May 31, 2026

28F at dawn today. Is it possible that it’s getting colder instead of warmer? Spring’s been here for over two months (since March 20 at 1:46 AM eastern time) yet I just read something suggesting we were returning to winter in the next couple days. It might even snow. Well, even if it feels like winter, it is still spring. There was a year with “no summer” in 1816. In the eastern US, especially in Maine, it was a serious disaster. We aren’t there yet, even if it feels as if we haven’t gotten to spring yet, let alone summer.

Whether chives help in the orchard or not, chive flowers are beautiful, and the flowers and stems are delicious. Plant more chives! 

Despite the cold, one of my favorite plants, chives (Allium schoenoprasum), is now in bloom. We have chives planted throughout the farm, including in the orchards - enough for a thousand baked potatoes. Companion literature says that chives deter or discourage aphids in the orchard. This may be because ants don’t like chives, and ants play an important role in the lives of aphids. I always see them together. Some claim that chives discourage applescab (Venturia inaequalis), the unsightly and damaging fungal disease, as a result of the high sulfur content of chives. Who needs chemical AG when it’s all right here in the plants? So much to research.

May 30, 2026

36F at 6 AM. Today Cammy and I got out the shovels and dug potato trenches. We dig long “straight” trenches about a foot deep, line the bottom with a healthy dollop of compost, and then wait for 60F to plant the potatoes that are currently in crates in our living room feeling toasty and warm and beginning to sprout.

Ye olde grafting tool, May 30, 2026

In the evening, we met up with Steve and Marilyn Meyerhans of the Apple Farm in Fairfield. Steve was gloating when we arrived so we knew something had to be up. It was. Earlier in the day Steve had been walking in their orchard near a block of big, old Cortland trees planted in 1916 when he happened to look down and, voila!, there was a rusty, crusty old tool in the grass. It was a hand-forged, cleft-grafting knife. Was it set on the ground by some grafter of the past who got distracted and forgot about it? Maybe it was the last graft of the season and forgotten in the spring fever of everything else on the farm. By the time next grafting season came, it was gone. “Where did I leave that knife?” From the look of the rust, that was probably about 1920 (or so). Steve had walked past that spot 500 times (or maybe 5,000 times) over the years and never noticed it before. It must have been buried and worked its way up with the freezing and thawing of the ground this spring. Very cool.             

May 29, 2026

One more cold morning (36F) followed by rain, wind, a few hours of overcast followed by more cold and rain. Wow. It’s the end of May. Fortunately the young (and old) apple trees can handle this weather. The tomatoes and corn not so much. They’re looking for heat. Don’t put them in just yet.

I spent time at a neighbor’s orchard taking off tree-guards and doing a bit of pruning on the young trees. We do a work-trade every year. They have a great collection of Maine heirlooms, personally selected! If you haven’t removed your tree-guards, now is the time. While you’re at it, it’s also a good time to trim back the grass from around the trunks and look for borer damage. The borer beetles won’t be laying eggs for another month, but any larvae inside the young tree trunks will become active soon, and you should be able to see the orange-colored sawdust-like frass at the base of the tree. If you see it, get out a short piece of wire and a sharp knife and dig. Borers destroy young trees.

Malus sikkimensis, May 29, 2026

Our “Sikkim” apple (Malus sikkimensis ‘rockii’) with its delicate, small flowers is now in bloom. In a New York Times article from the early 2000’s it was touted as having the most medicinal fruit in the Universe. There followed a rush on trees and scionwood. I obtained scionwood from the Arnold Arboretum. The species is a bit mixed-up, however, and it’s now unclear if we have the apple referred to in the newspaper article. Correct or not, our young tree will have a crop this year. The fruit is about an inch in diameter. We’ll be letting them go for $100 a fruit. A total steal. Supplies are limited. Operators are standing by. Send it your money today!

