advance praise for The Holistic Orchard “Rooted in the author’s many years of organic orcharding experience, this book blends ideas from soil science, holistic health, permaculture, and traditional fruit growing into a powerful new approach to orchard design and care. Phillips’s firsthand knowledge anchors this innovative and highly readable book in practical wisdom that both beginner and long-time fruit growers will find invaluable."—Toby Hemenway, author of Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture “The Holistic Orchard is a stimulating account of fruit production from a biological rather than chemical approach. Phillips’s orchard philosophy—learned from keen observation and reflection—will fall and clobber you like a giant Newtonian apple; then, your walk through the orchard will never be the same. Digesting this book is like tasting a delectable new apple variety for the first time."—Tom Burford, orchard consultant, author, and apple historian “A new way of thinking is called for given the failure of chemicals to solve problems and feed the world. Mixing up dozens of organic thoughts, Michael Phillips ushers us into the twenty-first century and virtually creates a new language so we can really understand what is happening in our orchards. Shake off those twentieth-century blues and let’s move on with The Holistic Orchard as a guiding light."—Tim Bates, biodynamic orchardist, The Apple Farm, Philo, California “Michael Phillips’s Holistic Orchard is a seminal work, to be compared with Sir Albert Howard’s and J.I. Rodale’s classic books on soil and organic gardening. This is deep horticulture at its best, showing just how and what we must do to orchard sustainably and ecologically."—Bill MacKentley, St. Lawrence Nurseries, Potsdam, New York “The words ‘holistic’ and ‘comprehensive’ barely do honor to Michael Phillips’s scope in The Holistic Orchard. The author has woven multiple strands of orchard knowledge—based on his expansive vision and a lifetime of experience, together with the wisdom of researchers and fellow fruit growers—into a brilliant web that captures the wonderful complexity of the orchard ecosystem. A sparkling joy to behold!"—Guy Ames, orchardist and tree fruit specialist with ATTRA, the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service “For decades experts have insisted that organic orcharding is an impossibility. Michael Phillips has led the effort to show that the truly sustainable, organic orchard is something we all can have. His example has been an inspiration. His tireless research has provided a road map to creating our own holistic orchards."—John Bunker, apple historian and author, Not Far from the Tree “Michael Phillips does it again! His ability to understand and explain the parts, interactions, and emergent properties of orchard systems is unparalleled. The Holistic Orchard integrates fundamental biology with the practical realities of ecologically sound management. The book describes the trek from healthy soil to healthy people, with great fruit all along the way. This is done in a way that can only be achieved by a highly experienced orchardist-practitioner-author-philosopher."—George W. Bird, professor of nematology, Michigan State University The Holistic Orchard Copyright © 2011 by Michael Phillips. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. Unless otherwise noted, all photographs copyright © 2011 by Michael Phillips. Unless otherwise noted, all illustrations copyright © 2011 by Elayne Sears. Project Manager: Patricia Stone Project Editor: Makenna Goodman Developmental Editor: Ben Watson Copy Editor: Laura Jorstad Proofreader: Nancy W. Ringer Indexer: Linda Hallinger Designer: Peter Holm, Sterling Hill Productions Printed in the United States of America First printing December 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 11 12 13 14 15 Our Commitment to Green Publishing Chelsea Green sees publishing as a tool for cultural change and ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book manufacturing practices with our editorial mission and to reduce the impact of our business enterprise in the environment. We print our books and catalogs on chlorine-free recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks whenever possible. This book may cost slightly more because we use recycled paper, and we hope you’ll agree that it’s worth it. Chelsea Green is a member of the Green Press Initiative (www.greenpressinitiative.org), a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and ® authors working to protect the world’s endangered forests and conserve natural resources. The Holistic Orchard was printed on FSC -certified paper supplied by RR Donnelley that contains at least 10% postconsumer recycled fiber. