Fertilizing Fruit Trees in the Fall: Biodynamic Tips with Alan Suprenant

Learn a Biodynamic approach to fertilizing fruit trees in the fall with Alan Suprenant of Brook Farm Orchard in this episode of the Orchard People radio show and podcast. The host of the Orchard People radio show and podcast is Susan Poizner of the fruit tree care education website www.orchardpeople.com.  

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• (00:00) - Introduction and Seasonal Context
• (00:44) - Guest Introduction: Alan Suprenant
• (01:16) - Alan's Journey to Biodynamic Farming
• (02:35) - Understanding Biodynamic Growing
• (03:31) - The Earth as a Living Being
• (04:49) - Fall Fertilization Techniques
• (06:11) - Listener Questions and Answers
• (12:25) - Compost and Natural Fertilizers
• (20:30) - Making and Using Fermented Teas
• (26:31) - Commercial Break and Sponsor Messages
• (30:23) - Return from Break: Continuing the Conversation
• (30:48) - Biodynamic Composting Explained
• (32:33) - Compost Ingredients and Preparation
• (34:14) - Using Biodynamic Sprays on Various Plants
• (34:50) - Advice for New Apple Tree Growers
• (35:50) - Managing Manure for Tree Health
• (37:19) - Preparing Biodynamic Cold Ferment Foliar Sprays
• (39:01) - Selling Apples and Cider
• (39:57) - Using Horse Manure and Post-Harvest Nutrition
• (41:01) - Fertilizing and Tree Care Tips
• (48:05) - Should You Fertilize Newly Planted Fruit Trees

Learn about creating your own fertilizer sprays:
https://orchardpeople.com/homemade-fruit-tree-fertilizer/
Learn about holistic sprays:
https://orchardpeople.com/holistic-sprays-for-fruit-trees/

Creators & Guests

Host

Susan Poizner

Author, fruit tree educator, and Creator of the award-winning fruit tree care education website OrchardPeople.com.

What is Orchard People?

Learn how to grow and care for fruit trees with fruit tree care educator Susan Poizner of OrchardPeople.com. Discover how to create permaculture plantings, food forests, and forest gardens in both urban and rural settings. Meet experts on all aspects of comprehensive fruit tree care, including pruning, pest and disease prevention, fruit tree grafting and budding, and soil management.

Show host Susan Poizner, creator of the fruit tree education website OrchardPeople.com, is an award-winning author of three fruit tree care books and an ISA Certified Arborist. This podcast is the winner of the 2021 GardenComm Silver Award of Achievement for Broadcast Media: Radio Program Overall. Learn more and access archived episodes at https://podcast.orchardpeople.com/.

Learn more about Susan's books and courses at https://learn.orchardpeople.com/books.

Welcome everybody. It's Susan Poizner here from OrchardPeople. com. And here in Toronto, the weather is starting to get colder.
Tree growth has slowed, including our fruit trees.
And for many of our crops, the harvest is over,
the plums are gone, the cherries are long gone.
For some people, the apples are still on the tree and harvest is full swing,
but it is the end of the season. And at this time of year, growers don't have as much to do as we do earlier in the year when there's pruning and all sorts of other tasks to do.
So the question is, is this a good time to feed your fruit trees? Is this a good time to fertilize your fruit trees? And so that's what we're going to discuss today.
In my show today, I have a wonderful guest, Alan Suprenant of Brook Farm Orchard in Ashfield, Massachusetts.
And Alan has a really interesting story.
He was a commercial grower using conventional inputs and sprays and other tools,
and then he moved to biodynamics. So in the show today, we're going to talk about the biodynamic approach to fertilizing fruit trees. \ So now, Alan, welcome to the show today.
Hi, Susan. Nice to be here.
So nice to have you here, and I want to start off with your story because it is an interesting one. Tell me a little bit about your history as a fruit tree grower.
I work for a friend of mine who's a commercial grower in the same valley I live in, and I was probably 25, 26 years old.
And I drove the sprayer, which was called a mistimite. So it was a two person operation. I was the tractor driver and my friend was the spray person who stood on behind the sprayer. So it wasn't all one operator like now. And every time we went around the corner of a row, So I got sprayed because he keeps spraying around the corner and we, we wore protective gear and stuff, but it it wasn't enough and I just decided there's another way to do it.
And so like medical doctors who become homeopaths, I learned this another way.
Wow. While keeping
that knowledge from conventional farming.
So do you think you, you had a mouthful of spray here and there, or were you wearing a full mask and stuff like that? Yeah,
I do.
Yeah. And it wasn't on
purpose, it was just really hard to avoid.
It's hard to avoid. And so, okay, then you started to get interested in biodynamic growing and you compare it to homeopathy a little bit.
Can you just tell us a little bit, what is it? What is biodynamic growing when it comes to fruit trees?
Biodynamic growing so I think of fruit trees as gardening in the sky.
So we have, you can have gardens and farms and orchards that are all biodynamic and it's practice. It's a practice, it's a practice, it's a cultural practice. It's now, this year, a hundred years old, was instigated by Rudolf Steiner in Germany, and he just asked people, he put out a bunch of principles and he asked people to farmer circles to try them.