May 28, 2026

Can weather be temperamental? If it can be, today was quintessential. It was sunny, it was rainy, it was warm, it was cold. If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute and all that. Still we were able to work outdoors; we just changed our clothes often. Cammy got the garden beds ready for planting corn. I weeded the older nursery rows. The young grafted trees spend 2-3 years in the nursery before they get planted out, sold or given away. They do not like weeds. It’s not tough work to keep them weeded, but you have to keep after it, and it takes time.

Weeding is often pooh-poohed as being the lowest of the low when it comes to work. Some would say it’s menial and boring. Anyone who thinks that’s the case need only to spend a few days weeding. Or even one 8-hour day. The work is challenging, meticulous, and physically demanding. I’d also say contemplative, meditative and remarkably satisfying. It can be a great opportunity to chat and socialize if you weed with a friend. Like shelling beans or shucking corn. Not only all that, you get to be outdoors. It’s one of those perfect ways to enjoy the passage of time here on the Third Planet.

Crataegus, which one? May 28, 2026

The native Hawthorns (Crataegus spp) are now in bloom. There are nearly two dozen species native to Maine. I think we have only one of them here on the farm, and I’m unsure which. It pops up all throughout the orchards. Although most of our trees are small shrubs, mature Hawthorns can grow to be about 10-15 feet tall and 20-30 feet wide. The impressive thorns should really be called needles. You can do yourself serious damage if you aren’t careful. The white bloom is a welcome addition to late May, and the fruit is medicinal.

May 27, 2026

The pears and the early-blooming apple trees have now reached petal-fall. The plum flowers have been gone for over a week. The mid-season-blooming apples are still flowering, and the late-bloomers are beginning to open up. In anticipation of more rain and the accompanying threat of fire blight infection, Cammy and I sprayed Blossom Protect again on the open-flowering apple trees. We finished up as it was getting dark. Earlier in the day we set up the irrigation in the Nursery. The young trees want (and need) lots of water, more than we want to carry by hand.

Oporto, May 27, 2026

Spring is a good time to admire the diversity of flower and leaf colors as well as tree-forms. One of my current favorites is Oporto. It has deep, rich-red foliage and red flowers. The tree is wide-spreading. Our scionwood came from the USDA Geneva collection (PI 136020) in 2016. I first learned about Oporto at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, although that tree may now be gone. As I recall, it was large-fruited so may not have even been the same cultivar. Despite the small (2.5 cm) fruit of the Geneva Oporto, I love the tree. The foliage and flowers are both the perfect shade of red, and the small fruit may be usable in cooking and cider. Small fruit is not a bad thing.

May 26, 2026

I spent several hours in the Finley Lane orchard inventorying bloom and looking for trunk damage.

For years we’ve been painting straight Neem Oil on the lower trunks of the young apple trees (1—15 years old) to prevent damage from the round-headed apple tree borer. The treatment has worked extremely well. The “borers” can be devastating to young trees, but since using Neem, we’ve had almost no damage. However, the neem-painted areas look very dark in color, presumably as a result, and some bark has split open. I’ve been concerned that straight Neem Oil may be damaging the bark.

Brandywine in bloom, Finley Lane Orchard, May 26, 2026

Today I checked 350 trees. The bark on most of the trees look fine, but I found 18 with at least some minor bark damage. That’s 1 tree in every 19 or about 5%. In every case all the damage has been on the Southwest (SW) side of the tree. This leads me to believe that the Neem itself is not damaging the tree, but the darkened color of the bark is causing “southwest injury” aka sunscald. SW Injury is caused in the winter when the bark and sap heat up during sunny days and then freeze after dark causing the bark to split. The Neem-blackened trunks probably absorb more sun which could increase the absorption of heat resulting in damage to the bark.

So what to do? This spring I’m painting a paste of clay and fresh manure on the tree trunks. The color is light tan. The tree paste has healing properties and forms a crust that could deter borers. (I say “could.” Time will tell.) Because of the light color, I hope that the winter sun will be reflected rather than absorbed, and winter trunk damage will be reduced or eliminated. Another ongoing experiment.

