Epitaph for a Peach Read online

  My body knows a full day’s work lies behind it. My legs and back ache from trudging through fields, my arms and hands are sore from working a shovel and from the irrigation water, even my worn boots pinch chafed heels and weary soles.

  I catch myself dreaming of better weather, better harvests, better prices for my peaches—perhaps I will find a home for my wonderful-tasting produce. Then I scold myself for such fantasies and try to anticipate the inevitable disappointment. Dreams haunt farmers, they drive us through depression, disaster, and hunger and later tease our optimism with hope.

  The greatest challenge of my summer remains: to keep the confidence I had when I turned back the bulldozer from my peach trees. If I lack vision of the coming harvest and lose my trust in nature, the year will be a constant struggle and perhaps futile. I’d best arm myself early in the season with righteous optimism.

  With the first heat of summer and a glimpse of the coming season of work, dreams creep into my mind. I allow them to visit. For a moment, while resting on my porch, the sweat drying on my back, I feel content. Perhaps this is why we farmers continue: we work from moment to moment with the land, dreams fill us like a song or vision, and, for a brief pause, all is as it should be.

  Gourmet Dust

  All good farmers become connoisseurs of dirt and dust. We have progressed from trailing a horse-drawn plow and marching through mud to riding modern equipment that elevates us three or four feet above the ground. But no good farmer can escape contact with the earth, we feel it on our tongues and in our throats.

  Farm dust varies with soil types and regional cuisines. I don’t know how the Georgia red clay tastes, but I have visited the Wisconsin dairy lands and Washington’s Skagit Valley. Mixed with rains and lush growth, their dust is heavy and thick and has a richness, like a fattening dessert of chocolate.

  Dust from the San Joaquin Valley of California contains subtle nuances of flavor only the native may detect. The denser clays of the northern valley have a smell of river history mingled within them. The Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers drain into this lowland area, depositing centuries of topsoil collected from a valley three hundred miles long. The dust from the western half of the valley is parched, baked. For centuries only sparse vegetation grew there until irrigation water was imported from northern California. Few rivers or streams cross the territory, and underground water tables are buried hundreds of feet deep. Winds blowing over the barren lands churn up storms of dust. The particles whip upward into visible clouds that drift to the east, lightly coating the farms of the eastern valley. In intense winds, I can see a dingy layer of air and sense what dust bowl veterans of the thirties must have witnessed.

  My farm is on the east side of the valley, fed by rivers draining from the Sierras. I work land that was once part of an ancient lake that covered the entire valley. I now consider this land a desert because our annual rainfall is often in the single digits.

  My dust is a fine powder. The soil is a sandy loam that would be a chef’s delight. Add water to the earth and create a rich roux, thick but pliable. Stir, and the air will be filled with a rich aroma of turned earth. Beat the ground with a disk, and the topsoil stands like sifted flour awaiting flavoring.

  Without water, my ground is ripe for dust. In the heat of summer a dust cloud follows all movement. Walking creates delicate billows, tiny dirt particles take flight and dance around my boots. I monitor Jake chasing a rabbit by the speeding column of dust suspended in his wake. A truck driving along the field’s edge becomes coated with a frosting of dirt.

  I work my fields according to the dust. No dust suggests that the soil is too wet; tractor tires will compact the ground and crush the dirt particles together, causing farm equipment to scar the land with cementlike impressions. Erratic puffs of dust suggest that the ground is too dry, the earth baked so hard that little can break through the crust. Disks and cultivators bounce over the parched surface, pulverizing the thin topsoil without penetrating the root zones. A battered and abused layer of dirt is left behind, bared to winds that scatter particles high into the air.

  The dust layers on my eyelashes. Blinking creates miniature clouds before my eyes. Even my unexposed skin wears a fine undergarment of dust; it penetrates most every crevice of my body. I’ve found dust in places I could only see in a mirror. When body moisture mixes with this dust, little streaks appear on my skin and my clothes. The combination generates an uncomfortable friction.

