Bearing fruit

Planting trees is an act of faith. This is particularly true if you’re middle aged or older and know you’ll never see the tree reach maturity. You must imagine yourself the caretaker of the ground you plant–not the owner and beneficiary.

The older I get the more comfortable I become with this notion of doing things for the land that have a long-range impact rather than an immediate payoff.

Two men died recently who shared this sensibility.

Todd Alessi, a local piano-tuner and gardener, was also a nurturer of the American chestnut tree. With his wife Nancy, Todd helped bring one of these endangered trees to maturity. Tasha Haverty covered the success story earlier this year for NCPR and NPR.

 

My late husband Bill Knoble was primarily an apple grower–starting trees from seeds he collected from favorite heritage varieties and planting them on ground he cleared behind his Chestertown shop. He pruned and fussed over those trees, and eventually harvested an amazing mix of fruit for cider-pressings, fresh eating, applesauce and even, once or twice, distilling into apple whiskey.

When he moved north to St. Lawrence County, he immediately started a new batch of seedlings which he planted on freshly cleared ground. He grafted cuttings from his beloved Chestertown orchard onto mature trees scattered throughout the farm–trees he had of course first pruned and repaired.

Bill’s attitude was pretty simple: “I’m doing this for the next person who lives on this property, not for us.” (He never said the “next owner.”)

When Tasha’s story on the Alessi’s chestnut tree aired, Bill was thrilled. He was a decades-long supporter of the American Chestnut Foundation. One unfulfilled item on his bucket list was to plant a small grove of chestnut trees. I don’t know if Todd and Bill ever met or talked about trees, but I take some deep pleasure in knowing that both of these men made a difference on the land they, we–and future generations–inhabit.