So he wasn't a farmer himself, but he was intuitive and so all these people then studied it. And started doing it and it works. And so I started doing that with the orchard. And it's organic agriculture for me taken to another level that has involved spirituality in it at the same time.
So, and it has part of that spirituality is believing that the earth is a, is also a being.
So the earth is alive as the Gaia concept. And so coming to fertilizing is the earth. We believe that the earth breathes in, in the wintertime as it also breathes in on every lunar cycle. But this is a year annual cycle a little bigger and so that's why I take the fall after the trees have gone dormant, which is pretty much dormant now to fertilize so that it can work its way into the soil as the earth is breathing in this is combined with a whole year cycle of fertilization.
So this is just one part of it.
I want to go through the whole cycle and I love this idea of the earth as a being. I myself think about fruit trees as beings. No question about it. I have no question in my mind. I call them sentient
beings all the time. All trees actually. Yeah. No,
they are sentient beings.
They're very beautiful. I connect with trees really deeply and I love them very much. So it's not that much of a question. That's why you're
doing
what you're doing. That's why I do what I do. You're right.
Yea.
So, okay, so the winter is the time that the earth is breathing in. What does that represent, taking that inhale?
So, so the earth is very receptive to nourishment. Is that the idea?
That's part of it. And part of it is that there's more activity now underground from soil level down. Whereas you can think about the spring is everything's just going up. And blossoming and then leafing out and stuff. And all the growth goes on, especially fruit trees.
That's when all the growth happens. So this is the opposite of that.
That's very interesting
because
so much about what I teach in my online courses at orchardpeople. com is, in the fall when the leaves change color, they're actually taking in the nourishment and the nutrition from those green leaves and pulling it down into the root system.
So that really scientifically jives with what we're doing. What you're saying, all the nourishment from that photosynthetic synthesis that the tree does goes down the trunk and into the roots. So that really makes sense to me. And so
then you physically have the leaves falling on the ground.
Then you physically have, you're right.
So they're also going to break down and.
They're also going to break down. So that makes sense. The earth is taking in.
Now, saying that, and I see we got some questions coming up, but we'll ask them in just a minute. I have to ask. I have always steered people away from fertilizing in the late summer.
And early fall and my fear has always been if you're giving nutrition, especially nitrogen to your tree late in the season, it will spur growth that is very tender, won't have time to harden And can freeze in a it can confuse the tree at a time that it's ready. It's ready to go dormantAnd to have its winter sleep. So how, what, how, by bio dynamically, how would you grapple with that issue?
So, because I feel like the trees are more or less dormant right now, even though there are still green leaves on them, but there's no more growth happening in the tree. So by. By fertilizing now you're allowing the freezing thawing, rain, snow that we get all the way up into December to help work stuff down in.
And most of your feeder roots are within six inches of the top of the soil, so it'll get down into that and it'll be there in the spring. So, and in the spring, if you are trying to fertilize four weeks to six weeks ahead of bloom, a lot of time we have snow here. So it's not a way to easily get into the orchard to do that.
And the temperature of the soil is a lot lower, which isn't going to allow for that movement. But if you've done the movement in November, then it's already there. And the part I like about it the most is that it's one less task to do in the spring. Because there's plenty of things to do in the spring.
And this is done now. And it's a nice way to be with the trees as the leaves come off them. Because you're just not hanging out with the bones of the trees. And you talk about sentient beings when leaves come off, let's see, even more so, especially on standard trees.
Why do you feel that? Why is it more
so?
Trees and humans share so many things together and this is just like a physicality of that. When they have the limbs that go out, because I have standard trees that I've pruned in a certain way that they are very either we are very tree like or they are very human or both.
Yeah, a bit of both.
So, interesting. So you connect more while the leaves are still on. You feel once they're dormant, you don't connect to that tree as well, I guess.
That's one part. The other part that I didn't say was that depends on what source you're using for fertilizer. If you're putting straight nitrogen on something, what you said is going to happen.
It's going to put off a lot of new growth. But if you're doing something that's like compost or an organic fertilizer that's tied in with a few other things, it's not just nitrogen. So an MPK, but just a different ratio, like I use a seven, four, eight. Organic powdered ratio, since I can't make enough compost anymore, when the trees are small, I could make enough compost, but now I can't for the size of them.
So it, so that way, it's not gonna, it doesn't happen that quick because the tree's not taking anything in if it's in a more stable form. In a
more stable form. I know that one of our listeners today had emailed me ahead of time and said, I was told by a friend I should use 10 10 10. And lime and pest control and put it on the root systems before winter.
Is this correct? Please. And thank you. That's from Eleanor. I was no, don't use 10, 10, 10, please don't. The way that I think about things, especially for homegrowers is if we can avoid definitely avoid synthetic fertilizers, but if we can nourish our trees with compost, Like I only give fertilizer if I know that my soil needs it.
I've done a soil test. I know that I'm low on something. So that's my concern with 10 10 10. Do you have that same concern or would you tell Eleanor, just go ahead?