  I lick my lips often when working in the dust. It has a delicate flavor, quiet yet seasoned with a certain tanginess. Growing juicy peaches and grapes amid these conditions seems like a contradiction, yet the dust tempers the character of my fruits. My Sun Crest peaches are sweet but not like candy. My grapes have a delicate taste, light and almost surprising. They both perform well in my soils. My land is balanced, and her dust complements my labor the way a subtle dry wine adds to a meal.

  Summer Pruning

  I know a secret about pruning: it begins in the summer. Years ago I first read about summer pruning in a university research report that examined, in detail, “fruitwood budding physiology during the critical summer growth.” From the author I concluded that good fruitwood—wood that will have a wealth of blossoms by the next spring and strong stems that can bear lots of large, fat peaches—is formed during the summer. But I discovered it would take years to transfer the research from the paper to the field.

  Farmers call those branches where peaches dangle hangers, I suppose, either because fruit hangs on them or the slender stems hang down from the main limbs. Contrary to common perception, though, a well-pruned fruit tree does not have all its branches pointing upward. A skinny branch, reaching for the heavens, would probably snap under the weight of two or three midsummer peaches, swollen with juice—a painful sight for the anxious farmer.

  During the summer I’m not much concerned about hangers. I’m more concerned about the overall shape of the tree. A properly trained fruit tree resembles a goblet, its major limbs trained upward from the trunk, not too straight up like a champagne glass but rather angled outward with the gentle curve of a wineglass. If a tree adopts the shape of a martini glass, however, it will have a poor structural character, and with a heavy crop the main scaffolds will break. It helps to know your adult beverages when you prune.

  Dad once had a nectarine orchard where, over the years, we let all the growth migrate upward. At eye level and below, few branches ever survived because the treetops blocked much of the sunlight. Walking under the lush growth, I felt as if I had entered a natural cathedral, with arches suspended ten to fifteen feet above and hallow earth below. This may have been great for a pious experience but it was lousy for the business of farming, because pruning, fruit thinning, and harvesting had to be done mostly from ladders, with workers precariously perched twelve feet in the air. It was expensive and time-consuming, and it tested one’s sense of balance. Each year it only got worse, the top growth reaching higher and higher, competing for sunlight.

  To combat such vigorous growth, some farmers bring in a wicked-looking machine called a tree topper. It resembles a mechanical spider with saw-blade arms, something you might see in a cheap horror movie about science gone amok. This machine has four giant circular saws, mounted horizontally on revolving arms that rise above the canopy, which slice and dice and chop everything from about ten feet up. It’s a robotic tree barber, attacking an orchard and giving it a flattop. The sound of the buzzing saws and shattering wood terrorizes; what’s left behind is a field of slashed and severed limbs.

  For a few weeks following the tree clipping, warm sunlight penetrates the trees and they respond with wonderful growth. But a study done by University of California researchers verifies what some farmers have witnessed: cutting a limb at the peak growing season only stimulates new shoots just below the incision. New growth pushes upward even thicker and the flattop soon grows back denser than ever, with two or three new shoots reaching for sunlight where only one stood before. You
can’t manipulate nature for too long.

  A healthy tree will sprout unwanted suckers and water spouts. These lush fast-growing shoots grow from the center of the tree, wasting plant energy and nutrients. Eventually they begin to shade out and kill the lower branches. Pruning them in summer can only help the tree.

  I had had no prior experience with summer pruning; most farmers omit the practice. It may have to do with the time—summer is full of other work demands and farmers have to run in order to keep up with the heat of harvest. On the other hand, maybe we just think of pruning as a foggy-weather task. This methodical off-season chore feels odd in the sweltering heat.

  Then I discovered why I was one of the few who summer-pruned. In 100-degree heat, when you cut too much growth and expose branches to direct sunlight, the bark roasts and burns. The wood blisters and then cracks, exposing the delicate internal cork layers to insects and disease. Wood borers love wounded limbs and quickly move in and make themselves at home. In one of my orchards most of the trees have lost their east limbs, casualties of my first attempt at summer pruning.