The hit parade of iconic May birthdays continues today with the 100th anniversary of the birth of the jazz trumpeter, Miles Davis who died in 1991. Although I rarely listen to Miles, I do own a copy of “Kind of Blue” and play it 35 or 47 times a year. All Miles tributes mention the 1959 album as the best-selling jazz album of all-time. There’s a reason for that. The album is superb.

May 25, 2026

Although the first wave of apple flowers is now fading to what we call “petal-fall,” the later cultivars are beginning to open up. The bloom this year continues to be spectacular. We could be thinning a lot of fruit come July. Let’s hope.

The Fothergilla (Witch-alder) is in bloom now, and the Aronia (Chokeberry) is just opening up. Even as the apples fade, we’re still in for some major color yet to come. Speaking of color, the lilacs (Syringa spp) are also full right now. They look and smell great. Although sometimes disparaged, the lilacs are real troopers. We still have the good old Common Purple Lilacs up at the cellar hole on Finley Lane. Those plants were likely planted before Abraham Lincoln was elected. The stems age-out and die once a generation or so, but the root system continually regenerates and lives on for decades, or centuries, sending up new stems that signal to us all that once upon a time, there were farmers here, tending chickens and oxen, scything the fields and picking apples—of course.

Marshall Allen and the pyramids, 1999

The Late-May iconic-birthday parade continues. Today is the 102nd birthday of Marshall Allen. In November 1999 Cammy and I went to see him perform, and he signed a postcard I had brought along of the pyramids at Giza. He chuckled as he signed the card. Amazingly, he’s still leading the Sun Ra Arkestra and playing on his alto sax. He was born in 1924, the year my Mom was born. Happy Birthday Marshall!

May 24, 2026

First spray day his season for the apples and pears. Alyssa Gavlik helped me spray a 2-part product called Blossom Protect and Buffer Protect in an effort to stave off the impending threat of fireblight (Erwinia amylovora). Apples and pears are most susceptible to innoculation when they are in full bloom, temperatures are warm, and moisture levels are above a certain threshold. Like a week ago and like tomorrow. 

Fireblight was never a problem in central Maine until a few years ago. Now it’s an annual concern. Typically orchards spray antibiotics. These are effective, but antibiotic-resistant strains of fireblight are now appearing in apple growing regions across the USA. And there are other concerns about overuse of antibiotics. Blossom/Buffer Protect works differently to ward off fireblight. The product literature says, “It contains microorganisms which block the fireblight pathogen from colonizing the blossoms and nectaries through natural competition for space and nutrients.” It’s considered “organic.” 

Dreams

Spraying in our orchards is a team effort. One person drives, and the other walks alongside with a long hose and a spray gun. The tractor and sprayer can be finicky, but both behaved. Visiting every apple on the farm provides yet another opportunity to observe and, yes, dream. I make notes as I go along, but I also have to focus so I can position the tractor for access to the trees, keep things moving and avoid driving over the hose (which I’ve done).

Lest I forget, today is another dreamer’s birthday: Bob Dylan, who sang many songs about dreams, including my favorite Dylan-dream request, the last line of ‘Talkin’ World War 111 Blues’. “I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be yours, I said that.” 

May 23, 2026

Sweet Hayes in bloom, May 23, 2026

The apple bloom this year is spectacular. Even for some of our oldest trees, this may be the best bloom we’ve ever had. Steve Meyerhans of The Apple Farm in Fairfield, says it’s one of the best in years across the state. Whoopee!

In our annual daily birthday parade of late May, today is our granddaughter, Hayes’. We have a seedling apple tree right off our porch that we named for her: Sweet Hayes. The tree is 15 years old. We’ve had a few fruit over the years, but this spring the tree is covered.  

