Epitaph for a Peach (14 page)

The stacks of trees resemble piles of dead, mangled bodies. In one day the work is done. The machine lumbers off, crawls onto the trailer with a heave, and comes to a stop as it nestles into position. I half expect a live sacrifice to be offered and consumed before the machine dozes, with a full belly, waiting for the next job.

The earth is left mangled: deep tracks etch the dirt, shattered bark and limbs are strewn across the field. Piles of peach trees dot the landscape, dust lingers in the air like fog hanging heavily over the killing fields. I'll let the piled trees dry, the green leaves wilt. Moisture will be sucked out by the sun, the wood curing in preparation for a cleansing fire. Before I burn the stacks, I'll pull a few thick branches and cut them for firewood, knowing they will warm my family in the cold of winter. They'll burn long and hot, the hardwood dense and heavy from decades of growth.

Paul, my good friend who's both farmer and artist, likes to paint these piles. He thinks of them like Monet's paintings of haystacks in a farmer's field. The piles embody more than dead limbs, they symbolize life and future harvests. When I stare at the peach piles, I remember certain good harvests along with the wealth the Red Top field brought. Once we hung a crop so heavy that every branch needed to be propped with wooden sticks. The sticks bent under the limbs' weight and looked like bows ready to be strung. Dad bought a forklift with that year's profits and often, when I use it, I think of that Red Top year. I can also recall seasons of disaster, the memory of leaving half a crop hanging on the trees because it would cost more to pick than the fruit would bring at market. The peaches grew soft and dropped to the ground, the nectar filled the air with peach perfume. I'd walk by and smell the peaches, hearing the plop of another peach dropping and smashing on the ground.

As the stacks burn, neighbors stop and comment: “See you've pushed them over.” Then they ask, “What you gonna plant?” Even in early autumn they are thinking ahead, of replanting and new varieties. In a pile of mangled dead trees, farmers still see new life.

Indian Summers

We don't have a real fall in California, Indian summer takes care of that. Fields don't change into brilliant fall colors. Those who have experienced autumn in other places expect vivid colors. They may grow irritable about our ugly brown and the dry, withering leaves dropping from vines and trees one by one.

The air has grown dirtier and dustier from the months of field work and tractoring, as well as from all those summer barbecues and the exhaust of thousands of cars and RVs that come through the valley carrying vacationers seeking to bond with nature in the Sierras. The mountains disappear behind what locals call “smaze,” a blend of smog and haze. It's hard to imagine that we live in a great valley. Everyone begins to lament how bad the air has become and recall how in their youth the view of the mountains was so much clearer. Each year the Sierras become more vivid in our memories.

Nature continually plays tricks on farmers with Indian summer. Once a team of noted long-range forecasters predicted an early fall rain on the raisin harvest. Farmers panicked as the coffee shop rumors spread. Many of us picked our grapes early that year—in August instead of September—in order to beat the rains. Then an unheard-of series of arctic storms blew in on Labor Day and stayed for two weekends, while 80 percent of the nation's raisin crop lay exposed on the ground.

A few farmers had missed the meteorologists' warning and picked their grapes extremely late, after the Labor Day storms. We laughed at their folly—no one picks grapes in late September for raisins. Then Indian summer arrived and the grapes dried a golden brown, fat with sugar and dark from the sunshine.

But Indian summers aren't predictable, and with any luck scattered rains will cleanse the air, settle the dust, and knock off leaves. It will feel like autumn for a few days, with crisp fresh mornings and the clear outline of a great mountain chain watching over us. Energy fills the air. A neighbor calls it true football weather. I think of it as the excitement of change.

Indian summer quickly returns to fool us. It tricks a farmer into a false rhythm, even though the calendar reads October or November. With such good weather there's no excuse not to work.

I start to fix equipment or begin an overdue repair job on the farmhouse. Other farmers will start pruning with leaves still on trees. My neighbor revs up the tractor for one more disking of his fields. It could be his final gesture to dress the land for winter, but I think it's the false attack of a spring rush to get back into the fields. We're all thinking the same thing: how to get a jump on next year's work.

