Poem: "The Frankenstein Trees"
Oct. 20th, 2024 01:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis is the freebie for the October 2024 ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from labelleizzy. It also fills the "Frankeinstein" square in my 10-1-24 card for the Fall Fest Bingo. This poem belongs to the series Arts and Crafts America.
"The Frankenstein Trees"
[1960s]
The Diggers promoted
the idea of living a Free life.
They baked whole-wheat bread
in coffee cans, then gave out
Free Food in the city parks.
They salvaged used or
discarded materials,
made crafts, and put
them in Free Stores
for people to take
what they needed.
In fall, after the trees
went dormant, they
harvested scionwood
from fruit-bearing cultivars
in gardens and orchards.
In spring, they snuck around
grafting the whips to the branches
of ornamental fruit trees growing
in parks or along the city streets.
Eventually, crabapple trees
began to bear dessert apples,
while ornamental pears and
plums and cherries swelled
with a flush of edible fruit.
They were Frankenstein trees,
and they fed anyone for Free, and
it was beautiful, man, just beautiful.
* * *
Notes:
The Diggers are a countercultural group promoting free access to human needs like food, culture, and a place to be.
Guerrilla gardening involves growing plants on land that is considered someone else's property, such as abandoned lots. In this case, it isn't planting directly in the ground, but rather grafting scionwood of fruit-bearing trees onto ornamental trees.
Scionwood is a small shoot or twig, often called a whip because it has no branches, which is grafted onto another tree that is called the rootstock (even if it is actually a branch). Scionwood controls the flowers and fruit of the tree.
Rootstock is a base tree, the part that grows underground and reaches up just far enough to hold a graft of scionwood that will bear the fruit. Rootstock controls the size of the tree and often resists cold better. In other cases, a whole tree can be used as rootstock, such as grafting a dessert apple whip onto a crabapple tree.
Prunus or stone fruit includes cherries, plums, peaches, nectarines, apricots and also almonds. They are all compatible for grafting and can be crafted into a "fruit cocktail tree."
Apples (Malus species), pears (Pyrus species), and quinces (Cydonia species) are all pome fruits. They belong to Malinae or the apple subtribe of Rosaceae or the rose family. Apple can usually graft any other variety of apple, and crabapple is also highly compatible. Pear can usually graft any other variety of pear. Some varieties of pear are compatible with some varieties of quince. Some varieties of pear are compatible with some varieties of apple. Some varieties of quince may be compatible with some varieties of apple; medlar (Mespilus species), loquat (Eriobotrya species), and crabapple may also graft onto quince. So in theory, you could make a tree combining those fruit types.
There are many varieties of ornamental fruit trees. Some are sterile. Most bear small inconspicuous fruit that is rarely fit for human consumption, although wildlife may enjoy it. An exception is crabapples, many of which can make excellent jelly or cider -- but you need a kitchen and suitable equipment for that, as few are sweet enough to eat raw like dessert apples. See ornamental fruit varieties for the Pacific Northwest or the South.
crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from labelleizzy. It also fills the "Frankeinstein" square in my 10-1-24 card for the Fall Fest Bingo. This poem belongs to the series Arts and Crafts America."The Frankenstein Trees"
[1960s]
The Diggers promoted
the idea of living a Free life.
They baked whole-wheat bread
in coffee cans, then gave out
Free Food in the city parks.
They salvaged used or
discarded materials,
made crafts, and put
them in Free Stores
for people to take
what they needed.
In fall, after the trees
went dormant, they
harvested scionwood
from fruit-bearing cultivars
in gardens and orchards.
In spring, they snuck around
grafting the whips to the branches
of ornamental fruit trees growing
in parks or along the city streets.
Eventually, crabapple trees
began to bear dessert apples,
while ornamental pears and
plums and cherries swelled
with a flush of edible fruit.
They were Frankenstein trees,
and they fed anyone for Free, and
it was beautiful, man, just beautiful.
* * *
Notes:
The Diggers are a countercultural group promoting free access to human needs like food, culture, and a place to be.
Guerrilla gardening involves growing plants on land that is considered someone else's property, such as abandoned lots. In this case, it isn't planting directly in the ground, but rather grafting scionwood of fruit-bearing trees onto ornamental trees.
