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Tuesday, April 3, 2018

ReRooting: A Process

Snow, rain and hail, wind and pleasant weather seems to be Spring here in Santa Fe, New Mexico/Land of Enchantment. With the elevation above 6790' Spring is slowly arriving. The city has an abundance of flowering trees now sporting their blossoms. This is a stunning contrast to the deciduous trees with bare branches remaining.

Recently we enjoyed an excursion up into the mountains through Chimayo 


El Santuario de Chimayo;
19th century adobe shrine that now draws tens of
thousands of pilgrims during Holy Week.
Quite an amazing place to walk about,
which we did, feeling the love throughout the grounds and church.
For those of you that have visited the missions in
California, this is, to me, the most similar to the San Luis Rey mission
located outside Carlsbad, California.
and onto Truchas which in Spanish means "trout" and is mostly an artists' community 




where we visited Tooley's Trees owned by Margaret and Gordon Tooley.







There we purchased and brought back fruit trees to commence our "food forest" in our walled backyard (typical here in the Stamm developments of the 1950's):

Esopus Spitzenburg

fresh eatingstoring

Available as one year whip for Spring 2018
Thomas Jefferson’s favorite; dessert apple for connoisseurs. Medium to large, round conical, orangeish fruit with tough skin, russet dots and inconspicuous stripes. Crisp, fine grained, spicy, juicy, yellowish flesh. Rich, aromatic flavor. Ripens unevenly; hangs well into November. Average to good when tree ripe; radically improves in storage. Keeps until May. Tends to bear biennially. Pollinator required. Susceptible to fireblight, scab and canker. Hardy to Zone 4. Requires 800 chilling hours. Originated in Esopus, NY. Introduced in 1790.

Westfield Seek No Further

fresh eating

Available as one year whip for Spring 2018. Excellent for eating fresh and drying. Flavor intensifies as it dries. Fruit is streaked with red and russet over yellowish background. Crisp, juicy, high quality flesh. Rich, mild, pleasantly aromatic, mildly subacid, distinctive flavor. Beach rates Westfield as very good to best, a rare distinction in his Apples of New York. Average keeper. Medium to large tree. Flourishes in well-drained, gravelly or loamy soil. Ripens during October. Hardy to -50 F. with occasional winter injury. Originated in Westfield, Massachusetts. Introduced in 1790.

Hargrande Apricot 

bakingfresh eatingprocessing

RS- Myro.
Very large fruit, up to 2.5 inches diameter. Dull orange skin with a speckled blush. Firm, smooth, orange, freestone flesh. Good texture and flavor. Suitable for fresh market or processing. Productive, cold hardy tree. Tolerant to brown rot, bacterial spot and perennial canker. Ripens in late July. Zones 5-8. Developed at the Harrow Research Station, Canada, 1980.

Harogem Apricot 

bakingfresh eating

RS- Myro.
Small to medium, glossy, orange fruit with a bright red blush. Very firm, orange, freestone flesh with good texture and flavor. Excellent for fresh market. Upright tree. Consistently productive. Resistant to perennial canker and brown rot. Moderately susceptible to bacterial spot. Ripens in early August. Cold hardy. Zones 4-8. Developed at the Harrow Research Station, Canada, 1979.

Chokecherry

processing

Prunus Virginiana
20'-30', Zone 2. Small suckering tree or large shrub with oval crown. Flowers are white 3”-6” long racemes. The fruit is red, ripening to dark purple. The fruits can be used for making jams, jellies, sauces and wines. Good screening and wildlife habitat plant.



American Plum

fresh eatingprocessing


Prunus Americana
10'-25', Zone 3. Small graceful tree or shrub. Beautiful fall color. Fragrant, white flowers bloom profusely. 1” red and yellow fruit. Excellent food for wildlife. Good for jams and jellies. Drought tolerant, and not soil specific. Excellent pollenizer. Good choice for screening and wildlife habitat.











These above descriptions are from Tooley's Trees website.



Tooley's Trees on our back cement patio, aka portal, in Santa Fe await their forever home at 6790' MuRefuge's coming soon "Food Forest."



