Epitaph for a Peach Read online

  In the middle of my dance, I begin laughing, recalling the familiar feel of a lizard running up my pants, through my shirt, and down my sleeves. My body dances uncontrollably to the feel of its tiny feet and little claws grabbing my skin. I try to slow down, knowing the lizard will too if we both relax.

  But as the creature scampers up higher and higher my imagination runs wild. Vulnerable body parts flash in my mind.

  If other workers were around, they would laugh, watching me tug at my belt, frantically trying to drop my pants. With luck, I won’t open a crevice in my shorts, inviting the lizard into another dark hiding place. Instead he’ll be attracted to daylight, leap out of my crotch, and tumble to the ground, dazed for a moment before scampering into the safety of weeds and undergrowth.

  I enjoy the return of lizards to my farm. They were plentiful in my youth, soaking up the rays of the sun, eating bugs and insects, living happily in the patches of grasses and weeds. Then we disked and plowed their homes and sprayed to kill most of their food. The lizards left.

  I didn’t plan on raising lizards, but they’re part of a natural farm landscape. Besides, their presence reminds me of my childhood. I can’t return to those days but I can try and foster new life on the farm, along with laughter and the lizard dance.

  Farming with Chaos

  Chaos defines my farm. I allow natural grasses to go wild. I see new six-legged creatures migrating into my fields, which now look like green pastures. I watch with paranoid panic, wanting to believe all will be fine while terrified I may lose the crop and even the farm. I need a lesson on managing chaos.

  The small town of Del Rey is two and a half miles from my farm. When Japanese immigrants first settled there in the early 1900s, one of the first structures erected was a community hall, a place for meetings, gatherings, dinners, and festivals, a refuge from the tough life in the fields. The grounds around the hall were never truly landscaped. The sparse collection of trees and shrubs was lost in droughts and freezes, taken out for a basketball court, or neglected during World War II, when all Japanese were forced to evacuate the West Coast, leaving the trees without a caretaker. But there are still a few trees and bushes at the old hall, sporadically cared for during community gatherings. At one of these meetings I was taught my first lesson on chaos.

  Two old-timers were pruning one of the Japanese black pines. They were retired farmers and gardeners, a common dual profession for struggling farmers who found that they could supplement their income by tending other people’s gardens. The two old men worked in silence as they clipped away, pulling off needles and shaping the tree. The pine was not an eighty-year-old bonsai masterpiece. It was probably something left over from one of their gardening jobs, an extra pine donated to the hall perhaps fifteen years ago and gradually shaped and pruned.

  I asked if I could help. They both nodded without looking up and kept working. I waited for some direction but they kept probing the bottom of each limb, stopping at a small outgrowth and quickly snapping it off. Their fingers gently raked the branches, tugging and separating unwanted growth. Their glassy old eyes wandered across the needles, stopping and guiding clippers, then moving on, scanning and studying the tree.

  “How do you know what to cut?” I asked. One glanced up and smiled softly. His entire face seemed to mold around the grin as if all the wrinkles worked in unison to accommodate the gesture. A smile was familiar to that face.

  I repeated my question and he whispered something in Japanese I could not hear or understand. They both returned to their clipping and snipping. The next time, just as he cut a small branch, I pointed and asked, “Why did you cut that one?”

  He looked up as if wakened from a trance and blinked. “Saa…I don’t know.” He returned to his work.

  I was relegated to watching their movements, trying to guess why they cut or passed on a branch, why some needles were pulled and thinned and others weren’t. Their hands massaged the pine, their eyes wandering up and down a scaffold as fingers stroked and probed the interior of the tree. I tried with my hands but was quickly entangled in decisions. When do you leave a new branch and for how long? What was the rule when pruning? What are the criteria for cutting? I was overlooking something very basic, something I couldn’t see in front of me.

  The pine was only maintained once or twice a year. It had a wild quality about it, unlike the meticulously tended backyard Japanese garden variety. It was a living chaos, a reflection of the natural ebbs and flows of erratic irrigations, unprotected frosts and heat waves, and inconsistent care from an aging ethnic farm community. Yet out of this uncontrolled growth, these two old-timers were sculpting a beautiful tree, simple and innocent.

