Fragments From Floyd

We have summer shade to give away. More light, though, we have to buy.

Last year was a terrible gardening year. Wasn't so for everybody, but certainly for us. Our neighbors got "right many mayters, taters and beans" since there was neither too much rain (like '03) or too little (like '02). But we barely made a meal of what came from our vegetable patch this year. Our problem was a very local matter: our ground never got warm because the sun never reached it. We have a surplus of shade.

I remember the pleasant light of a summer day silhouetting their branches against the bright sky on cool early June mornings. I often stood in awe of the slanting shafts dappled through the feathery filter of their leaves. To the south and east of the garden, the walnuts grew until they reached such fullness and height that they blocked what little light we get on the valley floor. No light, no heat. Seeds rotted without sprouting. Seeds that took root never bore fruit. What should have been ripe in July barely matured by the end of August. If we are going to be serious about growing and canning produce, we would have to sacrifice that beautiful light and drop the trees.

Their trunks were too big for my saw, and for all of them, the best place to bring them down was right across the gravel road. I called the local tree man to make short work of getting them down and the trunks out of the road. Now the rest--clearing brush, cutting limbs to poles and trunks into 14" rounds for stovewood--will take me a few days to deal with. A couple of the larger boles I'll offer to a local furniture maker. That, and a cord of firewood we'll have when the job is done will offset the cost of paying for the felling.

And in the end, there is no price too high for Silver Queen picked fresh in August. We'll expand our garden now that the trees are gone--maybe put a few fruit trees in the relatively deer-free confines of the electric fence. But I can already tell you that standing in unobstructed sunlight in a warm garden in July, I'm going to recall the beautiful shade and coolness cast by fronds of walnut. I'll miss the flutter of their yellow leaflets in September. And next winter as I sit reading by the woodstove watching walnut wood turn to hot coals, I'll remember that I'm feeling the warmth of summer sun that, once upon a time, was stolen from my garden.