I think in a small amounts you could. What I've done actually, I've actually never done a soil test in 35 years. What I look at is what's growing in the grass.
in, in the sod level, which grasses, ferns, docks, fescue. And that tells me about acidity. It tells me about, where the dandelions grow or don't grow trout lilies. And just, so you're out there looking as opposed to sending a soil sample strictly to a lab. And that's just my preference.
Cause there's other ways, like I said, there's like other ways to do it. So that's how I've done it. And it seems to work out. Okay.
That sounds great to me. I would love to learn to do that. lets see some questions. We've got some interesting questions here. One is from James. James says, Hi, Susan and guest.
How do we know when to actually pick our apples? I'm new to this. Thanks from Churchville, New York. That's from James.
That's a good, that's a good question. But that's probably in the Hudson River Valley. If the apples. If you cut it open now, through the plantogram, and the seed is really dark brown, then it's ripe. Tthe university people do a whole bunch of starch tests and a bunch of things, and you can do that, or you can just, and then you taste it. And if it has brown seeds, and it tastes right, it's ripe. And also how hard it picks. If it picks really easy off the tree, then it's ready, because they've already, the stem and the bud spur have separated, because there's a chemical that actually, that's why they drop sometimes, there's a chemical that actually happens, it breaks that separation, that's been there for four months.
And so those isa picking and brown seeds. They'll tell you. And taste. All right.
And taste. That sounds like great advice.
We've got a message here, Bob writes in from Lexington, Kentucky, and asks, are there chemicals involved in this process, I guess, of fertilizing? So talk to us about chemicals and fertilizers.
TI can talk to you about compost. I don't know exactly what Crop Productions puts into their organic fertilizer. I don't know the process behind it. I know that it's been certified by the Massachusetts Organic Farmers Association and that's how they started selling it. They actually requested the company to carry this product because there were so many organic farmers in western Massachusetts.
And in terms of compost, you're using cow manure. Which I got from an organic yogurt company in my next town over, so I would want to use organic cow manure as opposed to conventional cow manure, and leaves, which come off the trees, and then the compost preparations, which is another biodynamic thing, which helps the compost.
Embody more cosmic influences, be more open to fluctuations of the moon and the sun and the different constellations. And you don't, once you put it in the compost pile, in which I made in windrows, which stood about three, three, three and a half feet tall, and maybe four feet wide you don't have to turn it.
You leave it for a year, you leave it for a full cycle, and then it's done. You don't have to go mixing it all the time or anything because It's you, if you mixed it, those ingredients I talked about ahead time then you got it a little bit of lime on the top and
then
hay over the top of all that, which makes a skin because once again, you're creating another living organism, which is the compost file.
So exactly to help shed water, but also just to contain everything.
So what you're talking about is a very natural process as opposed to a synthetic fertilizer where it is more chemically, I'm sure there are chemicals in compost. Chemicals are not everything has chemicals.
Sure, everything's chemistry.
But this is chemicals that will really jive nicely with the little organisms in the soil, which will enjoy the compost. Whereas if you have synthetic fertilizer, it goes straight into the tree, bypasses the the little creatures in the soil who will die and go away. And then it's not very good, but anyways.
Yeah. So, okay. That's how you do your compost. We've got a question here from Monica. Hello, Susan. Enjoying the show from Farmington, Illinois. What makes good compost for our trees? The ingredients. You just said, but just review again. So what are the ingredients you put in your compost?
Cow manure and leaves and a little bit of and turned well. with each other.
And in terms of lime, we're not talking about the fruit, are we?
No.
The
white stuff. The white
stuff. Okay. All right. And we can, perhaps you and I, we can talk about that. I might make an article about this where I can actually outline the recipe, your compost recipe.
So that might be good. Okay. Ray writes, Hi, Susan. Miss. That's the contests I used to have contests on this show. Does your guest have a book or other information about this process? Thanks very much. I am in Belleville, Ontario. That's from Ray. Do you have a book?
I do not. I've been playing with that idea as many of us do.
I haven't found the time yet to do it. I have two other jobs that allow me to grow apples. So that's but I have all the ideas are always going onthere is a biodynamic grower in Ontario named Uli Hock, U L I and then H A C K who probably somebody could find online or just googling biodynamics.
And that, that'll bring you down a whole rabbit hole of all kinds of things and you'll get all the information you want.
Oh, I should reach out to Uli at some point, okay. We've got some comments as well on YouTube live. We have Karan who joined us. We have Cornwall Wealthy. joined us. Eric says hi from Toronto.
Hello, Eric. And Greg here, Greg writes, Greg here. Thanks. I feel validated. An older gentleman up here had me fertilized with rich compost in late November as it is freezing up. Great results and growth. Very interesting. Ronnie says apple plants full of spurs. No growth. 10 year orchard. What to do for growth?
Okay, so Ronnie's having some trouble with the apple trees for 10 years. No growth. What could be causing that
could be the rootstock in the soil aren't suited for each other So the trees just barely hanging on it's really hard to you know without seeing it and actually seeing what's going on But the tree could be but not getting any further than that.
Yeah
fertilization may help that but it may just need a different rootstock in that Particular area. Yeah,
that's well suited to their climate and conditions.
Yeah.
Elaine, who I asked the 101010 question about says thanks for asking about the 101010 in line. I'm thinking about skipping the 101010 now.