  I never did grasp the art of pruning that pine tree. Later, during a summer heat wave, when the farmers were all out desperately trying to get water to thirsty grapes and trees, one of the hall’s pine trees died. (I also learned that both old men had acute hearing problems and probably hadn’t heard any of my questions.) But as I try to farm more naturally, I keep thinking of those two farmers and their dancing hands. They had no secret pruning method. Perhaps there is no secret to farming and managing chaos—you blend tradition and science with some common sense and trust you’ll have a crop. In fact, most good farmers I know are like those two old men, tending to their trees and vines as best they can, comfortable with their work, and confident that the final product will be fine. Whether they know it or not, seasoned farmers are already experts at chaos.

  As If the Farmer Died

  This year I’ve abandoned my old farmwork schedules, which were often set by the calendar. I have no set mowing program or irrigation timeline. I devote more hours to monitoring my fields, and I curb my impulse to find quick fixes. Not only can I identify the pests that are munching on my fruits, I also recognize when they don’t seem to be doing any more damage than usual. I’m learning to live with them, realizing that I’ve probably always had these pests but never scrutinized the farm so closely. I monitor the weeds as they creep up to new heights and discover some I have never seen before. I watch for new lush growth and wonder if the compost I added last fall is working. Each day I accumulate impressions more than lessons, as I develop the instincts of those two old farmers.

  I used to farm with a strategy of un-chaos. I was looking for regularity, less variability, ignoring the uniqueness of each farm year. But now my farm resembles the old pine at the Del Rey Hall; wildness is tolerated, even promoted. The farm becomes a test of the unconventional, a continuous experiment, a journey of adaptation and living with change. I’ve even had to change my ways of counting. It’s no longer important how many pests I have, what matters is the ratio between good bugs and bad bugs. I try to rely less and less on controlling nature. Instead I am learning to live with its chaos.

  DURING THE EVENINGS my family sits on the porch and we listen to the songs of the insects, a chorus of new voices. I walk through my orchards and watch squadrons of flying insects swarming above the cover crops, chasing each other before dive-bombing into trees. During moments of insecurity, I still have occasional anxiety attacks and threaten to call in the bulldozer and regain order, to rid myself of these tumultuous peaches that just taste too damned good.

  I can’t hide my experiments and failures. Neighbors drive past, watch my progress, and talk with my wife while my weeds grow, seemingly out of control. They ask if something has happened to me.

  My farm looks as if the farmer has died.

  chapter four

  new farm, old pests

  Abunai Kusa: Dangerous Grass

  Most of my peaches and grapes are grown without herbicides. As a result, I’ve learned a lot about weeds and can identify most of them by name. I have developed a friendship with some, while others continue to fool me.

  Most I no longer consider weeds. I call them “indigenous growth” (it sounds more scientific than “natural grasses”) and try to ignore them. The majority disappear quickly, dying in the summer heat. Others only req
uire a quick pass with a blade, their shallow roots easily submitting to my tractor and weed cutter.

  But there are a few that remain weeds. One is johnsongrass. When I see that weed, I can’t help but think of my baachan, my grandmother. She called johnsongrass by a special name, abunai kusa. Abunai means dangerous and kusa means grass: dangerous grass.

  She called it dangerous not because it was poison to humans but rather because it was poison to a farm. Johnsongrass is a voracious grower and spreads rapidly and deeply. Uncontrolled, it grows and monopolizes sunlight, suffocating vines and choking roots. It is almost impossible to kill johnsongrass. The only means of control is to chop off the stalks and stems and dig up as much of the roots as you can. Even then, when the new sprouts emerge, you have to repeat the process.

  “You can’t ignore them,” Baachan said. “They dangerous. Abunai.”

  And to a struggling farmer they are dangerous. The land means everything, and johnsongrass is a poison, a special poison to the land.