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Phillips, Michael, 1957- The holistic orchard : tree fruits and berries the biological way / Michael Phillips. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-933392-13-4 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-1-60358-407-4 (ebook) 1. Fruit-culture. 2. Fruit trees. 3. Berries. 4. Organic farming. I. Title. SB357.24.P47 2011 634--dc23 2011035559 Chelsea Green Publishing Company 85 North Main Street, Suite 120 White River Junction, VT 05001 (802) 295-6300 www.chelseagreen.com For Dorothy and Carole, the hardest-working sisters any farm has ever seen! MICHAEL PHILLIPS CHELSEA GREEN PUBLISHING WHITE RIVER JUNCTION, VERMONT Acknowledgments Never did I imagine, when I agreed to write this book, that it would take several years to bring it to fruition! All I was called on to do was to speak some ecosystem truth, right? Well now. It turned out the trees had more to say than even a guy like me imagined. And then there were so many knowledgeable grower friends, offering opinions reflecting a grower diversity equal to that of the plant kingdom, turning regional reality on its head time and time again. Every time I felt near to the essence of the thing, a new horizon was revealed. And yet here I was, charged with keeping healthy orcharding simple and understandable. Well now indeed. Let me give thanks to all these wonderful players, in no particular order. My talent has always been to recognize the right bit wherever it happens to spring up. I simply delight that insightful wisdom can be found in so many people! Nurserymen: John Bunker, Bill MacKentley, Neil Collins, Gordon Tooley, Lee Calhoun, Jim Cummins, Mike McConkey, David Fried, Kevin Bradley, and Todd Parlo. Keep that grafting knife sharp, lads. Inner circle of organic thought (though by no means certified organic thought!): Brian Caldwell, Alan Surprenant, Hugh Williams, Jim Gallot, John Bemis, Don McLean, Lou Lego, Elizabeth Ryan, Bob Sewall, Chris and Michelle McColl, Linda Hoffman, Tim Bates, Guy Ames, Harry Hoch, Jim Koan, Greg Mund, Tom Rosenfeld, Mark Fulford, Dan Kelly, Don Kretschmann, Nick Cowles, Ted Richardson, Wynne Weinreb and Scott Beaton, Nate Darrow, Dan Bussey, Steve Ela, and, to be honest, many others. You are the true visionaries who opened up the doors. Soils folk and fungal seers: Paul Sachs, Joe Scrimger, Nicole Masters, Paul Stamets, George Barron, Elaine Ingham, and Mike Amaranthus. May we always be friends connected by our love of the good ol’ dirt and the teeming microbe communities found there. Members of NAFEX/HOS/BYFG/CRFG (some by observations posted in Pomona or on discussion groups, some by asking insightful questions, some by standing around in the orchard shooting the breeze): Ben Applegate (VT), Deirdre Birmingham (WI), Scott Bolotin (VT), Tom Brown (NC), Lester Davis (GA), Martha Davis (NM), David Doncaster (BC), Ralph Elwell (ME), Sarah Ewing (ALB), Michael Flynn (CA), Jim Fruth (MN), Dave Griffin (MN), Alan Haigh (NY), Terry and Carolyn Harrison (CA), Chuck Heisinger (IL), Betsy Hillborn (NC), Donna Hudson (TN), Daryl Hunter (NB), Claude Jolicoeur (QUE), Josh Karp (VT), Jack Kertesz (ME), Chris Manning (PA), David Maxwell (NS), Richard Moyer (VA), Ethan Natelson (TX), Stanley Niemiec (OR), Dennis Norton (IL), Lucky Pittman (KY), Lee Reich (NY), Lon Rombough (OR), Emily Brown Rosen (PA), Chuck Shelton (VA), David Sliwa (IA), David Ulmer (CA), Denita Wallace (WA), CJ Walke (ME), and Doug Woodward (ONT). Mutual respect: George Bird, Art Agnello, Glenn Koehler, Tracy Leskey, Starker Wright, Dave Gadoury, Alan Eaton, Charles Vincent, Turner Sutton, Alan Jones, Mark Longstroth, Alan Biggs, Greg Krawczyk, Jim Travis, David Shapiro, Joel Reich, Elizabeth Beers, Jay Brunner, and Chuck Ingels. Thanks for your open-mindedness and sharing. Grower connoisseurs who truly know the varieties: Joe Postman (quince), Ted Richardson (Asian pears), Andrew Mariani and Scott Smith (peaches and nectarines), Bob Purvis (apricots), Ike Kerschner (plums), Ed Fackler and Tom Burford (apples and pears), Doreen Howard (cherries), Pete Tallman and Hector Black (brambles and blueberries), and Terry Durham (elderberries). Researching and writing the varietal part of this book was fun as all get-out! And to all the nurseries from across the continent that shared varietal photos, you are indeed the summer beauts