of most New England communities.

Native to the Southeast region of Europe, the Common Lilac (Syringa vulgaris) has been in human cultivation since the 1500's.  We can only suspect it to have been introduced to the New World during the colonial period, but we have conclusive evidence (Jefferson's copious notes) that lilacs were growing in the gardens of Monticello during the late 1700’s.  Today, there are few of us without a childhood memory of the family’s legendary fragrant lilac.

Lilac - Ludwig Spaeth

Lilacs are hardy plants.  They are not considered invasive, but they are tenacious.  Lilacs will often survive when those who planted them are long gone.  Since its introduction in the New World, the lilac has always been a domestic plant, never delegated to the field, always cultivated for pleasure in The Heirloom Orchardists’ house gardens throughout old New England.  As a result, when we find lilacs growing in "vacant land" (a term the Heirloom Orchardist would never understand) there are likely the remains of an old home site nearby.

So this spring, I went to visit these highway lilacs on foot.  I left my car in the parking lot of a mostly vacant strip retail building, then walked across four busy lanes of traffic into the state highway property.  There, I found our lilacs growing at the top of a ledge outcrop.  It is a large colony of plants, with multiple stems.  But most of these plants do not appear old.  In some of today's delegated “historic districts” we can be sure to find lilacs that are known to be over one hundred years old, with trunks having four to five inches of width.  Amongst these highway lilacs, I can find only one plant with a trunk exceeding three inches.

Lilac - Asessippi

 Lilacs have a tendency to "sucker".  That is, they annually sprout new twiggy growth from their base.  Those of us who are familiar with their care try to take advantage of this characteristic by annually pruning out the old woody stems, and allowing the young suckers to mature.  This ensures a crop of new growth each year, and keeps the height of the blossoms at a desirable low level.  (It also helps us to avoid having a lilac with a "leggy" habit.)  With successive generations of suckers, the unattended plant will colonize an area, and spread.  As the “parent plant” grows old, the expanding cluster of young lilacs will seek out, and move toward less crowded locations.  This is exactly what these highway lilacs have done.

Due to its larger stem size, it is easy to identify the parent plant within this cluster of lilacs.  But there are other obvious indicators of age: broken branches, a trunk scar, and a dramatic lean to one side.  This matriarch lilac has led a difficult life.  Adjacent to its large weathered trunk, I found what I’d come looking for: the remnants of a stone masonry wall; strong evidence that this lilac once graced the grounds of an Heirloom Orchardist’s home.

Lilac - Mme Lemoine

So, we are given a bittersweet vision.  This lilac once belonged to someone.  This lilac was once planted, nurtured and appreciated.  This lilac once gave blossoms, and brightened an heirloom orchardist's Sunday morning breakfast table.  Today, while the landscape of my town changes around it, this tired lilac endures, and her offspring flourish.

Change is inevitable, and when properly managed, change is often for the good.  But when we manage the historic landscape of any town, it is important to be reminded that history is not limited to particular structures or districts.  History is everywhere.  It's even in the Lilacs that we plant.  We only need to look

Hoe Time!

After having established what a weed is (my last post), it seems appropriate now to discuss that quintessential fruit and veggie garden implement, the hoe.  I think the hoe is a forgotten tool.  Or at least, the use of a hoe is a forgotten task.  But the Heirloom Orchardist knew his hoe quite well.  "Oh yeah," you say, "The hoe!  I know that tool.  I've even got one.  It has got a long handle, with a flat thing on the end that's bent.  It looks like this:"

Yup that's a common hoe. You've got one, I've got one.  And a few of us may even have a prong hoe:

Funny thing is many of us don't really use our hoe properly, or to its full advantage.  I think this is a factor of the busy lives we have nowadays, because to take advantage of this useful implement you've got to time it right.  You need to start when the weed seeds are just germinating; when they are showing green on the surface of the soil.  In my hardiness zone, that's now.  And once the hoe is out, it stays out.  You'll be hoein' all season (unless you mulch).  But if you don't start using it now, if you wait another few more weeks, forget it.  Leave your hoe in the shed.  Because then you're gonna be on your knees, pulling weeds.  And that takes a lot more effort than hoeing.

