Orchard People

[00:00:00] Introduction and Welcome
The following program does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Reality Radio 101, its advertisers and sponsors, or its listening audience. Listener discretion is advised.
Welcome to the Urban Forestry Radio Show, brought to you by the Community Orchard Network. In this monthly podcast, I'm going to take you on a journey. We'll learn about fruit trees, permaculture, food forests. And so much more. So if you're a gardener and enjoy growing your own food, if you love trees and especially fruit trees, or if you're just interested in living a more sustainable life, you've come to the right place.
I'm Susan Poizner, your host for today. So get ready, roll up your sleeves. And let's dig in to today's episode.
Welcome to the Urban Forestry Radio Show with your host, Susan Poizner. Right here on Reality Radio 101. To contact Susan live right now, send her an email. In studio101@gmail.com.
And now, right to your host of the Urban Forestry Radio Show, Susan Poizner. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the show today.
[00:02:10] Climate Change and Fruit Trees
Here in Toronto, we had a really strangely warm winter this year. Hardly any snow at all. Now that's pretty unusual for our city. But then again, the last few winters have also been pretty weird.
In 2013, we had an ice storm that destroyed a lot of Toronto's beautiful trees. In other years, we've had early springs.
There's no question that all of this strange weather affects fruit trees, and many believe that this strange weather is the result of climate change. So on the show today, I'll chat with Gregory Michael Peck, Ph. D., from Cornell University. He's an assistant professor who studies the challenges of climate change.
of growing fruit trees. Later in the show, we'll go from the field to the kitchen. I'm going to talk to Joel McCharles. He and his partner, Dana Harrison, are founders of WellPreserved. ca. And while they don't grow fruit trees, They certainly know what to do with the harvest. Their amazing blog explores how to preserve nature's bounty.
And the two have recently co authored a book called The Batch Cookbook, which is packed with recipes that we can all try at home with our homegrown fruit.
[00:03:38] Interview with Gregory Michael Peck
But first, Gregory Michael Peck of Cornell University is on the line with me. Hi Gregory, how are you today? Hi, Susan. I'm doing well. That's great. so can you tell me a little bit about your background?
How did you get into studying fruit trees for a living? Sure. so I actually, maybe like a lot of your listeners come from a suburban environment. Didn't have a background in agriculture, but got very interested in it, during college. Spent some time actually working on farms in California and actually in an apple tree nursery and, from there my interest in the science of how plants work and more specifically how tree fruit work and how we can produce them more sustainably became a passion of mine and a career of mine.
Went on to graduate school at Washington State University and then my PhD at Cornell University. So I understand that a lot of what you do involves the challenges of growing fruit trees and understanding how fruit trees work.
[00:04:42] Challenges of Climate Change on Fruit Trees
So, do you feel that, that climate change is one of the challenges that our fruit trees are now facing?
Absolutely. There's no, there's no question that. The weirdness, as you described it, of the weather that we experience, these shorter term episodes where we have ice storms or we have these early spring events, a lot of them can be attributed back to larger patterns and, changes that are happening in our global climate.
So, so why is this a problem for fruit trees? Their job is just we care for them and their job is to give us fruit. So, so where is the problem? Right. Well, we, we are, we are managers of, of the trees, but the trees are, natural, you know, natural, plants and they, they are, You know, responding to the environment around them.
And so if the environment changes, then the plants also need to change. Or, we need to change how we manage them. And for tree fruit, which are, have a very long life cycle, naturally they change very slowly. It takes generations and generations for plants to change, unless through concerted breeding efforts.
So that leaves us with needing to develop management tools to be able to produce Tree fruit in a in a changing climate. Well, let's talk about some of the problems and and for myself, you know, as a community orchardist here in Toronto as I said in my introduction, we have had these early springs and then you get a late frost And I remember the first time that happened.
I was talking to one of my mentors and I said Well, the blossoms are open in the park and my apricot trees or whatever it were that they were blossoming and everything looks good, but there was this freeze and I said, Is this a problem? What could happen? So what are the problems that can happen to fruit trees as a result of this?
Like I was told that the blossoms could die as a result of the frost and then you have no fruit at all that year. So is that the case? What are these problems that we can expect to see? Well, there are many, and I think you hit on one of the biggest challenges that we're going to have for tree fruit production.
So, many of our fruit trees, are, are deciduous. that includes apples and pears and peaches, cherries, plums. They go through a period of dormancy in the winter. There's no leaves, there's very little active growth. The trees are in this kind of suspended animation. And then they
Evolutionary mechanism that they've developed in order to attract pollinators and also to provide them with a long growing season to create fruit. And to allow for seed dispersal. So there's a lot of advantages to being spring blooming, a spring blooming plant. But, as you pointed out, there's also a disadvantage.
And you hit on the key one, which is frost. And so frost is a challenge that growers of tree fruits have always had with these crops. But, what we're seeing is a shift. And a shift of the phenology, which is the Understanding of the progression of from bud break through flowering, moving earlier and earlier in the spring, earlier and earlier in the year.
And so that increases our chance for having a spring frost. And as you said, those frosts are very damaging to flowers. And so flowers are very sensitive to cold temperatures. Hmm. So if there was, and please, I'm not asking for this universe, but if there was a frost tomorrow, our buds are starting to break here in Toronto.