  New herbicides can now kill johnsongrass easily. When my grandparents farmed, they had a different relationship not only with the land but also with their weeds. Some weeds were indeed abunai, and I realize they can remain dangerous for my peaches, my farm, my family—my dreams.

  Cooking Bermuda

  I found a way to kill Bermuda weeds without an herbicide or destroying my back. All it requires are a tractor, fuel, and time. Farmers may have tractors and fuel, but time is becoming increasingly rare.

  I discovered this system quite by accident. In one block of vines where I did not use herbicides, I had to experiment with alternatives in order to control a small patch of Bermuda. Dad told me to watch Bermuda like a hawk. He warned, “Once it’s established you have to work doubly hard to destroy it.” For my father and his generation, that sort of intensive labor was work; my generation considers it purgatory. The thought of doubling my efforts lodged in my mind and translated into hours of shoveling and a sore back.

  I recall seeing Baachan as she stooped over a shovel, working her hands, pulling stubborn roots, slicing and stabbing the weeds, leaving a series of small piles of drying turf behind her. For hours she’d work, then stand and trudge home for lunch, leaning forward as if walking against the wind, her back bent and shoulders hunched.

  My God, I thought, that’s why all those old folks from farm villages walked that way. It wasn’t just age, it was from hours stooped over a shovel. It was from Bermuda. I was determined to find a different way to attack my weeds.

  I found a compromise position between the generations. I kill Bermuda by disking it again and again and again and alternate that with days where the 100-degree heat does the work for me, cooking the nasty weed.

  Bermuda poisons a farm. I read that it was allelopathic, like chickweed, literally carrying a noxious poison as it spreads, killing competitors in its path. Bermuda grows as a thick mat, and once it is rooted you can barely cut it with a shovel. Even then, you will probably miss a portion that will lie dormant underground until life-giving water comes along and presto, the green will return with new sprouts and shoots.

  Herbicides work well against Bermuda. Some burn like a liquid fire, searing the weed’s green leaves and stems. Others kill in a systemic fashion. Sprayed on green growth, the chemical is absorbed into the cells and destroys the roots, making it more efficient and less toxic than other methods. But as part of my decision to farm a different way, I chose not to use chemical controls for my fields. When an herbicide kills weeds, I wonder, what other life dies? Part of my desire in saving my Sun Crest peaches is to build, not destroy life.

  A few summers ago I was preparing the ground for the coming fall and dormant season. Many farmers make a final pass through their fields, disking in the last of the summer weeds, turning the earth over for winter beds.

  In one row I discovered a small stand of Bermuda growing in the middle of the row, thick and matted. It looked like a putting green, a manicured oasis in the rough. I made a pass over it with the disk, and the blades simply bounced on the turf. I stopped, backed up, and made another pass. The blades followed the same path and gradually began slicing into the tight mass of grass and roots. I repeated the process over and over, and with each effort my disk cut deeper until I actually turned over fat slices of sod. I thought of selling the Bermuda logs to new homeowners as instant landscaping: “Guaranteed. Just add water.”

  Because the Bermuda row happened to be along my driveway, I could monitor any weed rebirth. A few days later I noticed something green. The turf logs had rerooted and new Bermuda shoots were searching for sunlight. It was returning like a creature in a bad horror movie.

  The disk was still connected to the tractor so I vented my anger on the putting green, which had now become a small golf range. All I accomplished was to spread the Bermuda down the row, doubling its territory. So I repeated the purging and once again pulverized the turf. Since the roots were already sliced, they gave way more easily this time. I diced them into small chunks yet feared I had only replanted a longer fairway.

  Then nature came to my rescue. A heat wave visited the valley and daytime temperatures soared into the 100s. The diced Bermuda baked and fried. I returned to the patch and found almost all the life sucked from the roots. The small chunks of turf broke up in my hands. With a final disking the Bermuda cleansing was complete. The roots were cooked, the humus soft, like powder.

