"At the Edge of the Orchard" by Tracy Chevalier: A Review

Goll Woods, near the setting for At the Edge
of the Orchard, gives us a glimpse of what
the Great Black Swamp was like in the 1800s.

I live in the Great Black Swamp. I've lived here my entire life and am fascinated by the fact that people now actually inhabit this once inhospitable place. In the last 160 years, it has been developed into a place of rich farmland and is home to one of the largest wind energy sources in the region. The Goodenoughs in At the Edge of the Orchard wouldn't recognize the place.

1838 northwest Ohio's Great Black Swamp is the backdrop for Tracy Chevalier's newest novel, just released a week ago (March 15, 2016). She provides a vivid description of the tough life many had while trying to establish a home there, but James and Sadie Goodenough had more problems than just the muddy, mosquitoey swamp to contend with, and many of them were of their own making.

One way to claim ownership of land in the area was to establish an orchard on it, and these were the days when John Chapman (you may recognize him as Johnny Appleseed) traveled the area, selling apple seeds and saplings just for this purpose. Apples suited both James and Sadie just fine, but for different reasons - he liked eating them, while Sadie preferred to drink hers.

While the quarrels over apples might seem a slight thing upon which to base a novel, it's a brilliant impetus for how the rest of the story plays out. No spoilers here, but those apples created quite a legacy for themselves in the lives of the Goodenoughs and particularly for son Robert.

"You can run, but you can't hide" becomes the story in the end, and as I neared the final pages, I wondered how it would all wrap up. I've read quite a few books lately that left me unsatisfied somehow, when I closed them for the final time, but this isn't one of them.

Though I wouldn't put it in my Top Five Most Favorite Books, it has earned a well-deserved spot in my permanent personal library. Historical fiction fans won't be disappointed. This is my favorite genre when done well. Tracy Chevalier has done it in At the Edge of the Orchard.

The pace is perfect, the unique method of transitioning both time and place is effective and smooth, and the manner in which the characters' voices are portrayed helps us understand them and their story even more. Not many authors could accomplish this as superbly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tracy Chevalier is the author of eight historical novels, including The Last Runaway, Remarkable Creatures, and the international bestseller Girl With a Pearl Earring, which has sold over 5 million copies and been made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth. American by birth, British by geography, she lives in London with her husband and son and cat. Tracy is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has honorary doctorates from her alma maters Oberlin College in Ohio and the University of East Anglia in England. Her website www.tchevalier.com will tell you more about her and her books.

_______________
I received a complimentary copy of At the Edge of the Orchard from the publisher for the purposes of review. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Celebrating a Monarch Discovery

"My Weekly Reader" kept
us up-to-date on current
events during my elementary
school years.

I graduated from high school in 1974. That's one of the milestones in your life that you use to measure any number of things, for many years after the fact. Here I am, nearly 42 years later, and I sometimes will still use it as a reference point.

Many things have happened historically since I was in school, meaning I would not have learned them from my textbooks or as current events in the little weekly newspaper I remember getting all through elementary school.

Today's Google Doodle commemorated one such event that happened after my high school graduation, once again bringing home the fact that I'm not getting any younger.

On January 9, 1975, Ken Brugger and his wife, Cathy, first walked into the sanctuary of monarchs as they clung to the oyamel fir trees in Sierra Madre mountains, in the state of Michoacán, in Central Mexico. Prior to this, the exact location of where the monarchs went was not known.

The discovery had been decades in the making. It would be more than a year-and-a-half before National Geographic made the announcement in the August 1976 issue.

My dream is to make the trip to Mexico to see the monarchs as they are overwintering, knowing that some of them may have nectared in my garden here in Ohio. Some of them may have even been born at Our Little Acre.

A monarch ecloses
September 5, 2015

Roasting, Planting, and Restoring the American Chestnut

I recently wrote about chestnuts for my weekly gardening column in our local newspaper, the Paulding Progress. Chestnuts are a timely topic, what with Christmas and the song, not to mention chestnut season is generally October through December.

The president of the New York chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation, Allen Nichols, somehow saw my column and contacted me, offering to send both American chestnuts for eating and some for planting in the spring. Yes, genuine American chestnuts, not the Chinese ones most people eat these days.

The natural range of the
American chestnut

The American Chestnut Foundation is dedicated to bringing back the American chestnut tree (Castanea dentata), all but wiped out by blight in the early part of the 20th century. A fungal disease was inadvertently introduced to the U.S. from Asia and it proved to be fatal to the American chestnut, which has no natural defense against it.

Efforts to bring back the American chestnut include the creation of a transgenic American chestnut tree at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF). By inserting a naturally-occurring gene from wheat (also found in strawberries, barley, oats and bananas), the chestnut tree is resistant to the fungus. (See video at the end of this blog post.) If researchers are successful in gaining permission, it could be the first transgenic tree to be released in the wild.