I don't know what it's like there. They're just starting to break. If there was a frost, would these buds die? what does that mean? Does that damage the tree? Does that just mean no fruit? What happens? And how do I know if the buds are dead? Great question. So during the winter, during dormancy, what we call endodormancy, which is this state of rest in the tree, the trees actually, and the buds specifically, are in a state where they can handle very, very cold temperatures.
And that's why you're able to grow apples in Toronto. And I'm able to grow apples in New York. And so they can handle these temperatures down to minus 20 Fahrenheit. All right. When they're in a state of dormancy. But as that progression from bud break to flowering starts, the cold hardiness of those buds becomes less and less.
So, as you go from bud break to flowering to fruit set, what happens is that they can handle, temperatures that are, not as low as you go through there. So, as you, as you get to flowering and you're at full bloom, the trees may not be able to handle temperatures much below freezing. Hmm. Yeah.
Interesting. Yeah. So, so basically your flowers will not survive. I mean, it wouldn't mean that the tree itself would die. It would just mean no fruit that year, I suppose. Correct. The wood on the tree and the roots of the tree can handle temperatures that are much colder. Then the flowers come.
[00:10:20] Potential Solutions and Adaptations
So would you say this issue of early bud break late frost?
That's the main problem when it comes to the dangers brought to us by climate change? Or is there other problems? Well, I would say that is one of the primary issues that we're starting to encounter, and I would not say it is the only, only problem that we're going to have with climate change. we have a potential for a lot of different, effects to impact tree fruit production, whether it's for a commercial apple grower or for you and your community garden.
so we're going to have, with climate change, more heat. So then we have the potential for more heat stress that can lead to physiological disorders like bitter pit, sunburn on the fruit. It could, our, our, our weather patterns are going to change and we may have more drought periods, which means in areas that previously had ample rainfall in the summertime, they may now need irrigation in order to keep those trees alive.
We also are going to see changes in, the amount of disease that we have with more rainfall. That's the potential for more disease incident events to happen. and also for insects, you know, our insects go through multiple generations. Many of our pest insects will go through multiple generations in a single season.
So, for example, the classic worm in the apple, the codling moth. Typically, in our environment here in central New York, we'll have two generations per year. If we have a growing season that's four weeks longer, it's, we have the potential of having a third generation. So that's that much more opportunity for, to have, pest damage to our fruit.
Wow. So, that doesn't sound like good news. But, maybe this is a silly question. If it's getting warmer, maybe we'll get to plant some trees for warmer zones. Maybe we'll be growing in Toronto or New York, I don't know, mango trees. citrus. We would be in big trouble if we start growing tropical tree fruit in Toronto.
that would be one of the, signal that global climate change has Yeah, so, you know, we just haven't reached an apex of massive change. But, but we could see very likely change in the varieties that we're growing. So we talked about spring frost and that the danger of losing our crop due to a frost event.
Well, perhaps we start selecting varieties that. Are going to bloom later in the season. So that way, they escaped the spring frost. We also may have potential for longer growing season. So some varieties that we have a hard time ripening. Granny Smith or Pink Lady, we may be able to actually grow in our climate now.
Hmm. So there will be some changes. It might not be as extreme as mangoes and, and, and sort of outdoor lemon trees here. So I sure hope it's not that extreme. I hope not too. I, I, I found it interesting what you said in the beginning of the show. So, so we see the changes coming. For whatever reason, because of this climate change or, you know, changing climate or challenges in the climate, whatever you want to call it.
But what's interesting is trees have, over the millennia, I guess, have been changing and adapting and, and they are the way they are because they grew to be that way over time. Will they change and adapt to our new climate situation, our new climate reality? Well, I have no doubt that nature, has the ability to adapt and, and certainly the, the, the world, the globe has gone through numerous climate changes, colder and warmer, over the course of history.
However, the, what's unprecedented about what's happening right now is how quickly it's changing. And so we're talking about climate change factors that are going to be impacting us within 50 years or 100 years. And for perennial crops, like apples and peaches, which have a very long generation time, they're not going to adapt that quickly.
Not without some sort of human intervention through a breeding program. Hmm. So it's really predicting what the problems are going to be. And then figuring out and crossbreeding and doing whatever you need to do to make a tree that survives. But, how do you know that whatever change we, we have here in, you know, our part of North America will be the same change that, for instance, our listeners in the Pacific region are going to be experiencing, or in the Atlantic area, or in different parts of North America?
Will it hit us all in the same way? No, and the climate models, it's a great question because I think there's a you know, when we talk about climate change, people just think, Oh, global warming. And the truth is, while the, the earth as a whole is going to get warmer through climate change, the effects are quite local or at least regional and as to what's going to happen.
So for the Northeastern North America, we are predicted to have more rainfall. But in the southwestern U. S., they're predicted to have much less rainfall and a lot more severe drought. And so that's a real problem if we talk about the national or even global food supply, because the vast majority of our produce, our fruits and vegetables, are grown in the southwestern U.
S. and in California specifically. So somebody needs to develop some drought resistant fruit trees for California. Late flowering fruit trees for us and, you know, perhaps, I mean, I don't know if that, that's possible, but, is there such a thing as a drought resistant fruit tree? Well, there's drought resistance in the, rootstock.