As I’ve mentioned before, growing apple trees from seed can be really fun. It does take an added dose of patience. Some seedling trees, like Sweet Hayes, take many years to produce. But I think it’s worth the wait. Every seedling is, of course, unique. Like Hayes!   

May 22, 2026

+30F last night, but it could have been way worse. Thirty isn’t bad. The apple flowers should be fine. 

“full of dreams to come true.” Fedco, May 22, 2026

Today is Sun Ra’s birthday. He would have been 112. One of his songs says, “Magic is the future, full of dreams to come true.”  The orchard is certainly one of the most magical places on Earth; it’s definitely full of dreams. I think Sun Ra would have agree that today was a day especially full of magic and dreams of the future. In the morning I returned for the first time since 2019 to the Fedco Tree Sale where a massive crowd of cheerful, excited Mainers from every walk of life appeared seemingly out of nowhere and bought shopping carts-full of overstock-bargain-fruit trees, including hundreds of apples. It was wild. Visible swarms of dreams of orchards and pies and cider, of climbing ladders and picking fruit filled the air in the warehouse. The dreams were so dense it was almost hard to read the tags on the trees. The dreams pretty much blotted out every bad vibe in the Universe. It was hard to remember we were actually in Clinton, Maine. For a few minutes I could have sworn that we were all on a spaceship heading to Saturn.

The crowd began to thin out about noon, and I slipped away to spend the afternoon alone attempting to perform my own apple magic by hand-pollinating Black Oxford and Wealthy flowers with pollen from the red-fleshed Redfield. Three of my favorite apples and all three, excellent pie apples. If the magic of hand-pollination does its thing, someday the world just might have a fantastic, new red-fleshed pie apple with a clever, catchy name, a super-interesting flavor (a little tart, a little sweet, no spices or sugar required), and the perfect soft but firm texture. By then the world will be a whole new place - gardens and orchards in every yard, Mainers eating home-made, home-grown meals featuring lots of pies. Grocery stores and parking lots will be just a vague, distant memory. Magic is the future...

May 21, 2026

The warm weather came to an abrupt end. Today was cool all day and windy. I sprayed the plums early in the morning. It was nice to be out in the orchards, though I could have used another layer. I sprayed the plums with Surround and Cueva. Surround combats (deters) the plum curculio and Cueva is a deterrent for  Brown Rot. The plum bloom was really strong this spring, and we could have a really good crop. I spent the rest of the day in the BRC orchard, cleaning up pruning-brush, mowing, weeding and cutting out lots of dead blackberry canes. If all goes well, we’ll have blackberry jam in a few months.

One never knows!

In late May we get to celebrate a string of amazing birthdays. Two days ago was Malcolm X. Today is Thomas “Fats” Waller. My favorite Fats recording session is the one from June 8, 1936 which fittingly includes “Blackberry Jam.” The band was in it’s absolutely best form. One of Waller’s favorite expressions was, “One never knows, do one?”

May 20, 2026

The warm weather continues. The apples are responding, and the first wave of cultivars are approaching full bloom. It is spectacular. Cammy and I pruned the peaches which we like to do once they’ve leafed-out. After a winter of below-zero temperatures, we know we’ll have dead branches. Waiting until now, we know what is not going to make it. Some of our trees took a real hit. We cut all that out. Amazingly, however, we have peach blooms on every tree, and that could mean a peach crop even after multiple nights of —20F.

The Maine Heritage Orchard in 2013

The asparagus and rhubarb are up, and we’ve been feasting on both. Rhubarb is better with ice cream. I think we need to go to “John’s” soon.

In the evening I gave a brief talk at the annual apple blossom tour at the Maine Heritage Orchard in Unity. It was warm but very windy. Still it was a beautiful sight.. and site.       

May 19, 2026

Continued extremely warm. Many apples are open with some approaching full bloom. Others still at pink or even just beginning to leaf out. It’s spectacular out in the orchard, and there should be at least another week of this ahead of us.