  After trial and error, I learned that I can trim my trees in summer, but pruning is the wrong word for it. It should be called summer shaping. I can shape a tree in summer and not only encourage growth near the ground but become a bonsai artist, a sculptor gently guiding a healthy shoot into an open area to fill in space where a branch has died. Done properly, each tree becomes uniquely balanced in a natural symmetry.

  Trees don’t let you forget your mistakes, especially pruning. Badly pruned trees stay with a farmer for years. I have some trees that will never be properly shaped, and every time I pass them I’m reminded of my mistakes of years before.

  I read of a Japanese wood craftsman who spoke about freeing the soul of a tree. Like a sculptor, I too labor to free that soul. But the souls of my trees and vines are alive and they respond to my actions. I live with them daily.

  Fixing Leaks

  At first, I try to ignore the brown, muddy stain in the middle of the dirt avenue. But the next day a miniature spring with a pool of water sits in the roadway: my irrigation pipeline is leaking.

  Like all orchards and vineyards in this area, my Sun Crest orchards use an irrigation system that carries water to the thirsty trees and vines. With water, the valley flourishes from a desert into a garden.

  Most of the smaller open ditches of yesterday have been replaced by concrete irrigation pipelines. They run like a maze underground, connecting fields to a pump or other water source. I don’t know when some of my lines were laid. A ten-incher is pre—World War II vintage, when most farms had small pumps, small fields, and perhaps lower expectations. In the seventies, Dad added a 15-horsepower deep-well pump that requires a fourteen-inch line to feed his quarter-mile-long vine rows. Other lines lie hidden still and have yet to be identified. I don’t know how deep a particular line may be buried, or what quirks would have led a farmer to substitute an odd-sized section when he ran out of standard cement pipe, or where the line curves because the land was inaccurately surveyed and that’s where the property line was originally drawn. I could not anticipate these idiosyncrasies of my farm.

  I drive closer to inspect the newly formed pool of water in the avenue. The leak grows with each day, the continual water pressure in the line forcing the crack to expand. I hope it will somehow heal itself like a small wound (sometimes fine sand particles can lodge in small cracks and slow the seepage). By the third day, however, I can no longer drive over the expanding puddle without the risk of getting stuck. The time to repair the crack has arrived.

  I begin the job by digging a hole but soon discover that I have to know how deep I must go. For pacing, I need to envision my target or I risk the wrong rhythm. I may start too quickly and exhaust my back and arms, which will inevitably lead to a bad attitude. Or I may proceed too slowly, which, with the sun beating down upon me, will drain my energy and spirit.

  When I fix a leak, I master some very basic engineering skills: the deeper the hole, the wider it needs to be, not for structural support or safety but for fit. A hole five feet deep requires a working space at least four feet across. I need to have enough room to straddle the pipe and punch a hole in the concrete. I must have space to crouch over and reach into the line to coat the crack with cement.

  Most of my irrigation lines run between three and five feet below the surface and require a rather large hole. The holes also seem deeper because, as I remove earth, a pile of dirt grows around me, proportionate with the hole. A four-by-four-foot hole five feet deep contains a huge amount of dirt. The mounds make me think of hunkering down for trench warfare.

  Fixing a leak becomes a war of contradictory forces. Cracks often form at the weakest point where the pressure is the greatest—in other words, where the line is the deepest. Also consider the fact that wet earth weighs more than dry. The deeper I dig, burrowing closer to the leak, the more mud I excavate. Finally, the concrete pipe needs to be dry in order for a cement patch to bond and seal, but these lines are filled with water. So I have to pump all the water out before patching.

  I use an old gas-powered pump, the motor permanently borrowed from a discarded lawn mower. Starting the motor is a challenge. Swearing rarely helps, though pleading seems to have an effect as I delicately adjust the balance between the choke and the fuel mixture and the proper tug on the cord. After the hundredth pull, and quick reflexes to tap the choke partially inward, I triumph: a puff of exhaust is released, a sputtering begins, and voilà! the engine finally starts.