So, tree fruit, there, there, there's two parts to the tree. There's the rootstock, there's the, and then there's the scion. The rootstock, obviously, is the part of the tree that, grows in the soil. And so there are drought resistant rootstocks, and there's certainly a lot of work looking at developing more drought resistant rootstocks.
Hmm. I just want to say to the listeners, if anybody has any questions, we have an email address in the studio. InStudio101 at gmail. com. We would love to hear from you, and we would love to hear your questions. so, okay, so we've understood that there is a problem, and we understand that somehow we need to adjust to that problem.
So what are your suggestions when you talk to, whether it's orchardists, professional orchardists, home orchardists, community orchardists, what would you have us think about in order to prepare for the future? Well, you know, this is, this is just me on my soapbox. And I think we all have a role to play in addressing climate change, both in our own lives and in our communities and in the amount of carbon that we are producing and releasing into the atmosphere.
And so that would be the first thing to think about is, is what can you do as an individual? What can you do as a community to help reduce the amount of fossil fuels that you're burning? and there's a lot of different ways of doing that. And, but I would say specifically to tree fruit, what should we be thinking about in terms of how are we going to produce these trees different, differently into the future?
And, and certainly as you mentioned, the, need for, breeding and having new varieties that, that are going to, be well suited for the predicted changes. But I also think that we can use some cultural management strategies to help prevent the amount of damage that we have from things like spring frost.
So in some cases, people are using covering systems over orchards and actually growing fruit trees underneath, basically tents or hoop houses or, different kinds of structures to help to prevent the amount of frost damage. In urban settings, a lot of, growers can use, a wall, which would have, grow the tree against a wall, like an espalier, in order to have, a little heat sink behind the tree to help keep the tree warm.
Hmm. Interesting. You've really got to be creative. I would, I just wanted to ask one more question. We need to have a, a little commercial break in a minute. But I've been thinking about nuts, nut trees, and we didn't, specifically talk about them. You know, problems in California with, with almonds and, and different types of nut trees.
Is this part of that, the whole phenomenon? Can you talk about that a little? well, sure. I can, I can only tell you a little bit because it's not my area of expertise, but, I, I don't think that there really is going to be an agricultural system that's not going to be impacted by climate change. And so whether that's the, the apples in, in the community garden, or whether that's almonds being grown in California, there's going to be some impact and, and, and, So I think that that's something that your listeners should be really be aware of that the effects on the food system are really global.
Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Okay.
[00:20:03] Commercial Break
Well, it's time for us to hear a word from our sponsors. But after the break, I'd love to chat with you more about a study you did on Liberty apples. So that's an interesting scab resistant apple that I myself have planted on a few sites here in Toronto. Are you okay staying on the line for a minute?
Great. Okay, well you're listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show on Reality Radio 101. I'm Susan Poizner and we'll be back after this short break.
Hey Sally, your garden is looking great today. Thanks Gary. Your lawn is looking a little bit dry. Ah, that's okay. It's all going to change. Soon I'm going to plant a fruit tree in my yard. I'm thinking an apple tree, or maybe peach. That sounds great, but do you know what you're doing? Well, fruit trees are easy.
You just plant them, water them, and wait for the harvest, right? Actually, that's not quite the case. What? Organic orchardists spend a lot of time protecting their fruit trees from pest and disease problems. Really? And in order to thrive, fruit trees need to be pruned every year. Hmm, I didn't know that.
I'll tell you what, before you buy your tree, why don't you go to orchardpeople. com. You'll learn lots about growing fruit from the blog, and there's a fantastic monthly newsletter with seasonal tips and reminders. Maybe I should check that out. Yeah, then if you really want to move ahead, You can sign up for OrchardPeople.
com's beginner fruit tree care course. So maybe I should hold off on buying my tree today? You got it. The more you know, the better your tree will grow. Sign up for a free membership to OrchardPeople. com today.
Are you new to growing fruit trees? Or perhaps a seasoned expert? Either way, come and join the Community Orchard Network. We are a group of community and home orchardists. From across North America who gather through monthly webinars, radio broadcasts like this one and podcasts, we want to share our experience, deepen our knowledge, and widen the movement.
Join the conversation. Visit www.orchardpeople.com/network to find out more. This message was brought to you by the Baltimore Orchard Project. The following program does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Reality Radio 101, its advertisers and sponsors, or its listening audience.
Listener discretion is advised.
Welcome back to the Urban Forestry Radio Show with your host, Susan Poizner. Right here on Reality Radio 101. To contact Susan live right now, send her an email. In studio101@gmail.com.
And now, right back to your host of the Urban Forestry Radio Show, Susan Poizner.
[00:23:56] Liberty Apples Study
This is the Urban Forestry Radio Show on Reality Radio 101. I'm Susan Poizner, and today I'm chatting with Gregory Michael Peck, Ph. D., an assistant professor of horticulture at Cornell University. In the first part of the show, we talked about how climate change affects fruit trees.
But Greg, who's on the line, also did a study on Liberty apples. Greg, can you tell me a little bit about your study? First of all, why did you choose Liberty apples? Something that most of us are not familiar with because you don't really find them in the supermarkets. Sure. So, The, the study actually was a systems comparison study.
