Cold Times — How to Prepare for the Mini Ice Age

by Dr. Anita Bailey

  If you do not yet have fruit trees, here are some suggestions:

  The US has been divided into 11 growing regions, with each zone averaging 10 degrees warmer or cooler than the neighboring zones during a typical winter. This map gives an idea, but you can’t really tell accurately without the USDA color depiction. Many seed catalogs and even some seed packets have this map in color, and of course it’s available online. Plants will be described in catalogs something like: “grows in zones 3-8”. That means the tree can live in cooler areas of the country, and that it probably actually needs some freezing weather in order to grow properly. Keep in mind that the coming mini ice age is likely to shift these zones around quite a bit.

  Fruit trees, mostly, come with a top named variety grafted onto a rootstock. Rootstocks control the size the tree will grow to. There are “mini dwarf” trees, growing about 4-6 feet tall; “dwarf” trees, about 6 or 8 feet tall; “semi-dwarf”, 10-16 feet. There are also “own root” or “standard” or “non-grafted” trees that are full size, as tall as the trees will grow naturally. Full size apple trees, for example, might grow anywhere from 20 feet to 35 feet tall and live for a century. Dwarf apples, though, generally are pooped out by 12 years of age.

  Start with half your purchases as dwarf trees and half full size. The dwarf trees will bear fruit sooner, sometimes in just 2-3 years, but they are shorter-lived. After 7 or 8 years when your dwarves are aged and slowing down, your full size trees will be coming on full steam. When the dwarves stop producing or die, replace them with seedlings grown from seeds of your full size trees – that will give your descendants fruit, too.

  Select trees that are extra hardy, for example, cultivars from Michigan, Minnesota, Maine, Canada, Siberia, or northern China. Reliance Peach and Haralson Apple originated in the colder states.

  Select trees that are highly disease resistant so that you don’t have to spray and treat for diseases constantly. Liberty Apple is my favorite, and Jonafree and MacFree are other ones. Read descriptions carefully.

  Be certain you have pollinators for trees that require cross-pollination. Golden Delicious is a good apple pollinator, as are most crabapples. Pollinators must flower at the same time as the trees you want pollinated, and there is some variation. Many pears, peaches, and cherries are “self-pollinating”, but they will often produce better if a pollinating tree is nearby. Ask at your local Extension office, or check online for your area.

  Read about fruit tree pruning and visit a professional orchard, if you can, to see how they do it. In general, peaches, plums, and cherries should be pruned in an “open, basket” shape to allow good central air flow. Apples and pears are pruned to “central leader” shape with a primary main stem and shortened side branches. Pruned trees tend to bear heavier crops than unpruned trees, which can get overgrown and lose branches to breakage.

  Ignore 3-in-1 or 5-in-1 grafted trees, the ones with several fruit colors or varieties grafted onto one tree trunk – these are rarely worth the excessive effort to get them to fruit successfully, and are never highly disease resistant.

  Consider mini-dwarf trees, available on super-dwarfing EMLA-27 rootstock. These grow about 4 feet tall and can be grown in pots, but produce full size fruit. Available types include apples (Liberty is one of them), peaches, nectarines, and cherries. The benefit of these is that they can be kept in portable planters – and brought under cover if ice, hail, high winds or unseasonable cold is underway. That way, you get a crop, no matter what happens with the weather. When the weather is favorable, they are moved outdoors. If indoors, they can be hand pollinated or if outdoors will be pollinated by bees and other insects.

  Potted varieties of avocados, lemons, limes, oranges, tangerines, and kumquats can be grown in a sunny window in a home, or make excellent greenhouse plants. Yes, you can grow these from seeds saved out of commercial fruit. During warm weather, they can be moved outdoors. You’ll have to pollinate with an artist’s paintbrush when they flower during the winter and early spring. Very fragrant flowers, too.

  By the way, the USDA’s climate zone map has changed quite a bit since 1960, with zones moving southward – that is, what used to be a zone 7, now has characteristics of zone 6. That’s a remarkably significant change, demonstrating that it’s getting cooler – and it’s been going on longer than most of us realize.

  I’ve been happy with trees from Raintree Nursery (raintreenursery.com) located in Washington state and Jung Seeds. Jung carries other seeds, plants, and flowers, too. From time to time, Lowe’s home store carries some nice potted citrus, and occasionally mini dwarf peach and nectarines. Watch that mini dwarf trees are marked as “fruiting.” There are some, such as Bonfire Peach and Calmodin Orange, that are primarily flowering ornamentals.

  Return of the Fruit Wall

  The ancient technique of “espaliering” fruit trees always struck me as more effort than necessary. The trees were trimmed to look like the letter “T” with two or more crossing bars, generally a multi-year process to complete. I mistakenly figured that people of the past just had too much time on their hands.

  Little did I know that the entire process of espaliering was the intelligent outcome of trying to grow fruit trees during Little Ice Ages of the past. It utilized solar-generated warmth on stone and mortar surfaces.

  In a mere century, we have almost completely forgotten what our agricultural ancestors took for granted. They simply could not plant a fruit tree in a yard and expect to get a harvest. They had to plant them against south-facing walls to absorb all the heat they could, and radiate that heat back to the trees during the chilly nights.