Scionwood is a small shoot or twig, often called a whip because it has no branches, which is grafted onto another tree that is called the rootstock (even if it is actually a branch). Scionwood controls the flowers and fruit of the tree.
Rootstock is a base tree, the part that grows underground and reaches up just far enough to hold a graft of scionwood that will bear the fruit. Rootstock controls the size of the tree and often resists cold better. In other cases, a whole tree can be used as rootstock, such as grafting a dessert apple whip onto a crabapple tree.
Prunus or stone fruit includes cherries, plums, peaches, nectarines, apricots and also almonds. They are all compatible for grafting and can be crafted into a "fruit cocktail tree."
Apples (Malus species), pears (Pyrus species), and quinces (Cydonia species) are all pome fruits. They belong to Malinae or the apple subtribe of Rosaceae or the rose family. Apple can usually graft any other variety of apple, and crabapple is also highly compatible. Pear can usually graft any other variety of pear. Some varieties of pear are compatible with some varieties of quince. Some varieties of pear are compatible with some varieties of apple. Some varieties of quince may be compatible with some varieties of apple; medlar (Mespilus species), loquat (Eriobotrya species), and crabapple may also graft onto quince. So in theory, you could make a tree combining those fruit types.
There are many varieties of ornamental fruit trees. Some are sterile. Most bear small inconspicuous fruit that is rarely fit for human consumption, although wildlife may enjoy it. An exception is crabapples, many of which can make excellent jelly or cider -- but you need a kitchen and suitable equipment for that, as few are sweet enough to eat raw like dessert apples. See ornamental fruit varieties for the Pacific Northwest or the South.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-10-20 04:16 pm (UTC)And canefruit get very interesting. Everybody knows what raspberries are, and blackberries and black raspberrries. And then there's "cloudberries" and "loganberries" and "marionberries" and "golden raspberries." THe house I lived in two houses ago had a huge hillside covered with caneberries, and when my son was a child I'd have him pick them for me. I made jam, and I made and froze whole pies, and once I made a "summer cordial" by soaking berries and sugar in big jars with Everclear and bits of cinnamon sticks and such things. I gave everyone in the coven a bottle of cordial at Yule, because it was crafted to bring the tastes of summer when we get tired of winter. NOthing grows in this yard, although there seems to be a crab apple tree by the fence. (Making jam is always rewarding. Everybody likes jam or jelly on toast or in a PBJ sandwich.And everybody is impressed by homemade jam. And the Goddess gave me all that fruit for free - it would be ungrateful not to use it!)
Thoughts
Date: 2024-10-21 09:33 am (UTC)Yay!
>> Caneberries will grow almost anywhere. And then there's always "tree-bombing" - making balls of mud and dirt and fertilizer and seets of useful plants. Throw one of these over a fence the night before it rains, and someone will find a "volunteer tree" seedling.<<
It'll work great with mulberries, which typically travel by bird. Walnuts and other nuts don't even need the clay, they're heavy enough to throw.
>>NOthing grows in this yard, although there seems to be a crab apple tree by the fence. (Making jam is always rewarding. Everybody likes jam or jelly on toast or in a PBJ sandwich.And everybody is impressed by homemade jam. And the Goddess gave me all that fruit for free - it would be ungrateful not to use it!)<<
I love how colorful crabapple jelly tends to be -- red, peach, pink. Apple jelly is consistently amber unless you find a red-fleshed apple. But crabapples can do it with just the color from the skin. Somehow.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2024-10-21 09:23 pm (UTC)Just don't line up jars of colorful jelly along a sunny windowsill to admire the colors - the sunlight will bleach out the colors eventually..
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2024-10-22 08:10 am (UTC)Yeah, most foods are better stored out of direct light. But a few hours while they're cooling won't hurt anything.
I love this!
Date: 2024-10-20 06:36 pm (UTC)Re: I love this!
Date: 2024-10-20 11:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-10-20 06:43 pm (UTC)https://www.syracuse.edu/stories/tree-of-40-fruit-sam-van-aken/#:~:text=Sounds%20a%20bit%20like%20a,at%20locations%20across%20the%20country.
Yes ...
Date: 2024-10-20 11:39 pm (UTC)