Fire has come back again and again, not to destroy but to rebalance. Fire in my project was used to heal the unbalanced pH of the soil. I used the ashes brought on by fire to sweeten the soil of the site and allow life to begin. This medium resets the soil’s geo clock that was washed away by acidic rains and time. Fire was recently used to create biochar that can feed the soil for hundreds of years, providing structure to the soil and surface for life to flourish.
Autumn 2020
“Seven Fires” is an image that contains smoke, stone, seven fires, and the open sky of twilight. The fires all surround a center stake silhouetted in the blaze of the fires. The cool blue of the sky is in direct contrast to the orange glow of the fire. The fire is set to sweeten the soil of the “Orchard Project”. The land is depleted and low in pH. The ash incorporates a much need element and rebalances the underlying balance of the site, boosting the plant’s ability to absorb nutrients. In lighting the seven fires the intent is to improve quality of soil but also to incorporate an element of ceremony and celebration. The project is promoting regenerative healing for the soil and the soul.
During a late summer outing with my daughters before they head back to college, the girls and I went to Corning’s Thursday Farmers Market. I was drawn instantly to a pretty display of jams and plants. The shrubs were very unique offering. elderberry, gooseberry, blueberry, and some selections I didn’t even recognize. All thriving and beautiful plants. I tentatively asked if they had apple trees at their nursery and was told that yes but they were varieties that I might not be familiar with such as heritage and cider. I asked if they had crabapples. They happily told me they had crabapples, fruiting shrubs, and many types of herb. I knew intuitively at that moment I had found my apple tree and tree guild source. On Friday Aug. 21, 2020, I went an hour and half away from my home in northern Pennsylvania to Bradford, NY to Ort Family Farm to meet with Roger Ort. Roger and his family are growers of fruit trees and shrubs for jams and jelly production. He also works for the local Cornell Co-operative extension. He grows over 70 varieties of fruit. Roger generously took me on a tour of his farm, field, and test gardens. Wisely he suggested planting new varieties in small nursery gardens to see if the plant thrives in your soil and climate. In these test gardens we could see experiments that worked, failing plants that needed to be pulled, and much-loved varieties that Roger stuck with to coax into thriving. With Roger’s help I selected six varieties of heritage apple trees that were grafted onto Cornell’s rootstock G210. These heritage trees had been grafted by the extension’s master gardener’s class and sold for a fundraiser. I also selected a white crabapple “Jonsib Crabapple” to be the central power pollinator to my newly planted orchard. There many plants to choose from for my apple tree guilds but I selected native Gooseberry, Aronia, and Elderberry for my berry plants. Also, I chose rhubarb and horseradish for their “Insectary” trap qualities. I am so excited to include these and my already collected specimens in my fall planting plan. I will return in the spring to talk to Roger again about selecting additional herbs and plants for my spring planting. Thanks again to Roger and his family for a wonderful learning experience.
In the image “First Planting” there are spewed upon the ground such items as a shovel, a brown paper bag, a stalk of sunflower, a bucket of comfrey, a potted apple tree, a recorder, metal buckets of seed and mycelium, and finally green take on top of template. All these items were included in the first planting of “The Orchard”. The trees that planted need to be accompanied by companions that would work together in a regenerative system. Some companions like mycelium were unseen nurtures and communicate needs between species, some like comfrey feed and protect young plants, and companions like garlic deter co-species such as deer and rodents. The recorder to capture a memory of that day or the memory it recalls from past, a time stamp of the project. The sunflower seeds when grown will project the young trees form the persistent wind. If beauty is just the artist trying to come as close to what is real as possible. Then the relationship between these elements is beautiful.
Autumn Mending 2021
Autumn 2022
Autumn 2023
Tammy Skiver Maxson 