Harvest Jitters

I knew a very good and capable man a generation older than me with wonderful gardens around his farm in upstate New York. In the high summer months, arriving up the driveway for a visit, we were guaranteed to find him bent over behind the tall grasses and flowers with a trowel or clippers. He was the first person I knew to experiment with soap bars impaled on stakes as a way to ward off deer. I am not sure how well it worked, but after a blazing hot afternoon last week collecting fallen fruit, and erecting chicken wire fencing around our fruit trees, I dug into his playbook, hanging Irish Spring on our fruit trees, which a source said could be especially effective. We will see. 

            The day before, all had been well. Then, overnight, some marauder picked the Empire apple tree nearly clean of its bounty, disfiguring several branches in its voraciousness. It could have been anybody: squirrel, skunk, racoon, porcupine. Search online for apple tree bandits and the animal kingdom is substantially represented. (Who doesn’t like apples?) Our suspicion defaulted to deer.

            Next day, wire fences in place, we were still losing apples dangling close to the fence line, but the tree damage was minimized. We hate losing the fruit. We are more concerned about losing the tree. Allowing it to grow is the long term plan to provide enough apples for everyone. 

            For us backyard gardeners, this is the time of year we fear most for our crops. It is not like we have a superabundance to go around. There were eighteen apples left on the persecuted tree when I checked last evening, probably not enough to get us all the way to harvest season—any of us. Shortly, the overnight attention may turn to the nearby Macoun tree, which is thriving, laden with fruit. 

             I remember trying to grow corn, three or four rows of it, living in suburban New York. I learned an important lesson, which is that everyone is watching. And everyone, it turns out, is a pretty astute gardener, with an ability to discern when the vegetables are going to be at their earliest, succulent best. In the case of my attempts to grow corn, the deer and raccoons were always one day ahead of me. As in, tomorrow, children, we will have corn from the garden. Except that the observant forest dwellers would carry off most of it that very night. Without the desire to build a large, fenced area in my suburban yard, I gave up growing corn.

            By comparison, we have been doing well growing things here in rural New Hampshire. Perhaps there is so much habitat that the pressure is reduced to pilfer the raised beds of lettuce and carrots, and whatnot. Our vegetables have been unmolested for the third year in a row. Very lucky. 

            But apples and peaches? Different altogether. Everyone knows a delicacy when they see it. If we could prevail on the deer, and whoever else, to take the long view, allowing the trees to mature past the point where delicate branches snap, easily, and a plentiful amount of fruit is available to share, we could live super-harmoniously. 

            In the meantime, we are negotiating with our dog Huckleberry to give up his spot at the end of our bed and sleep outside at night. Just until October.