So I was comparing organic apple production to what's called integrated fruit production or IFP. And IFP is a system that was developed in Europe and, it's, it's like integrated pest management, but not just for pests. It's also includes horticultural factors, including fertilizers and water use and, and, harvest.
recommendations and, other kinds of protocols like that. So it's kind of this ramped up IPM program and it's actually become the conventional system or the mainstream production system in, in Europe. So the study was comparing organic fruit, apple production to integrated or IFP fruit production. We used Liberty Apple as the, The tree or the variety for this study and for a number of different reasons.
One is Liberty is a disease resistant variety. So Like a lot of gardeners. We tell people to plant the right place in the the right plant in the right place for the right purpose and so Using an apple variety with inherent disease resistance helps to make whether it's an organic system or an IFP system more successful Hmm.
It's, I'd love to know, by the way, for the listeners, if anybody who's listening has Liberty apples and how you're doing with them in studio 101 at gmail. com. So I've got a question coming in, but we'll ask in one minute. Okay.
[00:26:14] Organic vs. IFP Apple Production
So you did this, you did this study and you're comparing organic with this, the IFP orchards.
I, I hate to jump to the chase right to the end, but how did they do in comparison? What was better? Well, it really depended on what you looked at. And, so what we found was that, was that the organic apples, were smaller. They had, a greater level of, of insect incidence on them. and that, they were more scuffed up.
They had more russeting because of the, some of the chemicals that we're using were, were harsh and ruined the fruit surface. However, we found that at the time when we did the study that there was a, about a, 55 percent price premium for organic fruit. So even with these negative impacts on organic production, the economics were in favor of organic because the consumer was willing to pay more for it.
So basically, your harvest may not look as pretty, the apples may not be as big, but you'll still make money from them if you live in a neighbourhood, in an area where people are willing to pay more for organic apples. As long as the consumer is willing to pay for it, growers in the northeastern part of the U.
S. and of Canada can produce organic apples. The challenge, of course, is with the consumer. And so what we also found in another part of the study was that as soon as we started to have a little bit more disease, damage on the surface of the fruit, or some more insect damage on the surface of the fruit.
Nothing that affected the internal eating quality. But we found that that price premium disappeared very rapidly. In other words, the consumer at large wanted perfectly looking organic apples. Yeah, I guess it's a, it's a, it's a cultural thing and maybe it's something that we're all going to learn to get used to as time goes on.
What did you find? Did you compare other things? Did you compare the taste of the apples? I don't know if that's something you can measure for a study. Which ones tasted better? We, we did measure, a number of different fruit quality. attributes as well as, sensory analysis of the fruit. And, we found a few consistent results.
So the organic apples were not necessarily better tasting, they weren't necessarily preferred by consumers, and they also weren't, any better in terms of antioxidant capacity than the IFP apples. So they're very similar, which is maybe counter to some popular notions of organic as being healthier or being more flavorful.
however, on the, other side of the coin, you could also say, well, organic, stood up very well against this integrated fruit production system. So, in other words, using fewer toxic ingredients, they did pretty well. That's what you're saying. Yeah, I have. I'm just looking at the time here.
The other question I wanted to ask you about is is the soil. You had an interesting finding there about the soil. My feeling would be that the organic orchards would have healthier soil. Is that what you found? Not necessarily. And so this is where we really need to talk about the specifics of our management practices.
The organic system, we used a machine that cultivated the soils to knock down the weeds. This is very disruptive to the soil, but what we found through the reading of the many research publications on the topic was that in order to effectively control weeds in an organic system, you needed to cultivate.
In the integrated fruit production system, we had a bark mulch and then we used, glyphosate, and I, about once a year or so to kill any weeds that came up through the bark mulch. And so the difference was that we found that the, the, The less disruptive you are to the soil, the higher the soil quality.
And so even though you were using some herbicides on the IFP system, the soil was of better quality than in the organic system where we're needing to till the soil in order to control the weeds. And when you say better, you're talking about microorganisms in the soil, a lot more, you know, microscopic life in the soil.
Yeah. Yeah. So. So more activity of the soil. representing a greater microbial biomass. So what would be super cool is to do another study, where you've got a different organic orchard where you're, not maybe disturbing the soil and that would be interesting to see what happens there. I suppose they're underway.
Those are underway. Oh, we got to get you to come back and talk, talk about those.
[00:31:18] Public vs. Private Plant Breeding and Final Thoughts
I have a really interesting question here from a listener, Adam in Grand Rapids, and he writes something interesting. He says, this is relating to what we were chatting about in the first half of the show about developing new varieties that can adapt to climate change.
So he says, is the proliferation of plant patents, preventing the common man from participating in the breeding of more adapted varieties. So I think what he's saying is, you know, scientists are going to develop these awesome varieties that can grapple with that can cope with climate change, but then will they forbid, you know, ordinary people from grafting branches from those new trees onto their own root stock?
Are people going to have to pay a lot of money in order to plant those trees, those developed trees? That is a great question and a great point. And, the, there are both public and private breeding programs in the United States. and the trend has been of late for the, for, you know, consistently the private breeding programs are, of course, out to make a profit.