Both of the apricot trees that had tight blossom buds in Truchas have now burst into full flower with the warmer days here in Santa Fe.

"Contemplate in the morning
Pull weeds in the afternoon
The joys and labor of a single day
Are a part of a whole journey."
365 Tao: Daily Meditations by Deng Ming-Dao

As we pull weeds or whatever activity(ies) we engage in to care for Mother Earth, may we




7 comments:

  1. An email from one of our neighbors when we lived at MuRefuge:
    "Hi Cathie,

    I enjoy reading your posts. It seems that you, Dwight and especially Shasta have settled in to "the Land of Enchantment" quite well.

    Spring has sprung here in the 'Hessel Hood' too. Nights are above freezing and rains are diminishing, for the most part. Dan and I enjoyed spending Easter weekend (Thurs-Sun) in Point Reyes with friends. There were lots of beautiful wildflowers on the hikes to the lighthouse and also Chimney rock. We did see some whales off in the distance. I also enjoy visiting the Miwok demonstration garden when I go there. They have signage listing each plant and how it was used for culinary and medicinal purposes.

    I started several vegetable and edible flower seed in the greenhouse this winter and am now putting those out in the garden. I am also experimenting with growing micro greens for my morning smoothy.We did not plant any new fruit trees but have grafted some different apple and plum varieties on the existing trees. I have started a couple of fig trees from scions that I got at the exchange in the fall.

    I've been on a couple of fire recovery walks and it is inspiring to see the new growth in the hills. Recovery is still slow and there are several lots that are being sold in the Fountaingrove area.

    We will have family visiting (including Megan, Matt and the baby) to celebrate Katie's 30th. Dan and I will be spending 2 weeks in Ireland in May.

    Cheers,

    Diane"

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  3. An email from my cousin in WA: "Cathie,
    I enjoyed your post about the trip into the mountains for the fruit trees. We fight a battle here with the bears…they took out two of our apple trees and severely damaged our pear. Sigh. We just buy apples now as the local fruit stand has a wonderful variety and the owner gets all of them locally from small farmers. I love apricots and have a tendency to eat too many fresh when they just ripen. There are worse habits to have I’m sure :)

    Take care.
    Hugs,
    Sue"

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  4. An email from friend right here in Santa Fe: "Even in the best of times, but especially now, it is good to follow Voltaire’s dictum:
    “Cultivate your own garden!"

    Diana"

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  5. 2 kinds of apricots! Sounds delicious, I look forward to hearing how everything does in this new environment.

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  6. An email from a cousin in the Bay Area, CA: "Hi Cathie,The pictures on your most recent blog post are beautiful. The landscape is breathtaking. We have been several times to the adobe church in Chimayo. I have brought a bag of “blessed” dirt back to a friend who was being treated for metastatic breast cancer. (she is still alive and going strong) At the time, the church displayed all the cast off crutches and leg braces from people who had been miraculously “cured” by the dirt. Love, Shelley"

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  7. An email from Petaluma, CA: "Hi Cathie – thank you for your blogs. I loved seeing your "new" furnishings and what a beautiful job you have done. It's good to hear of goods being reused, rather than new all the time, and your mis-matched oak chairs are charming.

    You will not remember that we live on the very edge of the south east of Petaluma. There used to be an extremely large field (several acres) at the bottom of our garden, so to speak (between us and Sonoma "Mountain") which appeared to be cut for hay every year. Well, it was for sale a few years back, and we were dreading more houses being built there. We like being on the edge of town. However, it is a vineyard, which is quite nice on the eye, but makes one fearful of sprays and such, leaving even fewer insects for insect-eating creatures.

    We have had a fair amount of rain in the late spring, which we enjoyed enormously, and it appears we are due for more rain and a storm at the end of this week, and I should think that that will probably be IT for this winter.

    It is good to hear things are going to well for you, and that you appear to have made a good choice. I have to say, Marc and I do miss the snow, but I think if we were still in New York, having to contend with that and ice, etc., doctors' appointments, whether caregivers would get through the snow, we are probably better off here, though we do miss family and friends.

    Take care, Cathie, and warm regards to Dwight.

    Kate Weinberger (and Marc and Weegie)"

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