Teddy Bear Trees



Of all my favorite months, November is NOT one. It is such a funereal month, filled with farewells – goodbye to warm, sun-ripened tomatoes and fresh lettuce, colorful bouquets of asters and goldenrod, and New England’s  flaming autumn colors.

Our woodlands stand gray and black to face the coming winter. There’s one exception, however, a most unusual tree that is just now turning from green to a warm cinnamon brown.  It’s a tamarack, the only conifer that is deciduous, not evergreen.  You may know the tamarack as a larch, or even a hackamatack, but I never knew it by any name until the year daughter Bridget turned 16 and got her license.

That summer, driving on a back road in Falls Village, Bridget swerved to avoid a little bird, and then looked back (Not via the rear-view mirror) to see if she’d hurt it.  The car knocked down three guide posts, sheared 20 feet of dirt bank and landed in a tamarack tree.

Neither Bridget nor the bird was hurt and that was how I  learned what a tamarack tree looked like.  Such a unique conifer, the only needled tree native to North America that drops its foliage each fall.

Tamarack needles grow like small shaving brushes along the branches and are soft and delicate compared to those of spruce or fir. They may be hard to tell apart from their evergreen cousins in their summer greenery, but now when other deciduous trees have been stripped naked, their needles lose their chlorophyll and become as conspicuous as polo-coated preppies at a nudist colony.

These tufts of needles have turned a soft warm brown and have opened out so that each branch looks like a tiny modern hayrake, making the trees resemble furry teddy bears.  By December their needles have all dropped and the black skeletons left bare give the impression of having been charred by a fire, looking totally dead.

Although tamaracks are most commonly found in swampy areas, they can  live equally well on a dry hillside where they grow very fast, as much as three feet a year.  Along with sumacs and poverty birches, they are often the first trees to appear in open land and are called nurse trees, as they prepare the way for trees needing shade.

After the Mad River dry dam was built just west of Winsted, I watched the open meadow beside Route 44 fill in, first with sumacs and a few popples, then tamaracks.  Eventually white pines moved in, and at this time of year make a spectacular sight of rich green and cinnamon.

Searching for more facts on tamaracks to fill this column, I located an article in a 1926 Antiques Magazine written by Hank’s grandfather describing a variety of products made from tamarack.  The wood is apparently very hard and almost impervious to water, so it is used in ship building and dock pilings.

If you’ve never known about or noticed tamarack trees right now is a good time to spot them, especially on that hillside to the right as you head down into Winsted.  n

Canaan has hardly any tamaracks, but when I drove to Sharon the other day I saw one here and one there.  They've almost lost all their teddy bear look, so you may have to wait until next November to spot one.    Happy Thanksgiving.  

A Really Tasty Tomato?






It’s a rare occurrence when reading my daily copy of the Wall Street Journal that I find an article on gardening, but several weeks ago I was stunned to discover an entire 4-page section entitled “Innovations in Agriculture.” It contained eight articles, starting with one titled Vertical  Farming about growing crops in urban high-rises, and ending with one on robots harvesting fruits and vegetables.

I’d just consumed the last two delicious tomatoes from my garden and since I refuse to buy the tasteless offerings at the supermarket, I skipped straight to an article headed with an illustration of ripe red fruit, eager to read about producing a truly tasty tomato.

The first five paragraphs explained why store-bought toms are so bland and tasteless – farmers demanding plants with high yields, retailers wanting toms with good color and long-lasting shelf life, and of course the shippers need sturdy fruits that can withstand their  traumatic journeys crammed into crates.

All these excuses for ignoring taste are well known, but the last one was a surprise, the fact that back in 1940 a genetic mutation was developed that made tomatoes ripen uniformly, but was discovered only recently to seriously reduce their sugar content.

Fortunately this mutation is not incorporated in many of the seeds sold to home gardeners such as Big Boy and cherry tomatoes as well as the Heirloom varieties.  This is one  reason our home-grown tomatoes are tasty compared to store-bought offerings.  

 

Although scientists have been struggling to discover how to improve the tomato’s flavor, progress has been very slow because at least a dozen genes account for a truly mouth-watering tomato – its aroma, texture, sugars, acids. And field trials take years and often end in failure.

The article does end on a hopeful note.  This past May scientists decoded the tomato genome for the first time.  Plus something called “marker-assisted” breeding is now making the discovery process of genes much faster. In the meantime, growing a few tomato plants in your backyard each summer is definitely worth the effort.