And so they will charge a royalty and control the production of the trees and also oftentimes control. How the apples are stored, where they're marketed and everything down downstream from there. The public breeding programs historically have have released their varieties without any additional charges, but that's starting to change and there's been in recent years more restrictions on the availability of plant material so where that trend is going to go is really unclear, not my area.
I'm not a patent attorney or a plant breeder, but I think it's a great question and something to be aware of. I really think it is a great question because, you know, here we are talking about, OK, ideally this is the solution and yet the solution may come with so many problems as we've seen from other, you know, issues like.
Similar issues of developed plant material. So thank you very much, Adam and Grand Rapids for writing that. Susan, if I can add real quickly, and I'm not sure if this was also part of the implication of his question, but Any individual is, as long as they're not using a patent protected, plant material can do breeding, in their own backyard with fruit trees.
So, Adam is free to make crosses and, and see what comes of it. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. And Adam, if you do it, we want to hear what happens. We would love to hear the update. okay. Well, thank you so much.
[00:34:04] Discussing Liberty Apples
I'm curious, because we've been talking about Liberty Apples. So do you, do you like Liberty Apples?
Are you a Liberty Apple eater? I do very much so like Liberty Apple. Liberty was bred, and released by Cornell University. It's one of the, best disease resistant varieties in terms of, how much scab it, it prevents. so it's a great variety for, for home producers, backyard producers, it's an annual bearing variety, and it's, really great for cider, whether it's, juice cider or fermented cider.
Hmm. Well, we, I encourage everybody to try planting them and see what happens and to keep us posted. So, Gregory, thank you so much for joining us for the show today. Thanks, Susan. It was a pleasure to be here. Oh, wonderful. So, after you get off the line, you may want to tune into the show on Reality Radio 101 because coming up we've got Joel McCharles, and he's going to dazzle us with his stories of fruit preserving.
So I hope you'll tune in. Will you? Absolutely. Okay. Thanks so much. Goodbye for now. Coming up in a, in a minute are a word from our sponsors.
It's all seems so.
Oh,
where am I? This place is amazing. There are birds, bees, and fruit trees, and I'm in the middle of a big city.
[00:35:53] Philadelphia Orchard Project
You are in Philadelphia. Our city is growing more beautiful each year thanks to the Philadelphia Orchard Project. We plant fruit trees, berry bushes, and other edibles in city parks, gardens, and other public places.
I can see that. Raspberry canes, fig trees, and peaches. If I lived nearby, I would never go hungry. That's one of our goals. We want to help communities grow their own food by teaching residents how to plant fruit trees and care for them. We focus on the neighborhoods that need it most. It sounds like a great project.
How can I help? How can I learn more? Please visit our website at phillyorchards. org to volunteer or donate and you can also follow our Urban Orchard blog. phillyorchards. org I will definitely check it out. Thanks so much, and have a great day. This message was brought to you by the Philadelphia Orchard Project.
Enjoying the cool breeze under the shade of a tree. Picking apples and berries from your local community orchard. Jumping in a pile of leaves. You can do all these activities and more. When you connect with nature where you live.
[00:37:18] Lilyleaf Solutions and Urban Nature
Lily Leaf Solutions works to connect people. Quality parks, trails, trees, and orchards near them.
Through technical expertise and data driven strategic planning, Lilyleaf Solutions empowers urban residents to become advocates for nature in their communities. When we all have access to quality nature, we all progress together. Lilyleaf Solutions empowerment together. Follow us on Twitter at Lilyleaf and visit us at lilyleaf.
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Hey, welcome back to the Urban Forestry Radio Show with your host Susan Poizner, right here on Reality Radio 101. To contact Susan live, send her an email in studio101 at gmail dot com.
And now, right back to your host of the Urban Forestry Radio Show, Susan Poizner. I'm Susan Poizner, and you're listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show on Reality Radio 101. It's a program where we learn about fruit trees, food forests, permaculture. And lots more. Thanks for tuning in.
[00:38:57] Introduction to Joel McCharles
Our next guest is a man who knows about fruit.
How to prepare it, how to eat it, and most of all, how to preserve it. Joel McCharles is the co founder of a website called wellpreserved. ca. He launched this website together with his partner, Dana Harrison, in 2008. And since then, they've developed an archive of almost 2, 000 articles and 700 recipes on the site.
The recipes cover all types of preserving, ranging from water bath canning, smoking and salting, dehydrating, infusing, fermenting, pressure canning, and lots more. So now, Joel and Dana have written their very first cookbook. It's called The Batch Cookbook, with over 200 recipes, tips, and techniques for a well preserved kitchen.
And I have Joel on the line with me right now. Hi Joel, welcome to the show. Thanks so much, how are you today? I'm terrific, how are you on this? Very special day. I'm fantastic.
[00:40:10] The Journey of WellPreserved.ca
So you've got to tell me how did this journey begin? I mean, you've got 2000 articles on your blog there. How did that all start by accident?
Really? That's a big accident. Yeah. So we, Dana and I are love food and love family. And every year at Christmas, we have our two families together and we cook the family cooks for three days. And yeah, Everybody leaves on the 27th, and we tend to be very active, very busy people. And, we have a tradition in our house that when all the family leaves, we spend two to three days on the couch.