Perhaps wood chips and a small amount of seven to kill ants around the trees. I don't know what seven is.
Yeah, seven's a chemical.it iss a pesticide. You could put wood ash, if you have a wood stove, she has a wood stove around it, and that deters ants also.
Wouldn't that be nice to avoid the seven then, yeah.
Yeah, so whenever, when you see dwarf orchards, With these nice strips of earth underneathethe trees are three or four feet apart from each other. There's reasons that why in 95 percent of those orchards, that's an herbicide strip. So the herbicide, where does it go? Let's see, it goes into the cedar roots of the tree.
Where do those go? Up into the tree. Where does that go? Into the fruit. And then where does that go? Into your belly so you can follow it. It's been done. You can follow it. So it all looks very neat and clean So if you put seven on the ground, I would fear that rain would bring that into the tree roots, too
Yeah,
And then it was do that same cycle back to you.
Yeah, so
Elena I'm wondering Elaine says here. How about using neem oil spray on the trees?
That would smother them if they're on the trees, the ants, if that's what we're talking about still.
Yeah.
The ants, yeah. That would smother them on the tree, yeah. And you can't go wrong with neem oil either, I mean it helps the tree.
It adds things to the tree. Yeah. Through the bark, yeah.
So that might be a good solution for Elaine.
Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
Can you talk a little more about fertilizing and the Absolutely. And then we've got a
few more questions. Absolutely. But I just want to say a messenger said, wow, I finally caught the live stream.
Yay.
Congratulations.
Congratulations. I've had so much trouble getting this live stream happening, so that's probably why. Technology is
great when it works.
Yeah, exactly.
When it doesn't work.
Tell us more about fall fertilizers. Yeah,
so fall fertilizing is part of the annual fertilizing cycle and the kind of fertilizing I do during growth time are all things that I can grow on the farm very easily.
So I'm not, part of biodynamic farming is to try to lower the amount of inputs that you have to purchase off farm as much as possible. And Rudolf Steiner said, you'll never get there all the way, but you should always strive to get there. So when you make your fertilizer, like the compost we were talking about before for the trees, our and then these foliar sprays that I use, At this time in the growing season, so from probably mid May to the end of July are all grown here.
And what they are is they're fermented teas that you're feeding the tree through its leaves. That's why it's called foliage spray. And so you're feeding it from the ground in November and below the soil line and from above, along with the sunshine. And the rain all the rest of the growing season from for us early May till end of October.
So what they are is three primary ones are comfrey, nettle, sting nettle, and equisetum. And with, they are cold ferment teas, so comfrey has high in calcalcium nettle is high in iron, and ecocetum is high in silica and iron, and silica is important for, on a microscopic level, helping trees dry out to help reduce fungal problems, because it's on a microscopic level, it reflects the sunlight, and all around inside the tree and then dries the leaves out.
And water is the vector for fungus, for any, any disease like that. So that way you're helping it dry quicker, combined with pruning, that you're already letting in enough sun. So those teas are cold ferments. I take a five gallon pail. Anybody can do this. stuff it full of each one individually, the comfrey, the stinging equisetum, and put them somewhere that I pass, that I walk by every day, put a loose cover on, fill it with water, put a loose cover on it, and why you put it where you walk every day is so that you stir it every day as you walk by, because you want to bring oxygen into the ferment, the cold fermentation process.
That's what's part of what fermenting is, needs oxygen. And that keeps it going. And after two weeks, they're ready to spray. And then you just filter them out with wire or cheesecloth or something. I wouldn't do cheesecloth, it's too rough, but like a sieve and then put them in your spray tank.
It can be a backpack sprayer or a bigger spray tank, and then spray them on the trees. And I do that two or three times annually. And so I'm feeding all those things to the fol to the leaves. and helping the ripening of the apples at the same time, and feeding the bud formation, which is your next year's fruit crop.
So usually by the solstice, the summer solstice, all next year's buds are formed already.
Amazing. You want to
also feed during their formation too.
So essentially you got three buckets, each one filled with a different type of what I would call a weed, but they're very valuable.
You're
stuffing the greenery in there, each one separately, you're not doing a mix, you're leaving it to sit, do they stink while they're rotting away there?
That's a great question, because what's amazing about stinging nettle, it smells like cow manure. when it's done. So it's gone from being a plant world into the animal world. It's already done this transmutation. It's pretty wild. And the other ones smell like you might think they would smell. They're more plant like, but
more stinky
because they're fermenting.
It's just wild.
Isn't that interesting? So you're stirring it every day and sorry, how long are you leaving each of these buckets?
14 days. Roughly.
Fourteen days. But
as all farmers know, that could be twenty one days.
Yeah, exactly, yeah, as long as it, yeah, you're busy, you're doing other things. Now, when you say you've got three different sprays, do you dilute it, or are you actually putting the water, yeah.
Another good question. You dilute it one to five. And you can put them all together in the tank, it's fine. I just do it separately because I feel like the energy of the plant wants to be separate through the fermentation process. Yeah. Once it's a done product, yeah.
Yeah, I think that's great.
