Wednesday, 06 October 2010
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A Good Year For Peaches!
This is a guest post from Playing With Fire and Water.
I don't know what happened to the peaches this year. Did the stars and/or planets align just right? Or were my unwitting prayers answered by a peach fairy?
I have no explanation, but I'm convinced that something super natural took place.My peach tree is now seven years old. It was just a whip with roots when my father gave it to me; no thicker than my thumb or longer than my arm. Looking at that stick-in-a-pot, it should have taken an elastic imagination, or a leap of faith, to believe that one day it would produce bushels of fruit, but I knew better. I had seen him nurture these things; spent a lifetime watching sticks turn into trees.
I planted it even though I had given up on growing fruit. The loss of a half dozen fruit trees, along with the dream of an orchard, was still painfully fresh.It was three years before the tree bore fruit. Just enough for a few pies at first, the yields continued to increase with each passing year. Quantity was never an issue, but if I'm being completely honest, the quality of the fruit has been unremarkable in flavor. Last year, they were insipid, at best.
If anything, gardening is an investment of hope. I take the time and effort to grow plants with the hope that they will produce something extraordinary. When they don't, I assess the circumstances, make adjustments, and try again. Or, if they require something beyond my control, I move on.
A tree is different.
Trees take years, sometimes decades, to hit their stride. When there is so much time and effort and hope invested, it's not so easy to just start over.
Last fall, after the disappointing harvest, I was pruning the tree and considered taking a saw to the trunk and starting anew. But I didn't. I confessed my intention to my father, hoping he wouldn't be offended. He just shrugged and suggested I waited another year.
I was acutely aware on the day that I picked the first of this year's peaches that it was the two month anniversary of my father's passing. I won't get into whether I think that he, in spirit, had anything to do with the transformation. I won't even get into whether I believe such things are possible. I will only say that every peach that I picked off my tree this year was extraordinary: intoxicatingly fragrant, embarrassingly juicy, a flawless balance of sugar and acid. They were everything I hoped for.
Do you have any fruit trees in your yard? If you could have any tree, what would you have?
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- From: foodplayer
- Name: foodplayer
- About Me: Cooking, elementally, is controlling heat and moisture. The great cooks are masters of fire and water. Me, I'm still playing...welcome to my playground. foodplayerlinda is a freelance chef in Connecticut. She lives in a house full of eaters: a bacon-lovin husband 2 voracious teenagers a finicky cat a dog who's her biggest fan Visit me: http://www.playingwithfireandwater.com/foodplay/
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Comments (11)
I am sorry for your loss. . .
what a beautiful ending; my tears started dwelling up I read the end of your story.
Yes, it seems if something special did happen. . .
there's an apple tree in my neighbour's yard, but it's so tall and huge that it kind of dangles over onto ours. they used to have grapes too.
i'd want a money tree or a tree that grants me wishes. that'd be awesome :] in terms of a fruit tree though... perhaps lychee, plums or pears.
Yeah, we have a couple. Peaches, persimmons, and longan. :)
my neighbor has a peach tree that always produces so many that they have to stake up all the branches or they will snap from the weight! they give all us neighbors huge amounts of them because there is no way they can eat them all themselves, and this year they were absolutely delicious!!! made the best peach jam with them MM MM MM!!!
@Beb3Lika@xanga - Lychee, plums, and pears sound awesome right now! Too bad lychee isn't native here. =/
I guess I'll be making a trip to the farmer's market on Saturday! I've noticed a lot of people eating peaches and nectarines lately...
I ate a peach today. It was rather ripe and crunchy. So yes, it is a good season for peaches indeed--in California, at least.
Regarding this post, your mastery of wielding the English language and your passion for your peach tree completely blew my mind away. Publish a book..!
Oh and to answer your question, my landlord had a small plum tree that produced flowers nearly identical to cherry blossoms and fruits unbelieveably fresh (though that's obvious, coming from a tree and all.)
If I could have the ability to grow and maintain any tree I would grow a DURIAN tree :D
mmhmmm. yum.
@oOo_itsJuJu@xanga - if only!! i'd be one happy camper.
mmm peaches are so yummy and juicy and refreshing
Peaches come from a can, they were put there by a man. In a factory down town.
well, not now since i live in philly, but my folks still have :
peach, nectarine, mango, kumquats, pearapple, lemon, sugar cane, bittermelon(vine) and persimmon, and lastly figs (which are awesome)
Hmm... this year wasn't as great for us as last year. I believe thats when we got loads of peaches from our two trees. But it could have been the year before, not too sure.
This year had been not so great, probably due to the 100 degree temperatures that we had for days at a time.
But congratulations on your harvest.