I skimmed through the article on growing crops in urban high-rises. It may be of interest to city folk who have no access to local farm markets, and will be able to get produce close to home, but not to me.   The same can be said for the robots who harvest vegetables and fruit.

The other article that I found intriguing was one on the breeding efforts to improve our fruits and vegetables.  Monsanto has bred iceberg and romaine lettuce together to combine the sweet taste and crisp texture of iceberg and the higher levels of vitamin C and deeper green color of romaine.

Soon there will be seedless watermelons, broccoli with higher levels of antioxidant, its cancer-preventing properties.  Ah, a new variety of onion with less pungency, meaning no tears.  Grown for fall harvests, it will serve the winter market when the famous Vidalia onion is not available. 

Reading about all these agricultural pursuits in the WSJ was a real treat compared to plowing through all the stomach-grinding articles on politics.  I hope it inspires some of you to think seriously about having a vegetable garden next summer.  

Carpathian Walnut Trees



Whoever wrote “Here we go gathering nuts in May” must have been nuts!  Late October is when we expect to collect nuts.  When I mentioned my Carpathian walnut tree in my last column, several readers wanted to know more about it, but first I’d like to tell you a bit about the yellow-bellied sapsuckers who have drilled rows and rows of holes in our tree as they searched for insects and sap. 

Despite the fact that my tree is riddled with these holes, I have never heard a sapsucker drilling rows of holes on a limb, much less seen one of these yellow-bellied woodpeckers. From what I’ve read, they usually pick on birches or maples, so I don’t think they are normally a problem with walnut trees.

Our tree produced a bushel or more of nuts every other year from 1978 until about 2002.  I think a tree yielding a harvest of nuts for close to thirty years could be considered a success so I would recommend planting one.

The Carpathian walnut, as you might guess, originated in the Carpathian Mountains of Italy, and consequently can tolerate the freezing temperatures we who live in the Icebox of Connecticut often shiver through in the winter.  Its nuts are as delicious as those of English walnuts, which cannot survive freezing temperatures.  

We bought our little seedling from Jung’s Nurseries in Randolph, Wisconsin in 1972.  Getting this unusual tree was Hank’s idea, and when I saw the pathetic looking twig he unwrapped, I couldn’t help but tease him a little.

“By the time that poor stick produces nuts enough for a Waldorf salad, you’ll be gumming it!” I laughed as we dug the hole. We planted it at the edge of the big meadow, and planned to mow under it each October so the nuts would be easy to find.

We didn’t need to mow for six years, but finally one May we were thrilled to spy blossoms.  Hank rushed to get the lawn mower, and waved the recipe for Waldorf salad in my face.  Come fall, however, there were no nuts. Discouraged, we got out the tree book and learned that the blossoms had all been males.  Not until the following year would we get both male and female blooms and be able to harvest our first crop. From then on we could expect a really good harvest every other year and a slim one in the off years.

When walnuts ripen properly they fall out of their casings to the ground, but if there’s a high wind or rain at the wrong time, they may be blown off the tree with their husks still intact.  When that happens, the husks must be pulled off so the nuts can dry out.

Fresh off the tree, the nuts are too moist to eat and should be stored in a warm dry place for a month or more.  If you can’t wait, you can zap a few in the microwave to hurry the drying process.

The Carpathian’s shape is not especially attractive compared to the other trees on Locust Hill.  It has a fat circle of greenery atop a short but sturdy trunk. The leaves are large and provide dense shade in summer, but each fall when other deciduous trees have turned gold or crimson, these leaves turn an ugly brown and make the lawn look as if some mechanic’s oily rags had escaped from the clothesline.

We’ve often parked the car under the walnut on hot summer days as it’s just opposite the front door. A month ago I did just that, parked my little Miata in its shade. I guess I should have known better as the tree is obviously dying.  The trunk has lost great hunks of bark and the limbs are so full of woodpecker holes they resemble a cribbage board.

Around four o’clock that day a brief but very windy rain darkened the world and when I heard a large crack I looked out the window.  One of the largest and highest limbs had broke off and crashed down, missing the Miata by about a foot.

I wish I’d thought to take a picture of this miracle.  There’s no way my little convertible could have survived had that enormous limb landed on it.  At least the extension cord for my chain saw was long enough to reach it, and a nice little pile of next year’s firewood is now stacked up in the long shed.