And it's the only two or three days we binge watch and, it's fabulous. And, during that time, our family left and I actually slept in one morning and Dana started a food blog with no plan, and I committed when she told me she started the blog, I thought I'm going to write a hundred days in a row and see what happens, and it became 1500 consecutive days of posting.
So it started off as a general food blog, it wasn't preserving, it was just let's talk about food. It was, it was called well preserved right from the start, so Dana thought she could Get me to start a taking a few more breaks from work. and be that I could start to record some of my recipes because I'm notorious for not not being able to repeat anything.
Oh, interesting. So, we were doing some preserving at the time, and it definitely was a focus from the start. But we also champion small farms and organizations that you'd really dig, like not far from the tree and other small food producers that we really value. So what happened from there? How did it take off?
Again, I think right place, right time. It was 2008. I didn't know there was such a thing as a food blog and, I think a lot, being vocal and putting yourself out there, a lot of things tend to happen. And, the twist of fate was probably three years ago. we were doing a TED Talk in Toronto around preserving food.
And we decided that no matter what, we were not going to write a book for a minimum of two years. And within 10 days, we had a phone call from Random House. And we thought, well, if you're going to publish a book, these are the people that we want to do it with. And three years later, we're done. Wow. Three years.
That's, that took you a long time. I had no idea a cookbook takes that long. most cookbooks take two to three years. Hmm. And what was involved? What's your role? What's Dana's role? How did that all come together? So we have very different but very complementary roles. Dana's a 20 year graphic designer, art director, illustrator.
I'm a home cook, preserver, writer. I love playing with digital content and social media. And we kind of, Use that central topic of food and preserving food, together. And, so when the book, when we worked on the book, I wrote all the recipes and, and, did the recipe testing. Dana did all the, the visual content and worked with the photo team and did illustrations and all that type.
So who does the eating and are you looking for eating volunteers? Well, the biggest thing that we're told is that if the zombies come, everybody's coming for dinner at our house. I'm totally over there. I am absolutely over there in the zombie invasion, definitely.
[00:43:24] Unique Preserving Techniques
So what part, in the new book, what, to what extent do you cover fruit?
A fair bit. So I think probably what makes us different in one way that we look at the book is that I have a real bad habit of going to a farmer's market and coming home with too many of X, whatever is in season. And so I really looked at it to say, okay, if somebody is the same as me and comes home with too many strawberries or too many apples or too many peaches, we wanted chapters that were based around the ingredient.
and over half the book, is around preserving fruit and the different things you can do from fruit. So whether that's, Jam and jelly is the thing that people think most often of, but fruit infusions, fruit, wine, mead, fruit leather, which is when I was a kid, we called them roll ups, all sorts of things like that.
And then using those preserves and cooking as well. What is a fruit infusion? So, the two most common infusions, would be either using vinegar, so apple cider vinegar infused with strawberries would be an example. the one that I tend to go to most often, though, is alcohol. So, pears, infusing in brandy or raspberries and brandy are also great, all sorts of different combinations in that way.
I got a sneak preview, thanks to you, of your blueberry, section and there, I just had a quick peek at it. Blueberry meat. Blueberry mead. What is that? Is that is that like from ancient times where they would drink it so that they didn't have to drink water and it was it's alcoholic? Or what is that? It is alcoholic.
And I think one of the things that we do that that we're really excited about, I think other people might be excited about is we do recipes like that one gallon at a time. So you don't need to make a giant batch Project out of this, you can make blueberry mead just by using honey, blueberries, and water.
you put it into a gallon jar with something called an airlock. It's about a 7 piece of equipment. It's completely reusable. And if you let it sit, for a couple of weeks or a couple of months, you'll actually produce alcohol. That's quite amazing. So what, tell me about a few of the most unusual preserves that you have in the book that people may not have thought of, you know, many of our listeners grow their own fruit or they go to farmers markets, like you say, and there are lots of preserving books out there, you know, maybe more conventional.
What is it that your book has to offer in the quirky and the different and unusual? Well, There's all such a quirky, unusual, you sound like a quirky, unusual guy. So that kind of makes sense. strawberry jam would be an example. I think everybody has a recipe for strawberry jam and we wanted to take it slightly different.
so our strawberry jam is based much more as a savory kind of food ingredient rather than sweet. so it's actually made with black pepper and balsamic vinegar. There's sugar in it as well. We also use a lot of our fruit recipes. Use either honey or use, maple syrup as, as the sweetness. Some of the fruit leathers are really neat.
we do, different types of kind of fruit roll up type things that you can cook with or use as snacks. I think the meads are pretty unusual. I think some of the other unusual stuff would include things like, it's not a fruit, but hot sauce. That's, fermented with wood chips inside it. Oh, no way.
