This afternoon Herb and I visited my nemesis, Randy's, 20 year old tree farm. I can't sleep. It is haunting me.
He has 50 acres of ornamental trees--in exact spacing drawn in squares with $9,000 worth of slow release chemical fertilizer around the edge of the squares. No weeds in sight, completely bare ground...these beautiful blue spruces and eastern red cedars, Austrian pines and many more that I can't name. There was some insect damage--an insect whose larva girdle small trees, mites. I recommended that he put some of the larvae in a jar of water and let them decompose and make a homeopathic remedy out of it. I suggested that he try CT on the pine trees with the mites. He didn't gravitate to my suggestions. He had a huge compost pile and referred to bacteria, but it is made from sawdust and urea, but it looked and smelled like good soil. He sells each tree for a high price and never has to advertise, has more clients than he needs. He kills tansy with Escort. He uses green manure crops to prepare his land several seasons before he plants--cereal and annual rye, oats. He even has plots he's doing for the Extension Agent that have been tested for microorganisms by SFI. He used a spader. I gave him a copy of the Wendell Berry's "The Agrarian Standard." What does it all mean? He is a local guy. He and Herb talked about elk guiding and working at ski resorts. His father was a farmer before him. His neighbor had more land that he had all in trees too. The whole neighborhood was Christmas tree farmers. Randy's trees were all ornamentals and he was very proud of the prices they would bring, especially the unusual shades of the blue spruces. There were deer and elk tracks in the fields but they didn't bother his trees because they don't feed on softwood, I guess, but he complained of wild turkeys eating buds off one of his tree varieties. There was not a gopher mound in sight. How very different this is from the Bio-Dynamic ideal of having animals and all inputs from your own place. I think he might identify with some of Wendell Berry's ideals, but his farm was based on the industrial model. Those beautiful trees were somehow artificial. I wondered what would happen if you sprayed BC and 500 on everything. I'm still trying to process this. Randy's and Bette's home was a modest farmhouse--he makes furniture out of old wood in his spare time and he's going to build them a new house--plain, he says, "We are plain people." How can I sort this out? There are some things Randy and I have in common, but our motivation is so different. A few of his trees are native conifers, but most aren't. Acres and acres of perfect special trees planted on a grid with bare soil all around on which is sprinkled white pellets of slow-release fertilizer. Each planting is harvested at one time and shipped to someone out of state somewhere. Then he starts his green manure cycle again. I can't manipulate nature that much. I love our beautiful snowberries and the crush of native grasses and wild rose bushes. I like to leave chickweed and sorrel and plaintain in the garden. I like volunteering borage and hollyhocks. I think it was all that bare ground that haunts me. Best, Merla