I just googled the Carpathian on the Internet and found many nurseries that carry it, so don’t let the sapsuckers discourage you from buying one.  We not only enjoyed  Waldorf salad with our walnuts frequently, but also many batches of brownies. 

Why Leaves Turn



I’ve just finished reading descriptions of what goes on inside a leaf at the end of summer – dying cells, clogged arteries,  altered chemical.  Who wants to hear about the complicated inner workings of a tree’s foliage that go on to produce the autumn spectacular?  It makes the process sound as if trees were going through the menopause, their flaming colors the result of severe hot flashes.

Every morning I look across at Canaan Mountain, wondering when it will don its cloak of many colors.  What is it waiting for anyway?  Actually, it is waiting for cool nights.  Not killer frosts, which many people think are needed to produce the gold and crimson autumn colors, just temperatures that have dipped down into the 40s. A lot of different elements go into making Mother

Cool nights are what stop the corky layer between leaf stems and branches that develops to blows the whistle on food production.  The trees may like a few extra weeks of good green chlorophyll, but that green is so strong it covers up the yellow pigments, carotene and xanthophylls which are waiting eagerly to turn the woods and roadsides into shimmering gold.

The scarlet and purple pigments, anthocyanins, require high light intensities and high sugar content for their development, so they, too, need bright sunny days and cold nights.   These pigments will turn a sun-drenched (and sad to say, salt-drenched) roadside maple into a flaming orange torch. The woodland maples, who’ve been unable to trap sufficient sugar in their leaves, however, will turn a soft butter yellow.

Jack Frost is not responsible for the autumn extravaganza.  He’s the culprit who puts an end to the show by filling the woody fibers that hold the leaves to the twigs with ice crystals so that they break. If his timing is poor, Jack can ruin the entire performance, forcing the leaves to drop before they’ve had a chance to show off their colorful costumes. 

Autumn turns the dowdy, shapeless sumacs into raspberry-robed partygoers, but makes the vibrant green apple tree look more dingy than a derelict. It decorates the delicate birches with a thousand gold coins, and eventually replaces them with copper ones. 

An ash tree keeps its golden crown for only a few days, but a beech will hold its fluttering leaves, as pale as winter sunlight, until wind and snow finally tear them away.  The oaks cling to their leaves even more tenaciously.  Red oaks deepen to a beautiful burgundy, but the white oaks merely fade to brown with oxidation, the same way the flesh of an apple does when exposed to the air.

Locust Hill has no trees that become really colorful each fall.  The photo of my sugar maple at the start of this column was taken years ago.  This is what it looks like now.   And the Carpathian Walnut tree beside it. riddled with sapsucker holes, always has ugly brown leaves by October.  Even Canaan Mountain’s autumn colors are not worth a photo this year.    I hope, unlike me,  you’re surrounded by gold and scarlet trees. 

Why the Leaves Turn

Farewell to the Joys of Summer

Weather is such a safe topic of discussion in New England.  I sometimes wonder what people talk about in sunny California.  We have infinite variety here in the East – dramatic thunderstorms, heart-stopping rainbows, exhausting heat waves, exhilarating blizzards.

Even our change of seasons offers good conversation -  the first heady days of spring as the earth turns green; the lazy, languid days of summer; the precious days of autumn when we soak up the turning of the leaves and the last harvests of fresh vegetables and flowers.

You can’t really argue about the weather, just rejoice or complain.  Mother Nature goes right on about her business.  Even discussing a coming hurricane or a winter blizzard is pleasant compared to talking about the candidates in the coming election.

I have to admit that knowing Jack Frost will soon return from his summer vacation is a bit of a downer. Seeing a flock of sparrows gather in the locust trees to discuss the best route south or watching the last golden maple leaf float to earth make me feel as melancholy as the cricket’s sad lament.  How much I will miss the sweet smell of new-mown hay, the fun of picking bouquets for the house and vegetables for the table, playing exhausting but delightful tennis games.

This may sound silly, but one of the things I will miss the most will be fresh corn on the cob.  Oh, I freeze plenty for the winter, but it doesn’t compare.  I don’t grow corn since the Fords who rent my pastures and hay fields let me pick mine straight from the vast acres of corn behind their farm stand. 

I can’t remember eating corn as a kid.  What I do remember is hiding under the branches of a bridal wreath bush in the backyard and pulling the dried silk from a few ears with my cousin, stuffing them into a corncob pipe and puffing and coughing.  Do you know what corn silk’s real purpose is?  Each of those pale yellow threads is the style of a female flower.  If you think back to your school days you may remember that the female flower is called the pistil and consists of an ovary, a style and a stigma.  Deep within the immature husk, each filament of silk is attached to an ovary, which will grow into a kernel of corn when fertilized.

