When Carolina Nurik and her family moved to Maury Island from Central Florida 10 years ago, the only plants growing around their new home were grass, two red maples and a hedge. As she researched a landscaping plan, one person advised she grow only evergreens on her five acres, and a garden designer wasn’t any more inspirational.
Nurik wanted something different.
“If I’m going to put a tree in, it’s going to be useful,” she said. As a child in Florida, Nurik was surrounded by citrus trees and remembers fondly the joy of biting into a juicy orange straight from the branch. After initially buying a few fruit trees from Costco, she realized she wanted something more than the ubiquitous Fuji.
“I wanted something different than the regular varieties — something more than what everyone else was doing,” she said. “I’m interested in unique heirloom varieties you can’t get in the store.”
Nurik joined the Western Cascade Fruit Society and starting learning about fruit stocks, soil, tree siting and water needs. She met “a lot of interesting older folks,” she said, who taught her the ins and outs of fruit tree-growing.
Thirty trees later, Nurik realized she had a farm on her hands. On the constant urging of friends who recognized the quality of her harvest, she started selling at the Vashon Farmers Market three years ago. Now she looks forward to Wednesdays when she can connect with Island people.
Located south of Point Robinson, Nurik’s expanse of land — aptly named Tahoma View Farm — is presided over by Mount Rainier. On this sunny southeastern slope, the collective scent of happy plants co-mingles with the fresh salt of the Sound to permeate the air with an ambrosia-like sweetness.
“This is a gardener’s heaven,” she said. “This is one of seven areas in the world where you can grow the widest variety of species. And people here are passionate about gardening.”
And none is more passionate than Nurik, who is constantly trying out new varieties. She is an avid member of NAFEX (the North American Fruit Explorers) and has most recently been experimenting with pomegranates and medlars (a fruit native to the Mediterranean). The installation of a new greenhouse is taking her back to her Floridian roots into tropical territory. She’s already fostering starts of Cuban oregano, Spanish thyme, guava, sweetsop (sugar-apple) and a Puerto Rican vegetable she has no name for. Nurik helped found the Vashon Fruit Club three years ago and presents workshops to help others enter the complex world of growing fruit.
“Many fruit tree owners don’t understand that you have to be with a tree even in the middle of winter — you’ve got to watch them. I live with my trees,” she said. “With potatoes or squash, you plant the seed, it does its thing and then it dies. With a tree it just keeps going on and on and on.”
On Nurik’s farm, chaos rules: Quince, hazelnut, serviceberry and other “useful” trees and shrubs are surrounded by herbs and vegetables in a colorful, healthy jumble.
She doesn’t plant in rows, she noted with a laugh, and the plants evidently don’t mind. The purple flowers of Russian sage drip with bumblebees amid sunflowers, zozolli (a round zucchini from Argentina), and oca — a potato-like Andean tuber that she’ll harvest in January for sale at the winter market.
Instead of spending time marking straight rows, she dotes on her fruit trees with the tender fussing of a new mother. This includes slipping 3,000 nylon “footies” over precious apples and pears to protect them from pests, picking leaves around each fruit to ensure optimal sunshine and hand-pollinating kiwis during our recent cold spring. Reaching carefully among ripening plums during a recent tour of her farm, she hand picked off “brown rot” — dried up twigs and dead leaves which harbor bacteria and pathogens that could threaten her harvest if not removed.
“I want every bed to have something edible in it,” she said. “I wanted something edible and something beautiful — and hey, why not? If you can have it edible and it’s landscaping — plus it benefits the environment, you … and the crows!”
Practicing permaculture (using planting methods so that agriculture can be sustained indefinitely) before she’d even heard the word, Nurik didn’t intend to plant a philosophy — she just did what made sense to her.
“The Island just makes you organic,” she said. “Initially when I planted I had so many pest problems, and I remember Helen Meeker saying, ‘Don’t spray, let the predators come.’” Nurik listened to the wisdom of this long-time Islander and is now proud of the fact that she has never used chemical sprays on her fruit trees and uses as few organic controls as possible.
“Once you start introducing even organically acceptable products you’re going to upset the balance and you’re going to have to keep spraying,” she said. “It’s when I get out of balance that I get into trouble.”
Nurik’s interests have led her to fulfilling another aspect of sustainable agriculture: planting for future generations. Inspired by the longevity evident in still-bearing Island fruit trees planted in the early 1900s, Nurik set out to plant an apple orchard that would grow for at least 100 years. She found a location that wouldn’t block the neighbor’s views where she has nurtured eight different varieties.
“These trees can grow as big as they want and whoever takes care of them will have great early, mid and late apples — sweet, cooking and English cider apples if they want to drink,” she said.
Selling fruit at its peak goodness is somewhat of a religion with Nurik. Before harvesting, she uses a scientific instrument called a Refractometer to test the Brix level (sugar content) of five fruits from the same tree. By calculating the average ripeness she guesses with good accuracy when the fruit is at its most delectable.
“I have the advantage of selling stuff fresher and riper,” she said. “A big commercial famer in Eastern Washington has hired his crews for certain days, and he’s got to pick then. I can say, ‘Well, it’s just not quite ready.’”
Nurik says it’s hard for some loyal customers to wait. The recent cold spring has put many fruits behind schedule. But she’s committed to selling her fruits at tree-ripened perfection.
“In Florida I loved trees, but I didn’t know I’d get so passionate about fruit — it just bit me,” she smiled.
After taking a bite out of one of Nurik’s plums, it’s easy to taste what all the fuss is about.
CALL-OUT BOX COPY:
The Market is Open Today
2-6 pm
The Village Green
Tahoma View Farm Fresh Sheet
Plums (Imperial Epineuse and Satsuma varieties)
Raspberries
Basil
Potatoes
Cut flowers
Ripening soon: Akane apples (a favorite with the kids) and Sweet Sixteen apples