In the May 28, 1853 issue of the New England Farmer, we find this instruction:  "The clear hot days are the days for hoeing; leave the weeds on the surface a few hours at such a time, and they will trouble you no longer...No weeds should be allowed to grow among your hoed crops; and the ground ought to be stirred once in 10 or 12 days, if there are no weeds!"

What's the New England Farmer saying?  We should hoe if there are no weeds? What's that all about?  Well, I go back to my contention that hoeing is a lost art. I'll delve into my old book "Gardening for Pleasure: A Guide to the Amateur in the Fruit, Vegetable and Flower Garden"  (there is a reprint available) to figure this out:

The Common or Draw Hoe - Its principle (use is) to clean the surface of the ground from weeds...
The Prong Hoe - This is one of the most useful of garden tools for stirring and pulverizing soil.  It cannot, it is true, be used where weeds have been allowed to grow to any considerable height, but then we claim that in all well regulated gardens, weeds should never be allowed to grow so large that they cannot be destroyed by the prong hoe.

Ah...now we understand.  Hoeing is a method of getting weeds before they become established plants; before they become a problem.  By occasionally stirring the surface of the soil, we're disturbing those infant weed seedlings just enough to cause them to desiccate.  The New England Farmer is giving us a rule-of-thumb (of sorts).  It's telling us that if we can see the weeds, it may already be too late to affectively use a hoe.  And that would be our first sign of a not-so "well regulated garden."  Hoe wants that?

Compost Happens

Spring is the season that we start thinking seriously about soil amendments.  Organic matter.  Black gold.  And now, when "green living" has become the trendy flavor of the day, this topic inevitably turns to composting.  Everywhere, you can find information about how to do it right, opinions on the best way to speed-up the process, the best way to keep the microbes and worms happy, the best way to keep you happy.  But I'm going to give you the Heirloom Orchardist's instructions on composting.  Here we go:

Pile up all your organic material from your lawn, garden and kitchen in one spot.  Watch it decompose.

Done.  That's it.  You're composting.  Detect a little sarcasm?  Yup, it's there.  But my point is not to cast aspersions at composting.  Today, composting is a critical part of gardening.  I just don't think the process needs to be so darn involved.  Sure, my method is going to result in a much slower decomposition rate (I don't recommend you hold your breath while you watch the stuff decompose).  But I've been using this method for years.  It works.  Compost happens.  I've got so little time, and so much to do in my garden, that creating an intensively managed compost pile has never been a priority.  Here's what my passive compost heap looks like:

One purpose of this blog is to present an interesting perspective.  I like to analyze the methods of the 18th and 19th century farmer/orchardist, and compare them to today's organic/sustainable farm and garden methods.  Did the 18th or 19th century farmer think about composting?  Well, yes...kinda.  He knew it was important to mix some types of manure (such as chicken or hog manure) with dry bedding, straw, or sawdust, and to let the mixture sit in a pile to "mellow" before using it in the field.   That period of "mellowing" was a form of composting.  But the procedure applied only to those very rich manures.  Mostly, the Heirloom Orchardist amended the soil in his fields and orchards with common barnyard manure.  You know, the kind that comes from the back ends of cows, horses, or oxen.  This stuff was plentiful, even if you didn't own livestock.  Take a look at this passage from an 1884 issue of "The Cultivator and Country Gentleman:"

"I am now drawing to my farm from the city fresh horse manure...There is quite a large quantity of rye straw in the manure, which rapidly rots by forking over the pile two or three times."

So why did we (Not you and me. By "we" I mean the early 20th century farmer/gardener/orchardist) start using synthetic fertilizers like there was no tomorrow?  Is it because the stuff is so much easier to use?  Well, yes (in part), but that's not all.  The other reason is because of Henry Ford.  Yup, you read that right.  It's 'cause of Henry Ford, and his Model-T.  Read this, from my 1921 issue of the Garden Guide, The Amateur Gardener's Handbook:

"Owing to the almost universal use of automobiles and motor trucks, the rapidly increasing demand for farm tractors, and the consequent enormous decrease in the number of horses employed on farms and elsewhere, the supply of stable manure has diminished to such an extent that it is all but unobtainable for gardening, or even farming purposes."

There ya go.  After the Model-T, there just wasn't that much sh-t to spread around.  Don't blame the prolific use of synthetics on their obvious effectiveness.  Don't blame it on their ease of use.  Blame it on Henry.