bringing radiance to these pages. This one’s special: A profound thanks to Céline Caron in Québec. This wise woman helped guide the original research on ramial wood chip mulch at Laval University, wrote the words that became the heart of the book Ecological Fruit Production in the North, and lives with her jolly husband, Yves, on the most comfrey-dominated homestead I have ever seen. Bonjour, mon amie. A very important circle of fruit-growing friends comes together every March in the Berkshires for a roundtable discussion of the season just past. We’ve been at it twenty years straight here in the Northeast, asking the right questions and encouraging biological innovation on one another’s farms. Other regional groups do similar things, all building the right sort of momentum for deeper understanding. Health-minded growers across the globe are coming together via the Holistic Orchard Network, with big plans afoot to invest far more into grassroots research undertaken within a whole systems (nonreductionist) framework. I’m ever so thankful for the GrowOrganicApples.com website and the impetus provided there to get more communities vested in growing healthy fruit. This book would not exist without certain fundamental support. Much of my on-farm research down holistic avenues has been made possible by a lady totally committed to local agriculture and healthy living. Wow, Usha, we did it! Another friend literally helped bring this book to the finish line by financing the struggling artist in residence so I could keep at it. If we all had your foresight, Marty, we’d be there by now. Let’s lift a glass of cider up high in appreciation to both. The editing and production team at Chelsea Green Publishing were vital players in creating this book. Ben Watson has been the developmental editor on all my books to date; it could be said we have a rock ’n’ roll relationship!—though Ben of course would edit that out as once again stretching the bounds of the English language in a dysfunctional direction. All of you owe this man for his ability to make “me" sound entirely sensible. Makenna, Joni, Susan, and Pati have all worked hard (and patiently!) in making sure all components of the book got signed, sealed, and delivered. Copy editor Laura Jorstad delivered consistency and solid fact checking. Proofreader Nancy Ringer made everything even more perfect. Frank Siteman put up with myriad blackflies in seeking especially good photographs of me in the midst of the trees. Elayne Sears took my rough sketches and created the beautiful and informative artwork throughout the book. Special thanks go to Margo Baldwin for her publishing vision that we humans can indeed do good things by our planet home and each other. A writer’s family especially takes its share of lumps in the process of bringing a book to the light of day. Nancy, the multi- year slog has come to an end. Your support and encouragement every step of the way made this possible. You intuitively knew never to ask the deadline question. Your herbal tea blends soothed this writer’s stress and undoubtedly instilled some of the better plant wisdom to be found on these pages. And Gracie—a dad never had a more dependable word adviser. There’s a reason a phrase like get thee to a plummery is not in this book! May you always be buffered from buffeting breezes, dear one. Lastly, the trees. My trees. Your trees. Our trees. These friends guide us on our lifelong journey to becoming better fruit growers. How lucky we are to walk in beauty each and every day with such generous green teachers. Wæs hæil! Introduction: Getting Started Growing your own fruit becomes downright fun once you understand organic principles and take them to heart. Soil health and forest-edge ecology are what make good fruit possible, not chemical sprays. Working with Nature using biological methods makes home orcharding a venture that families can enjoy for years to come. Stepping up the size of that planting to grow healthy fruit for your community will be a fun progression for some of you. Now the time has come to plant that very first tree. Gaining confidence to do this right is key. You simply need to get over that proverbial hump that somehow you’re going to screw this up and waste both effort and money. I’m writing The Holistic Orchard to give you that shot in the arm, inspiration backed with knowledge that will get you started and provide the sensible guidance you need to succeed in the long haul. More people growing wholesome fruit for family and friends fits right on that shining path to a sustainable