Wednesday, May 20, you can see the spectacular bloom at the Maine Heritage Orchard at MOFGA. The timing should be perfect. There’s a bloom-tour from 5-7 PM. I’ll be giving a talk which (rumor has it) may focus on the magic of apples. Come join us if you can.

I returned to the governor’s Blaine House in Augusta to graft the last of the 16 apple trees in the Blaine House orchard. They now have an apple from each of Maine’s 16 counties. Governor Mills will leave office in January, and someone new will take her place. I sure hope they love apples.

Do you believe in Magic?

I followed the river down to Hallowell where I topworked the apple and pear we saved from the bulldozers a couple of months ago. Friends had alerted me of the impending demise of the trees and the Save-the-Maine-Trees-Rescue squad rushed over to assist them in collecting scionwood. We’ve grafted them at home and put them in our tree nursery, and today I grafted the pear and apple scions onto older trees in the Hallowell neighborhood. The old varieties will live on. The baton will be passed. As I inserted the scion into the rootstock sprout from the old tree, one of the neighbors declared, “It’s magic!”       

May 18 2026

Warmest weather of the year. The plum flowers are fading. Asian pears are at full bloom. The Trailman, Redfield, Tea crab and Niedzwetzkyana are full , and a hundred other apple cultivars are not far behind. It looks like time-lapse photography out there. New apples opening practically every hour. Maybe every minute.

Collecting Redfield pollen, May 18, 2026

Laura came over in the morning, and we wrestled the sprayer onto the tractor together. A true team effort. Cranked it up, and it works good. Later Cammy and I both planted perennials near the house and out in the BRC orchard. I also moved a couple of apple seedlings in the BRC to “better” locations. (Is that arrogance or what?). One of the two was growing out of the fence, and the other was in a path where it surely would have been stepped on or mowed. Later I grafted onto plum rootsuckers in the old orchard and up at Finley Lane. Ended the day collecting Redfield pollen for the hand pollinating in a few days.   

May 17, 2026

Yesterday (May 16) was a notable day in the universe. It was the new moon and the mid-point between two May full moons. The first of them was on May 1, and the second will be on May 31. May 31st will be the Blue Moon.  

George Copeland c. May 16, 1963

May 16 is also notable for being the recording date of one of my favorite old LP records, fittingly of Claude Debussy’s “Suite bergamasque” which includes “Clair de lune.” The record also includes “Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut” (And the moon descends on the temple that was) as well as a number of other pieces by Debussy. The pianist is George Copeland, and the recording year was 1963. The record I have belonged to my grandmother. It’s in a plain orange-yellow jacket with no writing. I found it on her record shelf after she died. I’ve listened to the record hundreds of times in the past 55 years, probably more than any other record I own. Copeland was a renowned Debussy interpreter, and his “versions” are fantastic. I don’t know much about the record and why it came in a plain, un-marked jacket. Maybe it was some sort of private recording. Fortunately the record label includes the titles of all the tunes, and there’s a cool photo of George Copeland and his cat tucked inside. 

Thanks George, and here’s to the moon, ever-watching over the orchard with its energy, its power and its light. 

May 16, 2026

I continued grafting in the Finley Lane orchard and the old orchard. The bark is slipping perfectly now, and the short topworking season is coming and going quickly. I’ll do a bit more in the next couple of days and then call it quits.  

Tree paste, May 16, 2026

In the afternoon Skylar and I mixed up a test-batch of Bio-dynamic tree paste. It’s my version of a classic Rudolf Steiner-inspired paintable concoction, typically a blend of fresh cow manure and clay, designed to promote tree health and heal the trunks of apple trees. I hope it will also deter apple borers. I’ve been looking for an alternative to painting Neem Oil on the tree trunks. Neem is definitely effective in deterring borers, but it turns the bark black and may damage bark. Neem is also expensive and from far away (SE Asia). Cow poop and clay are definitely local!