My eating chestnuts arrived just before Christmas and yesterday, I set about roasting them. I'd never even seen a chestnut in my life, let alone roasted any, so I consulted Google and found several good guides for the process. I melded several of the guides into one and here's how I did it:

1.  Since chestnuts contain a fair amount of moisture, you need to cut a slit in the outer covering to prevent them from exploding as you heat them up in the oven. Make sure your knife is very sharp, because they're very tough, and make a cut about ⅛-inch deep, through the outer layer, the thin papery layer and just nicking the meat a bit.

All you need to do is to provide a vent, but traditional cuts are in the shape of an X:

2.  After cutting, I soaked the chestnuts in warm water for about half an hour. This helps loosen the outer covering which will later be peeled away.

3.  After soaking, I placed them in baking pan in a 350°F oven for 30 minutes. (Some sources recommend 400°F for 15 minutes.)

4.  When they're ready to take out of the oven, the skins will have peeled back on their own and the meats will be a golden color, glistening slightly.

5.  When I took them out, I put the hot chestnuts in a piece of foil and closed it up. This allows them to steam a bit, which helps with removal of the skins. After a few minutes, they were cool enough to handle.

6.  While many comments were found complaining of the difficulty in shelling the roasted chestnuts, I didn't find it to be difficult at all. Several of them popped right out of the shells on their own. Others came out when I cracked the shells further. The thin papery layer stuck to the shells, so even those weren't a problem. Beginner's luck, maybe?

What did they taste like?

I'm a pretty picky eater. Certain textures, temperatures, and aftertastes have a way of making something unpalatable to me, in addition to the flavor itself. But I often discipline myself to try new things and to eat things that I know are good for me even if I don't particularly like them.

I didn't expect to like roasted chestnuts. The only nuts I really like are pecans and almonds, but I'm even selective about the kind of almonds I'll eat. I like peanut butter (creamy only) but don't like peanuts. Walnuts make my mouth hurt. Cashews are just nasty.

But these chestnuts... YUM! I'm not really sure how to describe the taste to someone who's never had them before, but my first reaction was that their flavor hinted of something I'd eaten before. It took me a bit to identify it, and don't laugh, but to me they tasted like chicken. Not exactly, of course, but that's the taste that came to mind and Romie concurred.

Others have said they remind them of sweet potatoes and I can see that, too. Whatever... they were good. Romie liked them as well, but he'll eat just about anything.


Planting chestnut trees in spring

Photo from United States
Forest Service

When grown from seed, American chestnut trees take about 7-8 years before they produce seed. So why would I want to plant chestnut trees, when I'm not even sure if we'll be living here in 2023?

As Allen Nichols told me, "We are encouraging people to plant pure wild type American chestnuts so they have a tree to cross with our blight resistant transgenic tree, when it is available, which we hope will be in just 3-5 years."

I will plant them because I like being a part of something that is for the greater good and because, like my beloved monarchs, they can use all the help we can give them.

Watch this video on YouTube

The Trees of Our Little Acre: Cornelian Cherry

Several years ago, I visited the historic home of Gene Stratton-Porter (1863-1924), Indiana author of more than 20 books, and a celebrated naturalist. In the latter part of her life, Gene and her husband built a home near Rome City, Ind., on Sylvan Lake, which they called "Cabin in the Wildflower Woods." There, she worked on her nature studies and her writing, before moving to Los Angeles about 1920, so that she could be more involved in the making of movies based on her books.

Cabin in the Wildflower Woods
Home of Gene Stratton-Porter

When I visited the cabin, I was given a tour of the gardens, which were in the process of being restored to their original plan as Gene planted them. Martha Ferguson, who was in charge of the gardens at the time, gifted me with a Cornelian cherry seedling - one that grew from the original one that Gene had planted there.

That was in 2007.  I planted the seedling then, and this spring - today! - it rewarded me with its first blooms ever.

If it's bloomed in years previous, neither of us noticed, and that's not likely since it's located just out our back door where we pass by it countless times in spring. If we didn't notice the blooms before, we surely would have noticed the bright red drupes that follow and take all summer to ripen.

The Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) is in the dogwood family and in my experience is easier to grow than other dogwoods. It hasn't been a particularly fast grower, but it has grown to be about 5-6 feet tall in the eight years that we've had it.

If I can get to the berries before the birds do, I'll make something with them, such as jam or a fruit sauce, as they are edible, reaching complete ripeness after they've fallen from the tree. This could be a challenge unless I net the tree.  The flavor is said to be like that of the cranberry with a tartness similar to sour cherries. They are very high in Vitamin C and have been used medicinally to treat cold and flu.

Cornelian Cherry

Cornus mas

Zone: 4a to 8b
Light:  Full sun to part shade
Height:  15-25 feet
Bloom time:  Late winter to early spring
Soil pH: Prefers slightly acidic
Other:  Fruit is edible, can be grown as shrub or tree, bark sheds on mature trees

A Springtime Visit to Longwood Gardens

Longwood Gardens, the treasure created by the Pierre du Pont family near Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, is an enjoyable experience at pretty much any time of the year, but my visit last April made more of an impression on me than my first visit way back in September of 2006. The reason for this may have been a combination of two things.