Every year I begin a special project that will improve the farm, such as adding a new irrigation line, scraping a high spot in the field, or restaking an old vineyard section. I set an annual goal to better the land in some way, like the campers' oath to leave a site cleaner than they found it. Indian summers disrupt the scheme. Instead of contemplating the task and designing a thorough plan of work, I feel guilty about not being outside doing something physical. My work program suddenly acquires a design-as-you-go rhythm, a race to finish the job before winter arrives. But winter doesn't arrive with a snowfall that blankets the landscape and silences work. The lines between one season and another are blurred. I may miss the subtle differences, especially if I'm working faster than I need to.

The years of continual drought have almost killed me. These months are filled with monotonous days of clear skies. Each morning begins with a work list and the expectation that most of it can be accomplished. I don't have the weather as an excuse to slow down.

A good Indian summer can overwhelm you with guilt. Even the rewards from the Sun Crest peaches don't translate into confidence. I could feel cocky about the season but I think of myself as lucky more than anything else, for I have only won the first round.

Seeds of Change

My internal clock is set to changes in weather. Shorter days and cooler nights whisper a change in season. And seeds need to be planted.

I now realize that fall, not spring, is the best time to plant cover crops. The seeds can sprout in the still-warm earth of autumn, establish roots before winter's chill, and flourish in the first days of spring. This year I'll use a complex blend of seeds: common vetches, crimson clovers, and New Zealand clovers, combined with some medics and wildflowers. My formulations are not from prescribed recipes but are, rather, a random mixture that I create according to how I feel when I'm scooping the seeds from their individual bags and mixing them in the planter hopper. I feel like an oil painter mixing different combinations of colors to stroke on my farmland canvas. I will have to wait for months before I can see the results. I begin with only a mental image and a vision.

Some farmers question the value of cover crops. How much nitrogen do they produce? Do they consume huge volumes of water? What plants attract which beneficial insects? All valid questions that need research, these issues will take years to determine and may never be clear.

But the benefits of my fall planting go beyond making interesting plant mixtures and achieving proper nitrogen levels. Every fall I plant seeds of change for the next year. I am an explorer and adventurer, a wild man in the woods. No one can know the exact benefits of my cover crops; they are a blend of artistry and the wisdom of experience, a creation and reaffirmation of tradition.

And it is fun admitting that you don't know exactly what you're doing. This is the freedom of naïveté.

Compost on Trial

Autumn is a season not only for reflection but also for judgment. Finally I have time to evaluate some of my farm experiments and plan for the coming year. One annual fall rite includes a review of my compost trials. (I apply my fertilizers in the fall because I have a break in my hectic work pace and the tree and vine roots can begin to store nutrients for next season.)

No good natural farm is complete without compost. Actually, only within the last few generations have farmers abandoned natural fertilizers for the ease and exactness of commercial ones. Before the sixties, most farmers in the valley relied on basic inputs to feed their soils, usually manure. In the autumn, farms regularly had piles of manure scattered around. The neighborhood filled with its odor. A common practice was to buy manure in the good years in order to build up the soil. I could identify which neighbor had a good year by the direction of the wind and the smell of profits being returned to the earth.

But commercial fertilizers became popular and farmers were won over with promises and initial results. Dad enjoyed the game of farming by numbers, believing in the magical power of 15-15-15 (a guaranteed ratio of N-P-K, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium), trusting the new sophistication of fertilizer formulations, and reducing soil to something that simply holds up plants. For a few years, these chemical fertilizers did increase production—the plants devoured their stimulants and their trunks and limbs bulged from their new ultra-diet. But gradually the soil faded, literally, from a dark, lush hue to a hoary light powder. The trees and vines seemed addicted to the fertilizer and grew rank and peculiar, as if the shoots raced to be the tallest and the plants ignored their fruits. Then I heard the gospel of compost and listened to the moral choices laid before me.

“Compost redeems the soil. Give back to the earth what was taken,” I read in an alternative farming book. “Compost is nature's fertilizer, full of microorganisms that help build your soils. Compost renews the earth.”

My dilemma is this: How do I weigh the spiritual virtues of nature's compost against the predictability of man-made fertilizer?

 

F
ARMERS CONSTANTLY EXPERIMENT
. We try new products, new methods, new management styles, all within the domain of an ever-changing mother nature. Some call our attempts at research “farmer science,” meaning it lacks the rigid procedure, methodology, and analysis of the scientific method. I resent the implied patronage, although it has merit. I have little scientific training and I know just enough to get me in trouble.