  Yet I knew some roots bury themselves deep in the earth and will resprout next year. I imagined they would become a small archipelago, strung out along the vine row. I marked the spot with bright yellow surveyor’s tape and planned to return for an annual purge.

  I discovered a system not much different from my father’s and my grandmother’s. They too would return to the same spot year after year, attacking the Bermuda. I have revived the old practice, albeit with a modern 65-horsepower tractor. Even with my “new” traditional approach to farming, quick fixes are rare and a good memory may be my best ally against weeds. I have a competitive friendship with my Bermuda, and I return to it annually. Some years I have to give ground, other times I gain the upper hand. But I come back again and again, thinking of time in terms of years, perhaps even a lifetime.

  However, the tractor poses an organic farming paradox: I may not use herbicides but I burn huge amounts of fuel and energy on a relatively small block of weeds. I sometimes think, One good shot of herbicide and the Bermuda could have been taken care of for years. Meanwhile billows of diesel exhaust trail behind my tractor with each assault. So I think about air pollution as I farm “naturally.” I feel a little guilty until I think of Baachan’s strong back and her tenacity to battle weeds, neither of which I possess. I sense my paradox will not be resolved soon.

  Sprinting and Spring Peaches

  Dad doesn’t believe in early season peaches. “They not natural,” he says. “That’s why we plant mid-season ones like Sun Crest.”

  Dad’s orchards were always harvested in the heat of summer, his peaches well suited for the 100-degree days and the fine sandy loam of our farm. Dad knows the land and didn’t try to push mother nature.

  I ignored his advice and planted five acres of an early variety of peach called Spring Lady. They bloom in March and are harvested by May, seventy days to evolve from blossoms into luscious fruit. They challenge nature’s clock, genetic mutations racing against natural timelines.

  I tried to rationalize my decision to Dad. “Spring peaches may be unnatural for the valley, but people buy lots of peaches in May. They pay good prices.”

  He stood unmoved.

  I continued. “We’ll just be nudging mother nature a little. Besides, making money shouldn’t be an unnatural act for a farmer.”

  He shook his head and, like a good parent, left me to learn the hard way.

  My first error was planting the Spring Ladies in the wrong ground. This field has “light soil,” a euphemism for poor, sandy dirt. It will take years to build up the earth and enrich it wi
th nutrients, organic matter, and humus.

  I shared my plight with one of my workers, an older Mexican fellow with more experience in the fields than I will ever have. His comments become useful in such situations. Shrugging his shoulders and raising his eyebrows, he said, “What can you do?”

  For the first two years of the orchard, I aborted the crop, channeling all the energies into growth. Without a harvest, I paid little attention to the young field, ignoring the weak trees. By the third year the young trees were flush with pink blossoms. Yet for some reason, many of the trees had trouble growing leaves. My other peach varieties rapidly grow with the first spring warmth. The fields change from the pink of blossoms to a pale green of fresh shoots. My Spring Ladies progressed from bright pink to a faded red of withering petals. Tiny oval peaches eventually emerged as the bloom fell and blanketed the earth with a sanguine hue. And yet, despite their beauty, there was a problem: how could peaches grow without leaves? A few weeks later a few shoots appeared and I began to relax, reassured Spring Lady was not some new leafless variety.

  Later in the spring I hired thinners to enter my orchards and destroy over half the Spring Lady crop. They climb ladders and knock off thousands of the tiny peaches with their fingers. The earth is covered with these little peach corpses, they crunch beneath your feet as you walk. The sound of a crew thinning peaches reminds me of a thunderstorm, the falling fruit knocking against ladder steps and pattering on the ground, building from a light tapping to a dazzling crescendo as the crew picks up speed.

  Good farmers don’t look down during thinning; the sight of the thousands of bodies would trouble their thoughts. Too easily I translate fallen fruit into lost profits and I’m tempted to leave more on each tree, which actually results in lots of small, low-priced fruit. Once, while thinning, a crew boss waved his hands upward and told me, “Look up! Look up! Good farmers look up!” He sounded like both a good manager and a good therapist.