Here's our conclusion: Now-a-days, if you want to feed your garden and orchard without using synthetic fertilizers, and you don't have a cow, you're probably gonna have to start composting.  And the process doesn't have to be a fancy intensive affair, unless you want it to be.

The method prescribed above does require some time.  You'll have to be patient.  But if you want to hasten the process, or have limited room for your composting endeavors, I recommend the composting supplies available at MasterGardening.com.  Either way, Compost Happens.

Oiling Fruit Trees

The Cultivator and Country Gentleman
Albany, NY
April 14, 1881
Vol. XLVI, No. 1472

Oiling Fruit Trees.
      Please state what is the proper time in this latitude for painting apple trees with linseed oil, to destroy lice.  Also whether it should be raw, or boiled oil.
     A Montreal Subscriber
     It is safest to apply it before the buds of spring begin to swell, and as much before that time as practicable, or late in winter.  It would probably be safe at any time on hardened bark and with drying oil.  We should regard it as accompanied with danger if applied to the tender bark of young trees while in a growing state, unless the oil is well prepared by boiling or otherwise for drying soon.

Wow!  Linseed oil is a renewable resource!  It comes from the seed of flax (Linum usitatissimum), the same plant that our ancestors grew and processed to create long silvery strands of fiber.  This material was then woven into linen.  Could I have stumbled on a forgotten formula for an organic, renewable horticultural oil?  Perhaps…Let’s see what this oiling-fruit-trees thing is all about.

There are several destructive insects that are particularly frustrating to orchardists.  Among these are mites and scale (not lice, but we’ll give A Montreal Subscriber a break on that one).  These insects are small, with a hard exoskeleton that protects them from the elements, as well as some pesticides.  Just like you and I, insects require some method of drawing oxygen from the air in order to survive.  We breathe with lungs, and insects “breathe” through spiracles, a series of “holes” (if you will) along the sides of their abdomens.  So, the method by which oil kills insects is simple.  It clogs up the spiracles.  The insects can’t get oxygen, and they die.  Yahoo!  (Entomologists will tell you there are also some insects that have a protective waxy coating that gets dissolved by the oil, which then kills them…but for my benefit, I’ve got to keep this simple).

So, linseed oil should goop-up those spiracles, wouldn’t you think?  It should kill those nasty bugs.  Sure, but let’s look at the tree before we start slathering the stuff all over the orchard.

As we know, trees have to “breathe” too.  Of course, trees don’t call it breathing, they call it “transpiration.”  But the point is that trees need to exchange gasses too, and like insects, they do this through little “holes.”  Trees call their holes “stomata.”  So, here’s the problem:  If linseed oil can goop-up the spiracles of an insect (thereby leading to its demise), well then, it can goop-up a tree’s stomata too.  So, what can you do to solve this problem?

You change the volatility of the oil.  You mix up different batches with some special stuff that leaves the oil thick (Dormant Oil) or thin (Horticultural Oil).  You conduct trials with your mixture, and you figure out that generally…and I stress generally…the tree can tolerate a longer period of having its “holes” clogged, than the insects can.  This is particularly true in the winter season, when your trees aren’t doing a lot of transpiring.  The idea is to devise a formula that allows the oil to stay around long enough to kill the bugs, but not so long as to kill the tree.  A thick oil works better during the winter season, when the tree is dormant.  Hence, it’s a “Dormant Oil.”  Thinner, more volatile oils can be used during the growing season. 

So now we come back to linseed oil.  Will it work?  It just may!  But just like A Montreal Subscriber, we don’t know how volatile linseed oil is.  Therefore, we don’t know the best time to apply it to the tree (and the information given by the Cultivator isn’t any good.  In fact, it stinks.)  All dormant oils should be applied before the tree’s buds have broken.  But I don’t want to test linseed oil on my trees.  I’ll let someone else test it on their trees.

Flit about the internet, and you’ll find some home recipes for oil sprays made with vegetable oil.  But I wouldn’t recommend them.  I think we’d be better off with products that have been through trials, and come with specific instructions.  MasterGardening.com has a good one.  But hurry up, because the dormant season is ending soon.