I devise my own experiment, using compost on one half of a peach orchard and commercial fertilizer on the other. My current longest-running test is with my Spring Lady peaches, those young, strapping trees planted eight years ago. I regard them as adolescents. For the first few years of their life there was no crop, then the next two years only a partial crop. I am anxious to boost production and settle my great soil fertility debate.

A year ago last fall I began my compost test, dividing the five acres in half: six rows enriched with compost, six rows with commercial fertilizer. I called a university researcher and he said my test plots were an awkward size, too large for detailed analysis and too small for a real farm test (most commercial orchards span ten-to-twenty-acre solid blocks). But I only had an audience of one, myself, to pass peer review, so I continued.

Next I found myself at a crucial juncture. I knew beforehand that rows 1 to 6 were slightly weaker than rows 7 to 12, with less foliage. At first I thought my study would be flawed and unreliable, since I had not begun with uniform samples. Then I realized the differences were small and a scientist probably wouldn't notice the variations. The weak trees worry me only because I'm the farmer.

But which half should get the compost and which the fertilizer? I flipped a coin and was happy to see that the strong half of the orchard would get the compost. I then questioned my lack of objectivity until I realized the trees probably would not be affected by my bias for compost. I applied three tons of compost per acre and on the other half used a mix of triple-15 commercial fertilizer. I later read that it may take years for compost to build up a soil. A quick one-year application might not have an immediate effect. I would need to replicate the experiment many times for it to have scientific validity. Yet I didn't know of one farm where anything was replicated exactly year after year. I was resigned to complete my trial, even if just because of a farmer's curiosity.

Spring arrived with bloom, fresh shoots, and blossoms—and work that should have been done yesterday. I raced to keep up with weeds and ahead of munching insects and worked myself into a frenzy. I didn't have time to worry about the things I couldn't see, and I soon forgot about my experiment.

Because Spring Lady peaches are harvested early, in late May, I don't have time for mistakes. With this peach I sprint from bloom to harvest. About a month before harvest I remembered my experiment and had to refer to my notes to recall which trees had gotten the compost. I couldn't tell the difference between the two halves. They looked the same.

Interest piqued, I began walking through the orchard surveying the foliage and fruit, looking for differences and patterns. The weak half still looked weaker but the fruit size appeared the same. The stronger half had darker leaves and denser growth; the fruit were perhaps a bit more plentiful mainly because there were more branches per tree.

I did notice some evidence of peach twig borers. Their homes are easy to see, because the tips of fresh green shoots hang limp and dangle from the worm's boring. We call them “strikes.” Early fruit are not bothered by them, but the strikes in my Spring Lady peaches were like little red flags, warning me to monitor my other peaches carefully. I asked neighbors, and when they too checked their fields they found the same patterns of strikes. It would be a wormy year and we had all better be cautious. In my journal I noted that so far there was little evidence for or against compost.

I read a report that said different fertility programs induced different types of growth in trees and their fruit. Some fertilizers may cause rapid growth and push peaches to grow too quickly, making them more susceptible to diseases such as brown rot. I pictured such a piece of fruit like a balloon that's stretched so the skin is thinned and weakened. Another report hinted that too much rank vegetative grown may actually attract some pests, the abundant nitrogen may add a wonderful taste for the palate of worms. I walked my orchard and found no difference. The reports sounded intriguing, though, and that morning's walk was fun. I continued monitoring the field with a growing pessimism. In both test blocks, the trees looked barren of foliage and the peaches looked extremely small. My research created more questions and worry. My study was full of human emotion and drama.

In late May I picked the Spring Ladies when the fruit was blush red and the taste sweet. The peaches from the fertilizer side were slightly larger than those in the rest of the field, but the compost half produced more fruit.

I have never read the following question in a research report: “Is the cup half full or half empty?” Yet that was my finding for the compost-versus-fertilizer trial. Each block had different results, good and bad. Fortunately, not being a scientist, I will not have to defend my research conclusion, which is this: The success of compost or fertilizer at any given moment depends on your attitude.

I am happy the compost didn't fail. Next year I may repeat the experiment, but the virtue of using compost can never be measured. I already know one conclusion of the research, though: the best part of my study will remain the walks through my orchards.