And then that spray, so you do that early in the season when the weeds are ready to go. Does it matter if they are in blossom or early? Do they need to be young or? Another good
question. You like them to be young. You don't want the nettle to go into flower because once things are flowering to seed, that's where all the energy of the plant is now gone.
So there's some, there's a little bit of energy left in the foliage, but it's now doing the seed thing. So that's true with comfrey also. And another thing you can do with comfrey, that my good friend Michael Phillips taught me, is plant the comfrey at the base of the tree. underneath, like within the drip line, so that when the comfrey flowers go through a cycle and dies down, all that calcium from the comfrey leaves goes right into the feeder roots right there.
You haven't done anything except transplant the comfrey underneath the trees. And we both did that in our orchards. And it's very pretty to look at in the spring too, because Comfrey's taller than the other stuff around it.
Fabulous. I'm so excited.
We've got loads more great questions but I'd love to go to a little commercial break.
So Alan, are you okay hanging on the line with me for a minute?
Yeah, I'm hanging. We'll listen to
our sponsor. You're hanging. You're not going anywhere. We're not going to let you go anywhere because we have so much more to talk about. plau. bye. You are listening to Orchard People, a radio show and podcast brought to you by the fruit tree care training website, orchardpeople.
com. This is Reality Radio 101 and I'm Susan Poizner, author of three fruit tree care books. Growing urban orchards grow fruit trees fast and fruit tree grafting for everyone. And we're going to be back right after this little break.
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You're listening to Orchard People, a radio show and podcast brought to you by the fruit tree care training website, orchardpeople.
com. This is Reality Radio 101, and I'm your host, Susan Poizner. So in the show today, we've been having a very interesting conversation with Alan Surprinant of Rook Farm Orchard, and our topic is the biodynamic approach to fertilizing fruit trees in the fall.
So we've been talking about a biodynamic fertilizing through the seasons. We've got a whole bunch of interesting questions that have popped up.
I'm looking at a question here from Sarah. Sarah says I'm from Southern Ontario. I'm wondering how it works. That the compost that you make doesn't have to be turned throughout. Or did I misunderstand? Could things be clarified? So tell us again, why don't you need to turn your compost? Cause usually you need to a couple of times, at least turn it around, let air get in.
How does air get in when you make it?
She heard me right. So this compost ahasant the biodynamic preparations added to it. And the biodynamic preparations are composts of certain plants that are singularily done under, this would definitely not be in this show, but I'd have to explain the whole process.
But what it does is, it brings the energy of each of those separate composts that were done, like chamomile is one of them. And. Into the compost file, which then when you make it in the fall and bring it the whole cycle allows all the different cosmic influences that happened during the course of the year that the sun, the moon, we all know what that feels like and the constellations, what planets are standing in front of what constellations all have an effect.
So this was shown. So anyways, that adding those preps, there's seven of them. And then covering it with the skin, which is that layer, allows that energy to work within the compost file. If it's mixed well, the first time when you make it. Okay, so
we're going to have to backtrack a little bit for me.
So the basic ingredients of the compost is
there are seven different composted plants that are composted separately before they're put in. And you're using homeopathic amounts into the compost pile. But the
actual pile itself, is it mostly made up of leaves? And I think you mentioned.
Cow manure.
Cow manure.
Yeah.
and straw is the covering on top. Am I right? So you're saying that in addition to that, you add small amounts of certain herbs. Are these herbs fermented? Are they fresh?
They're called the biodynamic compost preparations. And that would be a great Google search for this person or anybody that wants to learn more about them.
It would take, I could probably talk for two hours. Okay. And we're not, and it's not, it's important. It's, I feel like it's the foundation of the farm, but it's also better read first. And I think, and then talked about like in a group or something about what they do. And, but basically they allow the compost to work without you touching it again.
that sounds great to somebody lazy like me. I love that my favorite type of compost.
Yeah,
I love it I just love piling leaves together putting some weeds, you know If you're edging the our fruit trees, we take a little grass away with soil on it popping it in there. I love It's just the easiest compost ever Okay.
Winnie writes and Winnie says, does this procedure work for fruit trees and other fruit plants? I think Winnie is referring to the sprays that you were talking about. can you use them as well on other plants like tomatoes or whatever?
I think you could, I don't see any parts that would hurt it. It's not I think it would only help with the tomato leaves would take in that same, those chemicals, the iron, the silica, the calcium.
The food is food. Okay, we're going to do a few more quick questions.
James writes, Hello, orchard people folks. I want to grow my first apple tree. I think that I'm in zone 5a outside Ottawa, Ontario. Please, suggestions. That's from Jim. So what would you say is your, for instance, for a new newbie, Alan, for variety.
Do you have one type of variety? Yeah. Type one type of variety That is as easy as possible. I think a
great one for a newbie would be a Liberty or any Liberty. Yes. Any scab resistant variety. But Liberty is an annual producer and they've made medium-sized fruit, which is perfect with children's hands.
Yep, sounds good. And they can eat
the whole thing. Yeah. Without wasting any. I really sound like a bad guy.
Liberty, I like Liberty Apple. That's a nice vigorous tree. Ari writes, Hi from Toronto. Susan, tried to post a question in the live stream, but I don't see it there in the comments. Oh dear. Okay.
I have access to a lot of cow manure.