Yeah, so if you think about like traditional hot sauce that's aged in a wooden barrel, none of us have wooden barrels. So if we take wood chips and put it inside the jar, when we ferment it, we can put the wood inside the sauce instead of the sauce inside the wood. smoked cherry salt, which may be, especially, you know, I used to have a cherry tree when I lived out west, and we had way too many cherries and had no idea what to do with them all.
you can actually just pit some cherries. Put them in a smoker, and if you have a barbecue, you can get a, what's called a pellet smoker. It's about a 30 accessory, and you'll smoke everything with it. Hmm. And, you literally just chop them roughly and cover them in a whole bunch of salt, and it will actually pull some of the liquid out of the cherries, and the salt becomes a bit sweet and becomes a bit smoky, and I use it in rubs for cooking, as well as any type of meat or fish that I cook with.
Now, I have to backtrack to the wood chips idea. Because, you know, as a gardener, You know, there's all different types of wood out there. Where are you getting your chips from? You know, who knows what it's infused with? Talk about infusion. What, what, what poison toxins are in that wood? Where do you get these wood chips from?
Yeah, and I suppose I'm a bit derelict in that way. So, and actually, it's one of the things, we actually put it in the recipe that we know that that part isn't for everybody. Having said that, I'm fortunate to be part of a hunting community that hunts for food. we use 100 percent of the animal, and part of that luxury is having a big property up north that we, with access, have a lot of woodchips around.
Okay, so you're actually Taking your woodchips from fallen trees. I am, but I have used commercial woodchips before and that may horrify you. Oh my gosh. Okay, can I take back that invitation to come eat over at your place? Well, I won't feed you that hot dog. Okay, I so appreciate that. But I will say, like, even this weekend, we were in our backyard, downtown Toronto, and we have a tree that is, is struggling.
And, There was some professionals up in the tree taking the tree down and there would have been an opportunity there very easily. They're using a handsaw very easily to have taken an axe out and gotten some wood chips as well. Well, interesting. I was happy to hear that you've got lots of recipes without sugar because I will be honest with you, I have not done that much preserving.
I had, we had a one experience, actually a couple of experiences, one where we decided to can peaches and I was pretty meticulous and trying to find a recipe where we could use apple juice instead of sugar. I don't like using a lot of sugar. And it turned out okay, though the, the peaches got a little mushy.
They didn't, it wasn't like you get them when you get them in a can. But, so.
[00:49:36] Healthy Preserving Methods
Is it really possible to make preserves healthy? every preserving style, this is why I do seven different styles of preserving. Every style of preserving offers a different set of advantages and a different set of disadvantages.
So if I'm going to make jam, I'm going to really struggle to tell you that I can make it healthy because even if we're adding honey, we're adding a fair bit of sweetness. Mm hmm. Right. And I look at jam kind of as a candy or as a treat. so really canning isn't, if you're looking for healthful benefits, probably not the best way to, to If you're looking for ways to make food or keep food healthy, dehydrating at low temperatures is a great way to do that.
air drying or very low, low temperature dehydrating. fermenting is a way to actually add benefit to some of your, your food. So you can actually add, a measure of probiotics or, things that can, And I'm not a health expert, and I worry about going into those realms, but I look at a lot of experts who talk about gut health with fermented vegetables like, when they talk about sauerkraut or kimchi, that type of thing.
And then, of course, freezing and learning to use our fridges and freezers better, to keep things, last longer, reduce our food waste, and keep them healthful. That's a really good point. When I think about freezing, I don't, I don't think of that as, as preserving, but it definitely is. We actually have tips in the book on the 25 ingredients that we do about how to keep things better in your fridge.
Wow. And freezer. Our fridge is a method of preserving. We just don't think of it that way. Oh, wow. Yeah, dehydrating is another interesting one. I've had my experiences with that too. We bought a dehydrator, a regular commercial one, and I put stuff in and I'm like waiting and waiting and put stuff in on a weighted day and a weighted day and a half and it like never dries and it's just like this takes a long time.
Okay, here's a secret for for those of you with fruit because I know that the fruits one of your passions Yes, and your passion if you have fruit, especially if it's smooth skinned So think about a grape for example A grape is smooth skinned and will not allow very easily for the moisture to escape.
Hmm And when you're dehydrating it's all about getting the moisture to escape. Yeah, how do you get it to become a raisin? You've got a poke a hole in it So, if you poke a hole in a raisin, it will dehydrate way quicker. I've done whole raisins for four or five days. if you cut a raisin in half, you can do it in about a half day.
But one of the best ways to poke holes in things like raisins or blueberries, you know what I mean by meat thermometer? Yes, of course. So I, I put a, a, I have a meat thermometer that I never use as a thermometer. It is just meant for fruit. And I use the base so it stands vertically on a table. And all I do is I use it as a skewer to skewer a bunch of grapes.
And then I take them off. Almost like I'm making a shish kebab. Huh. And I poke a hole in them, and the meat thermometer is also an advantage because it's a fairly big hole that you can put into it. And that will allow the moisture to escape and allow smooth skinned fruit to dehydrate quicker. I wonder how many listeners, and please listeners, feel free to email us at instudio101 at gmail.
com. I wonder how many listeners are growing grapes and thinking. Do I really want to spend the time poking holes in every single one of my grapes to turn it into a raisin Instead of walking up the road to the health food shop or to the store and buying a bag of raisins Okay, my two answers to that because I welcome that question.
I understand that number one Is that when you become really comfortable with this I actually do this sitting Cross legged watching football or watching sports or what I don't even look at the meat thermometer So it actually doesn't take me any time because I do it while I'm doing something else But the second thing in the most interesting is a home dried raisin, which is not dried with chemicals Which is not dried at high heat taste infinitely better.