Burning Leaves

People associate autumn with the smell of leaves burning and smoke drifting lazily into a layer that hugs the earth. I think of a different type of leaf burn. I visualize seared shoots, burnt wood, and blistered bark.

I killed part of my peach trees in the spring by applying a foliar nutrient spray, but I had to wait until fall to determine the extent of the damage. My autumn leaves fell early, not from the first frosts but from dead branches.

It all started in early spring, when the first green leaves push open, their pale yet shiny green color announcing to the world the arrival of new life. For years a salesman had been trying to convince me to use a foliar feed, a spray of nutrients “to feed your hungry trees,” and this year he was back. He claimed the leaves would absorb the mixture like a magical elixir and stir new life into my trees. I only wanted to help the weak ones, those that struggle to shake off winter.

“It's perfect for your operation,” he advised, then leaned closer to me as if to share a secret with his chosen farmer. “Get an early jump on the season,” he said, his eyebrows rising with the word
jump,
followed by a quick nodding of the head.

He painted a picture of peach trees like bears awakening from hibernation, hungry from their long winter sleep, rousing to life with the rumble of an empty stomach.

I had experimented with a kelp spray before, but this salesman urged me to try a new blend of micronutrients based on a unique formulation of fish emulsion. I should have listened to my own voice and its lame joke: “This sounds fishy.” But with a salesman's skill he perfectly timed a loud laugh and I bought a fifty-pound sack because he liked my sense of humor.

I should have sensed something was wrong when my sprayer filters kept clogging with the mixture. I had to stop four times in order to wash them out, and the fifth time I was so angry I stomped inside to phone the salesman. He promised me a new bag and said I could keep the old one free of charge. Satisfied with my assertiveness, I returned to the fields and soon found myself trying to spray all my peaches with this concoction. Why? Because it was free.

Within days tiny holes appeared on most of my leaves, thousands of them per tree. They grew larger with each day, a pale band of burnt tissue ringing each hole. The pattern was distinctive: every lower leaf from about waist high had this spotting, but higher in the tree the burn was less evident. It matched the range of my sprayer, which shoots out fifteen gallons of water per tree, coating the lower leaves but only misting the higher ones.

Two weeks later the singed leaves began to yellow. I phoned the salesman and told him, “You better get your butt out here today.”

He arrived with his boss and at first hinted that I had a bad case of a fungus disease called shot hole. I pointed out that the fungus must only like lower leaves and how odd it was that it didn't affect the one row where I ran out of their foliar spray. Then they mentioned how the spray may have helped encourage shot-hole growth. I believed them for a while. Finally they admitted that a few other farmers had reported some problems but said they were changing the formulation process and I wouldn't be charged for any of the product. They brought out a bag of “new formula” and said I could keep it for next year. They drove off vowing to keep an eye on my peaches for me, and I never saw them again.

The leaves began dropping. On some branches only the tiny fruit was left, exposed without the normal surrounding leaf canopy. Dad stopped by and asked what was happening to the trees. I told him about the leaf feed spray. He shrugged and said, “The trees will come back.”

The metaphor came to mind of a glass that's either half full or half empty. Spring is a time when the glass has to be half full because I begin the year without knowing the size of my crop, the quality, or the cost of production. Uncertainty comes with the territory. If I don't have the optimism of a half-full glass in spring, I can't make it through the rest of the year.

I thought I could trick my trees with a foliar feed, a feeble attempt to manipulate nature, to nudge her along. She responded in a way I could not predict, let alone control. The peaches apparently didn't like this fish spray and aborted leaves. However, new shoots were coming in to replace the burned growth, and the small fruit hung on nude limbs apparently undamaged. The glass remained half full.

It didn't take long for my imagination to take over. Wouldn't it be wild, I thought, if the fruit actually benefited from this defoliation and all the growth went into the peaches for the next few weeks? Or perhaps new, vibrant shoots would push from main scaffolds and make for excellent fruitwood in the following year? I felt a rising insecurity, though, as another voice whined, Half empty, half empty. The trees looked ugly, with a mat of fallen yellow leaves circling each one. I concluded that I really didn't know what I was doing. The admission somehow relieved my burden.