But I can't be sure that it has had a year to be fully composted. I believe that I'm not supposed to use it on newer trees for fear of burning the roots. But is this true of well established trees as well, or can I use it on my more established trees?
I think that if it's been, if it's been sitting out for a year, you can use it on any tree you want to.
Raw manure or liquid manure, which we find it, what we call honey wagons down here, are you wouldn't want to, because you could burn it. I wouldn't put it on anything, because you lose about two thirds of the nitrogen to the air when you spread it that way. Because it hasn't settled yet.
It hasn't, it hasn't become colloidal at all.
So if Ari isn't sure, he should hang in there and not use it this year, wait a little bit longer, if it's only been six months.
If it doesn't, if it smells pleasant, as opposed to not pleasant, because you're going to get pneumonia off a rock, and that's not going to, but if it smells
a
little bit more like soil, or you're fine to hold it up to you, Those and it's probably done.
Oh, Ari, great way to check. Yeah. Why don't you check and tell us have a good old sniff. That'll tell you. Okay. Nothing
like
hands on. Absolutely. The cow poop. Absolutely.
So we've got this email from Renee from Southern Ontario. Hello, Susan and Can you please replete repeat what the third pail contains for the tea or the cold?
So let's go through all three pails again. The first one was,
comfrey,
comfrey. The second one,
stinging nettle, and
number three is,
Equisetum arvansi, Equisetum. Horsetail. And
what is the, exactly, I was going to say what is the English name, horsetail. When you and I had our little pre interview, I'm like, oh, isn't horsetail invasive?
I don't know. I'm not sure if I'm thinking of a different plant, but you grow it.
Yeah, horsetail here is not invasive. I harvest it in places where it's grown on its own. on the farm. It likes a sandier soil. Equisetum used to be a 54, a 50 foot tree in prehistoric times. And it's figured out how to live.
And now it's about a six, seven inches at the most.
Yeah, so
brushes another name for
it. I
keep the boy scouts and the girl scouts scrubbed their pots with it because it all the silica without any soap and they just, and they're camping and stuff and it's the same plant.
Okay.
One of the listeners, I assign you to do a little Google search to just make sure it's not Equisetum is not invasive in certain areas. I don't know, I could be thinking of a totally different plant. So it's always
good to
check and feel free to email us. with the answer once you do the research. Thanks guys.
Okay.
Hank writes, good afternoon, Susan. Does Allen's Orchard sell to private individuals or do they just grow for commercial stores?
We so we grow 400 bushels a year average, and we sell them all at our local farmer's market, which is like three miles from my house and only on Saturday mornings, Ashfield, Massachusetts.
And that pretty much, and then Cider Days, we have an annual thing in my county, in Franklin County, called Cider Days, and whatever I have left, I sell it at that, when people come to the orchard and make cider.
Nice.
Regular eating apples, too.
Nice. and you said you have two other jobs, because, so your orchard is not the, how many trees do you have in your orchard?
About 125.
125. So it is a smaller orchard. So you do your other stuff as well. w we've got a question from Dan.
Can we use horse manure instead of cow manure? So Dan has horses.
Definitely. You can definitely use it. It's really different. If you compost it, it's really a different product because horses have one stomach and cows have four.
So they've digested the plant world differently. And it's also why, that's why we use cow manure because of the slower process of the four. But if that's what you have, a lot of times it's mixed with sawdust. So that's going to tie up things longer because it's more cellulose than the sawdust. So that's takes more energy from the soil to break it down.
So you're going to tie up your nutrients longer with horse manure. But if you don't have anything else, I would definitely say go for it. Cause it's only going to help. It's just a different product than cow manure.
And does it, so would it take longer than one year to break down? Do you think horse manure?
I don't really know. Cause I haven't used it.
Yep. So they could again do the sniff test, I suppose. Yes. Okay.
We've got some other questions here on YouTube. Ronnie writes, please share the best post harvesting nutrition management in apples. So Ronnie's asking about post harvesting, but you're saying we were talking about fall and winter.
fertilizing. You said you would put out the fertilizer now. It is the end of September.
I'd put it out in November. It would be post harvest.
Oh, you would put it out closer to after harvest.
Most of the leaves will have dropped from the trees too.
Okay. So thank you for clarifying. So you would not put it out this early.
You would not fertilize this early. You're going to wait until all the fruit is off of the tree. I'm guessing.
But if somebody has one or two trees and it's an earlier tree like a duchess y do it now because the tree is in a different cycle. It's because it's already, you picked it like a month ago down here.
Okay.
The individual tree. I do it in the orchard because it's easier that way.
That's very interesting because I think of the cycle of trees as, the winter is coming, they're responding to the cold, but what you're saying is once we remove the fruit from the tree, maybe it's a signal for the tree.
Okay, guys, time to slow down our energy. So you're saying that it could be, and yet I wouldn't want to You know, I could fertilize a cherry tree after harvest. It's the harvest is so early in the season. I think it's for me, I would just want to be really cautious because I'm so cautious, I would want to wait for the leaves to fall to the ground because I just don't want to spur growth, but that's me.