tomorrow. Doing this holistically—by stewarding ecosystem connections and overall health—means you’ll experience real flavor in a pear or plum for perhaps the first time. That health anxiety many feel when thinking about pesticide residues in food will go out the window. I’m also willing to bet you’ll discover a core part of your being, that place where humans find happiness and meaning as we embrace our rootedness on this precious planet. The gift of each day in an ongoing garden of eden, wherever you grow and call the land your home, tops any list of blessings. So let’s get cracking, shall we? A book on growing fruit for the family needs to give clear, step-by-step instruction, share which tree fruit and berry varieties it would be wise to consider planting to start, and provide solid insight into horticultural basics like pruning and dealing with pest challenges. Such books have been written before and will be written again. However, this time you and I will go farther. Ours is a journey that won’t look only at so-called organic solutions to insects and disease. Far deeper concepts lie in the pages ahead, based upon the advantages that come from fostering biodiversity. Ecosystem dynamics constitute a huge part of what it takes to bring helpful subtleties to the fore. Forget the chemically biased advice that says growing fruit organically can’t be done. We have arrived in a new century with eyes open and spirits rarin’ to go. Everyone faces a requisite learning curve when it comes to growing decent-looking fruit. Orcharding, frankly, is more involved than straightforward organic gardening. A first-time gardener plants a certain seed, and chances are fairly good that a red beet gets plucked from the ground sixty days later. A first-time orchardist plants a tree that requires nurturing for two to five years . . . then it blooms and sets fruit . . . which must somehow overcome an onslaught of pests and diseases and four- legged critters throughout all twelve months of the year . . . before that delectable peach finally gets to shout oh, yes indeed! You’ve been given a generous opportunity right there to come up to speed: Years roll by as you learn what you need to know. Flip to almost any page of this book and chances are you will feel some initial trepidation about the depths of knowledge involved in orcharding. Right? I understand, for, just like you, I too once planted my very first apple tree. This book is not some guide to “instant orcharding," but rather it offers tiers of knowledge meant to be unveiled each time you return to it. We’re much alike in this. I do something one way for a while and then comes a day when I’m ready to hear that next bit on the way to becoming a better grower. Such moments arrive only when you’ve come farther along your learning curve and thus have the ability to make sense of the information. Be patient about this. Words on these pages weave back and forth, from friendly explanations of the basics to fascinating nuances that someday you will appreciate knowing. The extensive glossary will be a big help when you’re not quite sure what a term means. Zero in on the index as well to find every part of a particular story line. This is an orchard guide to dive back into again and again. Trust that confidence will come from the doing. I’m honored to be one of your teachers, but know that you will encounter many others along the way. Fruiting plants will tell you where they want to grow, for instance. That makes sense when we start thinking biologically. Plant consciousness is real, but people often get confused by believing that the consciousness part emanates from the human rather than the green guy. This notion that life forces communicate—provided we are receptive to listening—goes back a very long time. Gardeners who possess a green thumb are said to be successful growers because they feel what their plants need, whether it be water on a hot sunny afternoon or more root space in the pot. This intuition can be expanded all the more on the orchard front once we probe the science of tree physiology and ecosystem interdependence. Yeah, you’re on to me now: We’re going deep before we fulfill that step-by-step jazz. Every orchard site is unique. Different challenges wait over the next hill, let alone across this vast continent. You become attuned by fully embracing forest-edge ecology. Healthy trees in turn make for a happy orchardist who can deal with the unexpected. Human health is a function of plant health, which is a function of soil health, which in turn is a function of fungal health.