At the other end of each silk is the sticky stigma, waiting to catch a grain of pollen.  Under a microscope the thin strands look like feathers, each one covered with tiny hairs.  Since there are close to a thousand kernels on an ear of corn, there are also a thousand silks, which anyone who’s husked corn well knows.

The male flower is the tassel that blooms at the tip of the corn stalk.  It is made up of hundreds of pairs of spikelets, each pair containing six anthers, each anther producing about 2500 grains of pollen.  When a grain slides down each silk it fertilizes an ovary, turning it into a kernel. 

That plethora of pollen is spread by the wind and can travel hundreds of miles. It isn’t fussy about where it lands, but happily most varieties of hybrid corn will not accept pollen from a different variety. The one exception is pop corn.

 My sheep love eating all the husks as I strip them from the ears.  Mmmm.  Almost dinner time.  Guess I’ll drive down and get two or three ears for my dinner.

The Greensward



One of the few improvements man has been able to make in Mother Nature’s landscape is a well-mowed lawn.  Her prairies and mountain meadows may look smooth and beautiful from a distance, as do pastures that have been grazed, but they’re not much fun to walk over in bare feet.

This summer as the price of gas nearly doubled I didn’t see that anyone had stopped cutting their lawn to save a few pennies. Even this parsimonious old lady mows the weedy lawns on Locust Hill pictured above each Friday. They always look just fine on the weekend. 

There is just no real substitute for the incredibly green green of freshly mowed grass in spring, or the deep blue-green of a maple-shaded summer lawn, or even the pristine white blanket that stretches beyond the window in unbroken splendor after a winter snow.

Do you remember back in 1972 when the Arabs treated us to an oil embargo?  Environmentalists urged everyone to turn his or her lawn into a meadow full of wildflowers.  That idea may sound appealing, and would certainly eliminate the weekly chore of cutting the grass, but I wouldn’t call it an adequate substitute of the greensward.

When I was growing up in West Hartford, one of our more prosperous neighbors put in a six hole golf course in his front yard.  A few years later the Second World War’s gas rationing forced him to let it turn into an unmowed field. My friends and I played far more delightful games than golf in that luxurious meadow, matting down secret tunnels and serpentine paths that led to incredibly soft nests on the overgrown putting greens.

Most country clubs kept their golf courses mowed during the war by using their members’ pooled gas coupons.  But I can remember one in Vermont that found a better way.  I don’t play golf so maybe “different” would be a more appropriate adjective.  That golf course was fenced and grazed by sheep.  Each ewe was outfitted with a football helmet to protect  her from the flying golf balls.

We are so lucky in New England compared to the West and South where drought so often turns everyone’s lawn into ugly dry dust.  We usually have just enough rain to prevent such discouraging landscapes.  The last drought  I can remember that was serious enough to turn the lawns on Locust Hill brown was in 1999.

Plants sweat in hot weather, just the same way we do, but it’s called transpiration, not perspiration.  We sweat to cool our bodies, but plants do it to get rid of excess water.  Their roots need that water to carry minerals up from the soil to all parts of the plant, but once it’s been released, the plant gets rid of the water through its leaves in transpiration.

When temperatures soar into the 90s as they tend to do more frequently every summer, a maple tree can lose several hundred gallons of water in a day; an acre of pasture grass can release up to 400,000 gallons during a growing season.  So next time your tennis game gets washed out in a summer storm or all the shirts drying on the clothesline get drenched, don’t complain.  Be thankful. 

On September 24^th two years ago,  Golda Meier, our 25 year old goldfish, died.  I thought it would be nice to put her picture up for those of you who didn’t read the column I wrote about this remarkable old lady. 

Many readers have asked about the new fish I bought to replace Goldie. A tiny Comet, silvery white instead of orange, whose name, Ben Hur, I chose from among many suggested by my readers.   Shortly after I released him into the pond, we had a tremendous rain storm, so drenching that the pond overflowed the dam.

You know that song “…and he swam and he swam, right over the dam!”  I’m afraid that is exactly what little Ben did as I haven’t seen him since.  If I don’t see him by next spring, I guess I’ll get another little fish who will hopefully be strong enough by the autumn hurricanes to survive.