  How much knowledge we have lost!

  These two pictures are from old French postcards, showing the fruit-walled peach orchards bordering a small city at the end of the 1800’s. The weather was already starting to warm out of the Dalton minimum – the cycle leading to the late 20th century delusion of global warming – so these walls eventually came down. Because they weren’t needed any more, they were not rebuilt….and their purpose vanished.

  Notice how the peach trees are trimmed and trained to hug the walls, facing south and receiving southern sunlight during the day. The surrounding wall chambers maintain a “microclimate” around each section of trees, possibly as much as 30oF warmer than the surrounding air, and retaining that warmth into the night. A light frost might not affect these trees at all, and a heavy frost would have a much less significant effect than if the trees were in the open. A little smudge pot burning through a chilly night in one of those chambers might be enough to assure a crop that would otherwise be lost.

  This illustration shows an espaliered wall within a greenhouse. The fruit trees have additional benefit of the curve within the wall acting as a reflective heat sink “surrounding” the tree and focusing the heat and light a little on the leaves….a very nice use of greenhouse space and heat retention features of the masonry walls.

  Small Fruit

  Small fruit make a nice addition to a garden, although they take up space and only produce one large crop annually or intermittently. Even so, fresh small fruits are a joy and nutrition powerhouses. In the past, rows of fruits such as grapes or berries formed the edge or border of a garden space. They were there, but didn’t fill up rows which could produce much more with potatoes or beans in them.

  Grapes

  There are many, many varieties of grapes, in multiple colors and with different qualities and end uses. For sheer hardiness and versatility, it’s hard to beat the old favorite, seeded Concords. These are the familiar flavored grape that are used in most commercial grape jams and grape juices. It is a dark purple almost blue round grape, with a thick skin, gummy flesh, and small seeds. The plants grow in most garden soils, don’t need a lot of spraying or care, and produce for decades. You can eat Concords fresh, but they’re not even remotely like the seedless thin-skinned supermarket red or green fresh grapes. Even so, better to have a harvest than not.

  Thompson Seedless and r
elated types are the primary fresh green grape found in supermarkets. In my experience with these productive plants, they are sensitive to humidity and cold. This makes them a challenging choice right now, and more so in the weather that is coming in the near future. Even so, if you can get a crop, they are tasty for fresh eating, and can be canned in a light to medium syrup.

  Red seedless types, such a Reliance Seedless, are a bit hardier than the green seedless types. They are more tolerant to cool weather and can stand some humidity without getting moldy. Japanese beetles will swarm the fruit just as it is ripening and even eat the leaves, so be prepared with your soap spray. The leaves are also perfectly edible for us, better when they are young, and traditionally have been used as a wrap for meat/rice mixes. This makes them a versatile doubly productive plant.

  Pruning grapes for productivity means trimming back the vines in the early spring, before the buds enlarge. Grapes bear fruit off of one-year old “arms”, so when pruning you need to remove older fibrous growth to allow the newer arms to fruit. Grapes can be pruned to suit any “form” – espaliered, on a simple trellis, on a “two arm” trellis (like a “T” with two crossing pieces), and so forth. Just stick to trimming out the older wood.

  Farm writer Gene Logsdon suggests this way of looking at pruning:

  New fruiting growth in the spring grows from buds on the pencil-thick, smooth one-year old wood.

  Pruning should be aimed to renew the fruiting arms, growing on the main trained arms.

  Cut out last year’s fruiting arms (which are now getting fibrous), leaving the young arms to grow.

  Cut back your spring one-year old wood to 2 or 3 buds (nodes) from the mainstem.

  That will give you plenty of fresh, healthy fruiting growth – and still leave the plants with lots of good air circulation to reduce the risk of mildew diseases.

  This will give you a tangle of dryish looking trimmed off vines. You can cut sections of these and poke them into the ground – about half of them will root and start a new vine. There is an upside down to the vines, though – make a diagonal cut on the part nearest the mainstem (the “down” side), and a flat cut 3 buds/nodes above it (the “up” side). The piece should have 3 bud nodes on it. That little stick will be 8”-12” long, about the size of a pencil, and is your new plant cutting.

  Poke a deep hole with a piece of stick or cane where you want to plant the cutting, push the “down” side with the diagonal cut into the soil, leaving the top flat end and one bud above ground. Firm the soil around the cutting. If it makes it, it’ll grow a few leaves and then a little stem. Just let it grow where it is, any which way. Next year, begin training to the form you want.

  You can find recipes for grape jam and jelly in any book on fruit preservation. See the recipes section for a quick recipe for grape/fruit juice and an all-purpose wine recipe.

  Wild Berries

  Domesticated blackberries, raspberries, gooseberries, straw- berries, elderberries, blueberries and cranberries, are descended from hardy wild versions that tolerate weather and seasonal extremes very well. There’s even wild versions of grapes, usually called “fox grapes”. These wild fruits share several characteristics: they tend to be smaller than domestic fruits, although not by much. They tend toward more seeds than domestic versions. They usually have much stronger and tastier flavor, even though they’re not quite as sweet. They are all higher in phytonutrients and anti-oxidation factors than domestics.