No, I think that's a
good, that's a good way to look at it. I think that when you're working with trees for a long time, for me, there's this other dynamic called, I call tree time, and it's an annual thing, and it goes a lot slower. We don't measure in nanoseconds or 144 characters. It's just tree time.
And once you tune into the trees, you'll realize that in their cycle, you can just play. What I try to do is just learn what the trees are to telling me and how I can help the tree to give me better fruit. The tree just wants to set seed and mature it. They don't really care about big, juicy fruit. That's not in the trees.
makeup, but we're the ones who care about the big juicy fruit and it's great to eat. So we do a bunch of other manipulations. The tree would be fine on its own too.
I absolutely love that you pointed that out because a lot of people, new growers don't realize the importance of pruning and that pruning is our partnership with the tree.
It allows us To communicate with the tree and say, Hey buddy, can you put some of your excess energy into making nice, big, yummy fruit for me?
And
I'll give you lots of sunlight so you can stay nice and dry and you won't have disease because you'll have so much air circulation. So it's a really nice little two way partnership.
I love that listening to the trees. okay. So we've got a couple more questions here. a messenger says, what type of comfrey do you recommend planting under your trees? Is there different types?
Yeah, there are like in everything in nature, there's lots of different types of it. This is just comfrey that shows up wild here.
I don't really know the name of it.
Okay. All right. It
smells like
cucumbers. The
flowers do. Yeah.
Oh, the flowers do. Okay. a messenger is from Chattanooga, Tennessee. See, Elaine says, I am a visual learner. Is there a video of just how to treat fruit trees to ready them for winter? And again, for spring, I really know nothing.
I have six new trees already diseased looking. So Elaine, I just want to say to you at my orchard people YouTube page, I'm pretty sure I have a video. Preparing fruit trees for the winter. And I sent, I think I sent Elaine an article from orchardpeople. com. You can go to orchardpeople. com and there's an article on preparing a fruit trees for the winter.
but do you have a video, Alan, somewhere that you're familiar with?
My friend, Michael Phillips has one on under lost nation orchard. And it, there's a lot of, so depending on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, there's a lot of information there for the whole year.
Great, okay. Now let me see.
We've got, Greg writes, We use horse manure while building our compost pile with leaves. The leaves are collected in October, mixed with horse manure, and it settles all winter, and next summer, And it settles all winter and next summer, and it's ready to use that next winter. isn't that good to know?
So it can be a year, it
looks

as long as it's mixed with leaves. That's very interesting.
Which would be the same as the biodynamic compost that I was talking about too. It's a year cycle. The
same cycle. Okay. So this other person, Brafberry. Do you apply the compost now? or let it sit all winter and then apply.
So if you said your orchard is a little too big for applying compost, but if somebody has compost rather than some sort of Other fertilizer would they also wait till November.
I would you. Yes, I would. And as long as that compost is a year old now, not just me. Yep. Yep.
Yep. Got it.
Okay.
And let's see.
Greg says we apply before the first frost. So it soaks in all winter and when the trees wake up, they are well nourished. what Greg is saying so absolutely jives with what you said, Alan, which is there's so much rain in the early winter or late fall. There's so much moisture in the ground and there's no snow protecting it.
So it will go in. I love this. Concept. we've got
nothing's also growing then. So it's not going to take the moisture out like it does in June,
right?
It's going to go to the feeder roots because there's no competition for the water.
No competition in
the nutrients from
what? Because the grass is dormant or whatever other ground covers are dormant.
Wow. That is so interesting. So Sarah did a bit of research about horsetail, and this is from botanicalgarden. berkeley. edu. It is considered an invasive aggressive weed. So whoever, if you're going to plant it for this purpose, folks, just do some research, make sure it's okay in your area. nee asks another question.
Hello again.
I would like to know if I should fertilize trees that I will be planting this November. Thank you. And Renee is from Southern Ontario. Wow. Super question, because like I know for myself, when I plant fruit trees, they're usually bare root trees. And it sounds like Renee is going to do that too.
I don't give them any fertilizer until the following year even. If I even do then, so what would you do?
I would say just, I wouldn't, I would also not give fertilizer now and definitely don't put it in the planting hole. If you decide you want to, but, around what will be the new drip line I would just say, add bone meal and on the sides of the holes, depending on your soil.
If you have a clay soil, you want to take a pitch for garden fork. and just open up the sides because your shovel when you're digging will seal the clay in and then the feeder roots can't really go sideways so easily. So it's like a tree and if you just go around the side of the hole with a garden fork and open that up a little bit.
That's so smart. It's making a little bit of room for the for the roots to go and crawl in there. And yeah, cause it's, if you have clay soil, it's like a clay pot. If you do these nice sharp, edges to your hole.
You can think of fruit trees like, planting fruit trees is like raising children that you want to give them the best start you can possibly give them that your heart and body believes.
And you want to do that with the fruit trees too, because then they will come and be your friends for a long time.
Oh, I love that. and it's funny, cause the, this idea of comparing it to like human babies, when I'm planting a bare root tree, I figure it has enough to get used to a bad comparison, but I had in my mind this, like trying to give a little baby a steak and chips dinner,
right?