According to Biodynamics, clay is a tissue rejuvenator and fresh manure is a rich source of microbes. Some recipes include other materials, such as sand and wood ash. We used fresh cow manure and powdered clay and added zeolites (aluminosilicate lattices derived from volcanic ash) and rock phosphate. We mixed it up with water from the rain barrels and painted it on about 25 apple trees.

May 15, 2026

Purple Heart plum (and Spy) May 15, 2026

The plums are entering full bloom now. Our oldest Purple Heart tree has lots of flowers. It’s our favorite plum by far. In the next day or two I’ll hook up the sprayer and spray the plums with Surround and Cueva (liquid copper). Surround deters plum curculio, one of the peskiest pests of the orchard. It doesn’t kill the insects; it just irritates them (“bugs them”) so they leave and presumably head back to the forest from whence they came. Cueva is a fungicide that helps reduce or prevent brown rot, a fungal disease that makes the plums useless. We combine both products together in the spray tank and apply during full bloom and after. Surround and Cueva are both certified organic.   

May 14, 2026

Planting newly grafted trees, May 14, 2026.

Yes, still cool. Cammy and I planted 200 young grafted trees. It was a long day, but we finished by late afternoon, just before the rain started. The trees look happy in their new home. They will live there for two years. Then we’ll dig them. That will be in 2028.

The grafts did well for the most part. Nearly everything took. A few did not but that’s to be expected. Some of the scionwood was less than perfect. It was certainlly not the fault of the grafters!

We timed lunch to coincide with a Cornell Ornithology Lab webinar on bird migration. That was worth the viewing. We learned that most birds migrate at night which may help to explain why we’ve been seeing so many at our feeder and hearing them out in the orchard. They’re chilling out at Super Chilly, waiting for the sun to go down and good flying weather to keep on keeping on.   

Many apples now at pink. We’ll have bloom soon. 

May 13, 2026

Yes, still cool. Or maybe it qualifies as cold. But digging weeds pumps the blood and warms the soul. The nursery bed is now complete. We’ll plant 200 new trees tomorrow. Hooray. It was a productive morning.

In the afternoon, as the rain fell, Cammy went to Moose Crossing Garden center in Waldoboro to buy more plants. Some might ask, “Don’t you have enough?” The response is (of course) “Never!” 

Help is on the way (photo from Eliza Greenman)

Meanwhile I made a trip to Two Loons Farm in South China to obtain several buckets of nature’s finest, straight out of their Jersey Cows’ rear ends. As fresh as fresh can be. I’ll mix it with clay and other stuff and paint it onto the trunks of our apple trees. It’s a biodynamic paste concocted to protect and heal the trees’ bark. I’ve never tried it before so I’ll do a test run this weekend when the dry, warm weather arrives. Some of the apple tree trunks look a bit funky, and I’m hoping that this manure/clay paste will be akin to attending one of those expensive spas at some snazzy resort. 

The catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) is back. Nearly all the other birds go home by early evening but not so the catbird. She (he?) was visiting our suet just outside the kitchen window while we were cleaning up after dinner.     

May 12, 2026

When we teach what we know to others, we pass the baton. The scion makes a great baton. 

The cold weather continues - 27F at 6 AM. Feels a bit more like March than May. In the morning, Cammy and I worked in the nursery, continuing to prep for planting this year’s new grafts. It’s a long job, but it feels great to have our hands back in the soil. 

In the afternoon Seamus came over, and he and I topworked together.  After a bit of a refresher on grafting and a lesson in bark grafts, we headed down the rows at Finley Lane to graft over several unproductive trees to some of our recent discoveries. It was fun working together. He’s 13 and a quick learner. He asks interesting questions and makes interesting observations. He hadn’t remembered our collies’ names (Spy and Chaga), so he renamed them. (That was a first. Now, like many of our apples, they have synonyms!) Unfortunately, because it’s been so cold, some of the bark is still not slipping that well. We’ll hope for the best.