I've put raisins out in front of people and they put them in their mouths thinking that they knew what they were about to eat and their head snapped back because of the explosion of flavor. the other cool thing is, and we all know how many different varieties of grapes there are, is the amount of different types of grapes that you can use.
Ontario's famous for Concord grapes. Concord raisins are completely different than a commercial Sultana raisin. They're sweeter and they're candy. Oh, yummy. Very inspiring. So, a couple of questions for you. When are you going to start growing some fruit trees? Well, we rent, so that becomes prohibitive. But our backyard does have a plum tree in it.
Okay. And we actually do use the plums from it. Oh, very nice. Very nice. Okay, well, I'll wait to hear about you guys starting a local community orchard. If you need some help, give me a call. Perfect. You always need a community orchard in the neighbourhood. so where can listeners buy your new book?
[00:54:19] Promoting the Batch Cookbook
And I heard that it's only coming out on May the 3rd.
It's not even out there. It's one week today. Wow. It's been in this date has been burned into our into our consciousness for three years. And it's, it's very surreal to say it's a week away. We've been really fortunate. We have an amazing partner with Appetite, who's part of the Random House piece. So it will be, it's online right now, everywhere, shipping very shortly, and as well as every major store and independent bookstores and libraries as well, who we both love.
So you can go online, you can pre order. Mm hmm. and I noticed that it's on wellpreserved. ca, there's a link that takes you, I think, to Amazon or somewhere. If you go there, we've got links to, the three major bookstores, and there's also a, there's bonus content. We have seven recipes that aren't in the book that we designed just as bonus content.
And if you purchase it, you can just click a button and you just say where you bought it, you just type in the name and we trust you. And, it'll send you seven, new recipes and some of them. More more of Dana's artwork and original artwork for that as well. Oh, how beautiful. That's so nice. What's next for you guys?
You're gonna write another book. Are you what are you gonna be up to? You know, we promised ourselves We wouldn't talk about another book until we were done this one And we haven't done that yet. I think right now it's getting the word out We've been the last we've done four nights in a row of live Broadcast from our kitchen and we've got five more consecutive nights of preserving lessons in 15 minutes or less.
Wow. Yeah. So that's been, a wild adventure. And I think we'll probably be doing a lot more broadcasting from our kitchen in terms of next step. And how do people tune into those broadcasts? you can find it on facebook. we're facebook. com slash. We are well preserved or on twitter. Well preserved.
We're periscope on twitter and facebook live streaming. You don't need to have either one. If you're not a facebook user, just go to Click on the Facebook link and, you can see it. We start at 845 Eastern standard. Oh, well, that's really exciting. Joe, I have a, I have a question. Oh, we have a question.
This is Gary producer here. this is totally off topic. I mean, totally. I'm ready. Did anyone ever tell you, you sound exactly like Alex Lifeson of Rush, your voice, we've done interviews with him before, and if I compared both your voice and his. Wow. You don't want me singing. I'm frequently told I look like other people.
Your voice, frequency is exactly the same. Oh, I can't wait to hear that. You can be a voice double. In addition to being an author, a blogger, and a voice double. You know, with this year, I don't think I want to be anything near a famous musician. Well, thanks. I just thought I'd ask that. Awesome. Thank you.
Thanks for the extra question, Gary. well, thank you so much for coming on the show. Believe it or not, this show has just flown right by, and it's It's just about over, but thank you for joining me on the Urban Forestry Radio Show today. Thanks so much, Susan. You have a great day. You too, and best of luck with your beautiful book.
Thank you so much. Okay, goodbye. Bye bye.
[00:57:30] Conclusion and Farewell
Well, believe it or not, that's all for the show today. It was so wonderful to speak to my special guests, Michael Gregory Peck, Assistant Professor of Horticulture at Cornell University, and Joel McCharles, author of Batch Cookbook. So if you missed part of the show or if you'd like to listen again, you can download the podcast.
Just go to www. orchardpeople. com slash network and you can listen to this show again. You can also listen to lots of other shows covering all aspects of fruit trees. food forests and permaculture gardens. If you want to be reminded before upcoming radio shows, please do sign up for my newsletter at orchardpeople.
com. You'll also get lots of fruit tree care news and tips, and I'll send you a free copy of my 10 page ebook called Growing Fruit Trees That Thrive. You can tune into the show again next month and we of course will have more great guests. You're listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show. I'm Susan Poizner from the fruit tree care training website, OrchardPeople.
com, and I look forward to seeing you again next month.
If you want to learn more about the Community Orchard Network, I've created a page on my website where you can find out lots more information and learn how to sign up for our newsletter. Just visit www. orchardpeople. com slash network. And you can read our frequently asked questions and check out the free webinars and podcasts that we've recorded.
Tune in next month and you'll meet some more great guests, and you'll learn more about fruit trees, permaculture, and forest gardens. Our show goes out on the last Tuesday of every month at 1 p. m. Eastern Time. I'm Susan Poizner. Thanks for tuning in. And I'll see you next time.
You've been listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show with your host, Susan Poizner, right here on Reality Radio 101.