It's just
not ready yet. It's just check out the environment, t a little, yeah, back to tree time. It's got needs it's tree time. Okay. Ari writes hi, Susan, Ari again, wondering if Alan also fertilizes in the spring as well, and if so, the same process. So the Ari's question is a good excuse, and we've only got a few more minutes left.
Where did the show go? So we're talking about fall fertilizing. If we have beautiful compost, we're going to put it out once the leaves have fallen. And then you told us, you talked us through the cold ferments, which you say you apply three times, diluted, but mixed together. In my ideal
mind, it's three. In reality, it's probably two.
It's probably two.
Does
it matter? And this is relating to Ari's question. Should one be in the early spring? Should one be in mid summer? And should you avoid adding it after mid summer? what are your, what's your thought process when you're going to use those fermented sprays?
So they are fine any time the tree is growing, which would be all the way into September, most likely.
Really? What happens is you're trying, you have to get the stinging nettle The Humphrey, you need to cut it so that it regrows so that you can make it again four weeks later or five weeks later. So you have to work a patch twice at least, because it'll flower again. And the nettle will set seed again if you, it'll already have set seed, which you don't really want to use that nettle anymore 'cause you don't have the same, you don't have the same ability to get the iron out of it because it's not the new growth.
So the young growth breaks down quicker, and old growth has more cellulose in it, and it just takes longer to break down. And in a cold ferment it wouldn't. So I don't do any regular fertilizing beyond what I described. I don't do any of the brown fertilizing in the spring. I feel like that is a good way to grow grass, or grow weeds, or grow ferns.
And the tree isn't going to get them. It's going to get some of it, but it's going to get used up. Then you have to mow it. I just, you're doing this Yeah. It's,
it's beautiful. It's common sense. So you, in the winter when the earth is breathing in, that's when you're nourishing the soil.
And in the spring and the summer when things are up above the, what is the earth doing at that time, at breathing out? I don't know.
Yeah. It's breathing out. it's
breathing out. And so that's when you're focusing on nourishing the tree through its leaves. Through these wonderful sprays.
And so you said it's okay to go through the end of September and you're not too concerned about giving it too much energy to prevent dormancy.
Cause you're using plants. You're not using a process chemical
reaction
to the tree is different.
Yep.
Those two things.
Okay. A couple more comments.
Sherry writes, excellent show today, Susan. Now back to work. Thanks. And let's see. Oh, I don't Elaine writes, can you send me Alan's farm address? if people want to come visit you at the farm, do you ever have visitors?
they could get a hold of me through Facebook or Instagram, it's just Brook Farm Orchard.
Okay. That's good. That's an answer for Elaine. And then finally, aha, this is a great question from Broughberry. Do you have a checklist of things to do or a fertilizer use list for the year and when to do certain things? Is that something that you have handy, Alan? Or is that something?
I don't write at the moment.
I, it's written down somewhere in one of my notebooks. I don't have it right now.
maybe I'll contact
you through social media. I could send it to them.
That sounds great. And if you don't mind, if you can send me a copy,
sure,
I can possibly just link to it in the show notes. And maybe I'll also.
So, do an article to summarize just this wonderful idea of fertilizing according to the seasons and the biodynamic way. So I feel like I've learned, I'm sure that there's so much more to learn about biodynamics, but what a lovely, gentle introduction to something you're still learning after all these years.
Yeah.
Wow. and who's teaching you your trees or just from reading
basically trees and some friends. Yeah, we have amazing. We have a growers group that's all organic or biodynamic and a couple of conventional growers that meets once a year called the Berkshire Roundtable, which I may have mentioned to you before, but there are five biodynamic growers in that group.
So we get to compare a lot of notes in during that meeting when that happens.
And so you're learning from each other,
right?
Yeah. Yeah. I must say that for me, home homeopathy was very iffy for years. I'm like, what is that? Is that really going to work? This is for my own personal health. And I have Lyme disease, so I have to had to deal with it.
But I'm so surprised at how powerful these little tiny pills are and these herbal remedies and stuff. So I don't see why it shouldn't be relevant for our friends, the trees. So, yeah. Alan, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
You're welcome. I,
I hope we will continue to explore this topic together at some point in the future.
And it sounds to me, we had so many questions today, so I think that the listeners really enjoyed chatting with you. You
too.
Okay, you take care and bye for now.
Thank you. Bye bye.
So that was a really interesting show. I really enjoyed talking to Alan. And if you want to learn more about this topic, or if you want to learn more in general about fruit tree care, here are three things that you can do.
First of all, go to the Orchard People YouTube channel and click on subscribe. Because in the next few days, I'm going to be posting a video version of this podcast with images in it. That will bring it to life for you. And I have lots of other vid videos on all sorts of topics relating to fruit trees.
Number two, go to Apple podcasts or your local podcatcher and search for orchard people to find our podcast, then sign up and you'll be notified soon as there is a new episode. And finally, if you don't want to miss any new content and any seasonal content, go to orchard, people. com slash sign dash up, and I'm going to send you notices of upcoming podcasts, live streams, articles, Courses and webinars on fruit tree care, and I would love it if you would join me.
So that's all for now. I will be back again next month with another great topic and hopefully another great guest who is as wonderful as Alan was today. So thanks for tuning in and I'll see you next time. Bye for now.