  All the wild berries are highly seasonal – if you miss the time when wild strawberries are ripening, for example, you’ve missed them until next year. If you don’t get them, wild birds will so they don’t go to waste. The same is true of all the other wild fruits. So, collect them when you can.

  Wild berries are hardier and more disease resistant than any domestic variety. They don’t need special sprays or extra babying to bring in a harvest. Good garden soil is like a gourmet feast to plants that have a history of growing on marginal land. These plants are likely to do as well as any plant can during the coming Cold Times. They’ve done pretty well in the past without any help from us.

  Best of all, wild plants are free. If you own or have access to any land where these plants grow, simply dig up small plants in the spring and transplant a few to your garden. I have wild raspberries, gooseberries, elderberry, and strawberry transplants, all doing exceptionally well several years after transplanting. There are many wild blackberry stands around the farm, so getting some in the garden itself would be overkill. The whole region is thick with them.

  Individually or together, these make fabulous jams, jellies, compotes, and wines. If you don’t like the seediness, put the crushed fruit through a sieve after heating to soften, before processing, and that will reduce seeds. Add sweetener to the pulp to taste; they might need a little more than commercial domestic fruit.

  Found Food

  It would be remiss to not include the benefits of wild crafting edible foods. Every region has its own wild-growing plants, from greens to nuts to berries to mushrooms, that can provide dietary interest and the enjoyment of a day in the woods. Get a good guidebook today (look for: “Edible Wild Plants of [your area]”), and start looking around for what’s available. Key points:

  If you cannot absolutely, for sure, positively identify the plant, don’t eat it.

  Eat only plant parts that are edible (fruit but not leaves, or leaves but not fruit, for example),

  Eat only in the season they are edible (poke leaves in spring only),

  Eat only after the correct treatment (boil or soak until toxins are dissolved, for example).

  In my area, we can harvest morel mushrooms in the spring, use them until we tire of them, and then freeze or dry extras for use later in the year. In the summer, berries of all kinds ripen. In the fall, wild hickory and black walnuts and acorns are ready for the simple effort of picking them up. Every region has its own range.

  However, although there are lots of potential resources in the woods and fields everywhere that can add color and nutrients to your diet, there is nowhere near enough to provide steady nutrition for even a small group of people. If you plan to rely on wild crafted food as a dietary mainstay, you need to prove to yourself that it can be done, by doing it now – now, when the weather is tolerably good, and you aren’t hungry or otherwise under duress. If your country is so rich that it can feed you just by collecting wild foods, good for you. Mine isn’t, which is why we have a garden, too.

  Sweetening the Meal

  We are accustomed to have access to sweet and fruity tasting “stuff” that is constantly available. Humans have a natural sweet tooth that programs us to enjoy fruit in season, and to want it whenever we can get it. Effectively, our hunter-gatherer ancestors gorged on fruit during the few weeks it was available during the year, quite a treat. The rest of the time, a meal was meat, seeds, and vegetables. During the cold times, we will miss the constant access to sugary junk food. Good riddance since it’s really not very good for health anyway.

  Remember that canning and drying are very effective ways to store fruits for later use. Many sweet fruits, including apples and “long keeper” melons like the cantaloupe “Valencia” and the watermelon “Winter King and Queen”, also store nicely in a cool cellar and can last through an entire winter in fairly decent condition, depending on the variety.

  That said, even though physiologically we really don’t need all that sugar, we are likely to want and enjoy sweetened goods. Store a LOT of sugar for starters. Today, we eat over 130 pounds each per year.

  Keeping bees is an option, as long as no one in your group is allergic to bee stings, which could be fatal without access to immediate medications and treatments. Bee keeping is an entire book’s worth on its own, requires special equipment that could set you back a good $1000, and also calls for purchase of a starter hive. Right now, bees are subject to several conditions and parasites that are hard to control; bee keepers may lose half their hives in any given year. But, havin
g several hives can provide dozens to hundreds of pounds of delicious honey annually, as well as keeping the important pollinators around your fruit trees and garden. If this seems like a good option for you, contact your local Extension office for lists of local beekeepers and beekeeper clubs. They are often thrilled to talk about their hobby with newcomers. Also, keep in mind that we really don’t know how bees will fare in the extreme cold and weather fluctuations that are ahead.

  Another possibility is tapping trees for sap – that’s the source of maple syrup – but many other types of deciduous trees can be tapped: nut trees of any type, beech, and birch for example. Trees are tapped using a metal or hollow wood tube is pounded into hole drilled in the tree bark until it reaches the inner layer beneath the bark. This is done during a 4 to 6 week period in early spring when the sap is “rising”. The tap allows some of that sap to drain out the spigot and into a bucket that is hung from the tap. Buckets are collected once or several times a day, depending on how fast the sap is flowing. The sap is then boiled down and stirred constantly until it reaches a temperature of about 219oF (for maple) – then it is considered syrup. Don’t let the syrup go beyond that temperature, because it can burn easily at that point.