When I made that first visit, I was a new gardener and while absolutely awestruck by its loveliness and grandeur, my familiarity with plants had not yet reached a level much beyond their aesthetics. That alone is more than enough to appreciate this garden or any garden, for that matter, but as my knowledge of and experience with plants has grown exponentially over the years, I look at gardens through different eyes.

Now I look at the design of the garden as a whole, as well as individual plots and vignettes. I try to figure out why I like them, why they work, and ponder whether any of it would work in my own garden. I also look at individual plants that catch my eye and wonder if I could grow this one or that one, all the while looking ahead with regard to maintenance, drought tolerance, and attractiveness as it matures.

Consider too, that visiting any garden in spring - for a northern gardener, at least - lifts a person's spirits after enduring a long, cold, and dreary winter. Last spring was especially joyous because of The Winter That Was.

I was more than ready to see swaths of daffodils and tulips and smell the wet, green fragrance of the gardens coming to life again. Not just the hyacinths or lily-of-the-valley, but that medley of "green" that even those without sight would recognize as spring.

THIS is how you do a conservatory.

This second visit to Longwood Gardens was planned but yet by chance, as it was a personal add-on to a business trip to Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, just outside Harrisburg, where I spent two days touring the Ames Tools facilities and getting to know their company and their products. Good friend Shawna Coronado had been invited by Ames too, and we were delighted when we discovered we both were attending.

With several thousand tulips, you too can have a yard that looks like this!

That's when the wheels started turning in my head as to the possibility of us staying an extra couple of days (at our own expense) so that we could visit both Longwood and Winterthur, if possible, since we were going to be relatively close to both of them. Having visited both places previously, I was hoping to see them again and introduce both to Shawna, but unfortunately, Winterthur would have to wait for another time, because you know how time is - there just never seems to be enough of it.

One of the most photographed locations at Longwood includes the stone
and iron gazebo.

The mother-daughter dynamic duo,
Katie Dubow (left) and Suzi McCoy

After spending two wonderfully informative days at Ames, we were hosted by Suzi McCoy and her husband in their beautiful Kennett Square home, with a lovely dinner at nearby Terrain garden store, where we were joined by Suzi's daughter, Katie Dubow. We also enjoyed a fun breakfast at Fran Keller's Eatery, a local restaurant, where we were joined by a couple of other Garden Media Group peeps, Stacey Silvers and Emma Fitzpatrick.

We arrived at Longwood around 11:00 and for the next six hours, explored the gardens inside and out. If that seems like a long time, I can assure you that it went by in a flash. With over 1077 acres and a conservatory that is alone worth the cost of admission ($20 for ages 18+, $17 for 65+, and $10 for ages 5-18), and camera in hand, it's almost not enough time.

I took over 400 photos that day and choosing which ones to include here to give you a taste of what you can expect to see when visiting Longwood Gardens was not easy. The gardens outside are stunning in their design and use of color, while the conservatory can be described as the best four-acre backyard you can imagine, where the weather is always just right.

Because I know you're going to ask, those pink towers of loveliness are
Echium wildpretii. Appropriate specific epithet, don't you think? Wild and
pretty, for sure.

The gardens celebrated their 100th anniversary in 2006 and miniature terrariums were used as table decorations during a celebratory banquet. When I made my first visit to Longwood in that year, their beautiful gift shop offered some of them for sale. I was able to purchase one and enjoy having a memento of both my first visit and their centennial year.

As with any garden, your visit will be different depending on the time of year you visit. Without further ado, here's more of Longwood Gardens in spring:

In the vegetable garden

The iconic gazebo stands opposite the skunk cabbage coming up on the
other shore of the lake.

I'm thinking that those are some well-placed benches, with that lovely view.

The ferns were stretching out their fiddleheads.

In the children's garden inside the conservatory

In the conservatory

One of the many water features in the conservatory.

The bromeliads are quite happy by this fountain in the conservatory.

One of the conservatory hallways

I've never seen such beautiful foxgloves, inside or out.

Delphiniums and ferns in the conservatory

Beautiful pathway in the conservatory

In the conservatory

Conservatory

Conservatory fountains

Golden Clivia in the conservatory

Bougainvillea in the conservatory

Bleeding Heart
(Lamprocapnos spectabilis)

Bathrooms. Yes, really.

Poppy Anemone
(Anemone coronaria)

Oh, those blue hydrangeas in the conservatory!

Squirrel Corn
(Dicentra canadensis)

Purple Trillium
(Trillium erectum)

Tulipa 'Angelique'

The Topiary Garden

Longwood Gardens is located 45 minutes from Philadelphia and just 30 minutes from Wilmington, Delaware. It's one of the many beautiful places to visit in the Brandywine Valley.

Longwood Gardens
1001 Longwood Road,
Kennett Square,  PA 19348

 610.388.1000
questions@longwoodgardens.org
www.longwoodgardens.org