Catching Curculios

While we’re on the topic of organic methods of pest control, here’s an Heirloom Orchardist suggestion for battling the dreaded Curculio:

The Cultivator & Country Gentleman
Albany, New York
April 21, 1881
Vol. XLVI, No. 1473

Catching Curculios.
After trying several different contrivances for jarring down curculios from plum trees, the mode represented in fig. 1 proves the most convenient for moderate sized orchards.  Buy stout muslin two yards wide or more, or else sew two narrower pieces together, so as to make a piece about two yards square, or two by three yards, or of any other convenient size for handling.  Stiffen it with light rods across the ends, and with one rod at the middle, to keep them apart, and to serve as a handle, as shown by the figure. 

Let it be a little slack, so as to give a slightly concave form to the sheet.  Iron plugs having been previously inserted in the tree, or into each main branch, the operator holds this sheet in his left hand, under one side of the tree, and with a heavy hammer in his right hand, strikes the iron plug, which brings down the curculios on the sheet, and rolling down to the concave part, they are quickly crushed with thumb and finger, if few, or dumped into a pail of hot water or a pan of kerosene, if many.  If oilcloth was substituted for the muslin, it would not become wet on dewy mornings, and the "bugs" would roll freely down its surface.  The only trouble we have had with this catcher, in connection with the iron plugs, is that it has made such a clean sweep of the insects that the trees have been badly injured by overbearing.  It was of course unremittingly and daily used.

To add to those detailed instructions, my only suggestion would be to make sure you wear your sunbonnet, as shown by the figure.  Such a contrivance would ensure that the operator would not result in a head full of insects.

Professor Mapes's Tobacco Insecticide

Here’s an affective insecticide for all my organically-inclined readers.  It comes courtesy of Professor Mapes:

New England Farmer and Boston Rambler
Boston, Saturday, April 5, 1851
Vol. VI, Number 14

TOBACCO DUST,
As a Protection against Insects.

We last year procured from a snuff mill a barrel of dry, but damaged snuff flour, and prepared drudging boxes, covered with a fine bolting cloth, with which we sifted it over the surfaces of any plants attacked by insects, and with most signal success.  The snuff should be applied, if practicable, while the plant is wet with dew, and repeated after every shower.  If the boxes are properly made, (like a common flour drudge) and the snuff is perfectly fine and dry, but little time is necessary to go over an acre of plants.  Even the rose bug, cabbage louse, thrips on grape vines, &c., all yield to the influence of snuff, and the most delicate plant of the hot-house is not injured by its application.  For field vegetables, caustic lime, made into a fine powder while dry, and applied before slaking by contact with the air, will produce similar results.

Prof. Mapes.

Tobacco-based insecticides have been around for hundreds of years, so it’s unlikely that Prof. Mapes’s readers of 1851 thought this was a miracle treatment.  My suspicion is that he was providing a method of applying tobacco in a form that was readily available to the mid-nineteenth century farmer.  He even noted that he used “damaged” snuff flour, which may have occasionally been available very cheaply in his day.  Snuff is still available today, but it’s not half as popular as it was in the days of the Heirloom Orchardist.  So, if you want to give a nicotine-based insecticide a try, and you can’t procure a “barrel of dry, but damaged snuff flour,” here’s an alternate recipe for you:

Nicotine Spray:
All you need is:
1 cup of tobacco
1 gallon of water
Combine the two, and allow the mixture to steep for approximately 24 hours.  After it has stood for a day, you should find it to look like weak tea.  Strain it, and apply the liquid with a watering can, or sprayer.  This mixture is for use on foliage feeding insects, or those that may suck plant juices (such as aphids).
I’ve read reports that you shouldn’t use this solution on peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, or any other member of the solanaceous family.  Apparently, tobacco chemicals can hurt these types of plants.  This is ironic, because tobacco itself is from the Nightshade (Solanaceae) family.

Actually, tobacco insecticides are somewhat controversial amongst the organically inclined.  This may be because most organic gardeners are very health conscious, and anything associated with tobacco is hard to accept.  It may also be that nicotine-based insecticides are not specific.  When you use them, you’ll be attacking both the harmful and helpful insects.  Hmmm...it may be easier to simply use some of the earth friendly pest control products available at MasterGardening.com.