  But that’s just the first test. I still need to prime the pump. The source of the water sits five to six feet below ground level. Water has to be drawn upward and pushed out with a strong suction. After I punch a hole in the pipe large enough to slip in a hose, I try to siphon water in and air out by rapidly lifting and dropping the hose, shaking out air pockets and hoping water will snake in. An hour later, feet numb from standing in mud, I manage to coax out enough air and a prime is established; water gushes out and into my fields. Since the leak often occurs at the lowest portion of the pipe, water flows into the section from everywhere on the farm. It may require hours to drain the line. I keep vigil so that I don’t lose my prime and the pump doesn’t run out of gas.

  Once a neighbor hired an irrigation company to come out and fix some leaks. They worked hard and did the job well, but for six hours they sat, waiting for the pump to drain the line. They ate lunch, took a nap, read part of a newspaper, walked around on the farm, and drove into town for coffee. Just when they left for town their pump ran out of gas. As soon as they returned they refilled the small tank and resumed their waiting. Those six hours just about killed my neighbor. He’d come by and check on their progress and calculate the cost of their water watch and instantly become a prime candidate for a heart attack. Farmers work at a different pace. They don’t sit around and wait.

  Cement is the farmer’s clay. With a proper blend of cement, sand, and water, rolled into a pliable ball and then gently molded along the seam, masterpieces are created inside cracked pipelines. A smooth patch is a work of art, the laborer a craftsman. Like the artist who works not for an audience but for the sake of art, we seal our work within the pipe.

  I feel more like an apprentice, since most of my time is spent setting up in order to patch the leak. I trench and excavate a huge hole, locate the leak and punch an access slot, then sit and monitor the draining water. Reaching into the pipe preparing the surface for the wet cement, I’ll scrape my arms and rub my knuckles raw. My legs will ache from the preparation work, cramped quarters, and odd angles as I straddle the line.

  The consistency of my cement and sand mixture is never the same and I lack the confidence to trust a thin, gentle coat along a seam. My patches become gobs of cement, a bucket of concrete slapped together in wads resembling a protruding blood vessel. The hole resembles a battleground, with cement dripping from the pipe and splattered along the earthen walls, not to mention some of my own blood
from scrapes and cuts. I am positive I will acquire trench foot from the hours of standing in water. I do not yet consider myself an artist.

  But like a true apprentice, my work improves with each job and progress is duly noted as the next irrigation round begins. I check the spots I’ve worked and discover that the earth remains dry.

  I don’t know of many farmers who think of themselves as cement artists, and few artists consider blue-collar hand laborers their peers. But some farmers and artists share a common understanding that their work is often incomplete, their craft still developing. As the summer unfolds and my strategies to save my peaches take shape, I realize that few problems are ever solved. A farmer fixes leaks in pipelines, an artist progresses to the next challenge, and I know that come the time for a future irrigation, I’ll find more leaks.

  Babies and Mildew

  I have a confession. I plan to use a chemical on some of my grapes to kill mildew (although I’ll keep a small block unsprayed and organic). I have struggled with the dilemma for days. This contradicts my belief in natural farming practices, although the chemical won’t harm humans. But I’ve thought it out and I think it’s worth it to spray to lessen my tedious workload so I can spend more time with my family.

  Mildew hides all spring and summer. The spores overwinter in my field, grow in the cool days of spring, and thrive in the microclimates of lush grape-leaf canopies. You can’t see them reproducing and spreading. Untreated, mildew coats young grape berries with spores that will quickly infect and strangle tissue. With the summer heat, the tiny berries swell but their skin has grown brittle. The flesh cracks and juices ooze out and coat the entire bunch. They will drip onto neighboring bunches and rot will invade. Then insects arrive, feeding and breeding on the rotting meat.