Enjoying Peaches

One of my first aspirations for Ephemera Farm was to plant an orchard.  It didn’t have to be big.  I just wanted somewhere we could go out and pick some fresh orbs ripened in the summer sun.

Fruit trees take time to grow, so determining where was a priority when we first moved here.  I decided after a year of watching the sun traverse the property to plant fruit trees in a small patch west of the house.  The area was mostly full sun and rode the mesic line of a shallow hillside. The space allowed for about a dozen fruit trees. Diversity was key, especially for the peaches and nectarines, as I never know what might afflict a single cultivar.

I used the Harris County, TX “Recommended Fruit and Nut Varieties” guide to chose varieties for warmer climates. For us in east Texas we reliably get somewhere around 800 chilling hours, though some years it has been as low as 500. Chilling hours is the amount of cold below 45°F that flower buds on a plant need to perceive to flower. So, having some with low chilling hours and others with a bit higher count helps increase the chance that a crop will bear with either an inadequate amount or a late freeze.

That’s what happened this year. ‘Tropical Beauty’ and ‘Sunraycer’ are the only two so far to make it to bearing age. I got them as larger three gallons instead of little whips. The late March freeze we had zapped all the open flowers on ‘Tropical Beauty’. The buds on ‘Sunraycer’ had barely opened, and I was delighted to see a few weeks later the start of a good crop.

The tree was loaded with fruit for its first crop.

I was so afraid that the heat that set in at the beginning of July would cause the fruit to abort, but they continued to get larger and started to blush. A few days before Magnolia was born, I set up our motion-activated sprinkler to keep the raccoons off the tree.

Once we got home from the hospital, I picked the first fruit. It was glorious, sweet and juicy and ended a bit tart. But, it was at this moment I realized that I don’t think I have ‘Sunraycer’, though I’m happy to be corrected by any experts out there. One, the skin has fuzz meaning it is a peach. Peaches and nectarines are the same save for a single gene that conveys fuzz on peaches and a smooth skin on nectarines. And, two the skin color doesn’t really match. ‘Sunraycer’ is a fully crimson red skin while mine is yellow-orange with a red blush. Being sold the wrong cultivar frustrates me so. But, at this point, I’m not going to cut the tree down.

The supposed ‘Sunraycer’ nectarine

I went out each evening and gave each fruit a gentle squeeze on their blushed spot before picking. I know, you’re not supposed to squeeze a peach. But, it was a good check for ripeness. In total, I picked over 50 fruit off the tree. Dad and Mom came to visit, and I made a cobbler from the pickings for us to enjoy. 

Peach cobbler ready to be enjoyed with vanilla ice cream. My favorite is Tillamook’s vanilla bean.

I grew up eating what mom called poor man’s cobbler where the ingredients are just poured together instead of making anything intricate.  Though cherry was my favorite growing up, it wasn’t until I had peach cobbler at my friend Jeff’s several years ago that I fell in love with Prunus persica. Before that I wouldn’t touch a peach. And, now I am growing them! The proud moment of the day was when Mom said that I had beaten her on taste with my cobbler, though I was just following the recipe I had from Southern Living. She attributed the better taste to my using more fruit than she typically does.

And, because we don’t like anything to go to waste, we saved the peach skins and boiled them with a 1 part water : 1 part sugar simple syrup. Once filtered, it keeps in the fridge for a week, and we use it to flavor teas.

Peach syrup is Karen’s favorite for flavoring teas.

We put up two jars of fruit to capture a bit of summer for later this year. It’s such a joy to be able to preserve the goodness of these warmer months.

On Pruning a Peach

I spied a solitary bloom on our peach tree in the orchard, and I knew it was time to prune.  Removing branches from fruit trees in the south is typically a fall or winter task.  However, after losing a couple of small peach trees last year from the extreme cold, I erred on the side of caution and waited until the last possible moment to correct the tree’s architecture.  That moment had arrived.    

I scurried inside to review the art of pruning as if the minuscule time I saved meant less sap flowing toward the soon-to-be-removed buds.  Pruning is a commitment, like promising to cook a once-a-year meal for the family.  It is good to refresh the mind on technique. The last thing one wants is regret for years to come from a simple mistake, whether it be a bad cut or a burnt dish.   

I pulled The Holistic Orchard by Michael Phelps off the shelf and flipped through the pages.  Many things I knew. Prune for an open center, check.  Prune out branches that grow back inside the tree, check.  Prune above the bud that you want to grow outward, check.  

It was good to read again how light needs to penetrate into the tree and to imagine how the radiant energy would hit branches.  “Be the bud,” I am told not once but twice.  I chuckled at advice he received from a Vermont farmer in the book, “You done [sic] a good job at pruning if afterward you can take the family cow and fling her between the branches.”  

I don’t have a cow, and I wanted a second perspective. Therefore, I pulled up Dr. Mike Parker’s extension videos on pruning peaches.  I never had Mike for a class, but I considered him a friendly colleague while going through grad school at NC State. Since my tree was a couple years old, I opted to watch the video on pruning two-year old specimens. His discussion on heading cuts and scaffolding was helpful to think about maintaining good architecture.

Back outside, I grabbed my loppers.  My pruners were already in the holster I wear on my belt.  I would need both for the different sized branches.

I pruned the easy twigs first—the thin whips that grew into the center and on the bottom of the branches.  I next set about heading back branches to remove apical dominance and encourage them to strengthen and become more bushy in habit.  Then came the hard part—to reduce the upright growths down to nubs.  I should have pruned them last year, but I’m just so used to encouraging vertical growth in trees that it feels weird to make such cuts. The branches rose a good 10-12 feet up in the sky, and in a moment of, “Here we go,” one swift chop reduced the growth by half to stubs.  I felt like an accomplice to crape murder.  

Hatrack, anyone?

I always feel bad after a harsh pruning.   But, I know it’s better for the fruit tree—to encourage outward growth, an open center, and denser branches that can actually bear the load of the fruit.  And, having a well-pruned peach tree is better for me and my summertime cravings for cobbler.

Another benefit to pruning is the beauty I could bring inside afterwards.  Since I waited so late, the the buds were all primed to burst open.  I went through the clippings and chose the best I could to force indoors.  They have slowly opened over the past week becoming a beautiful sweet pink.  Now, I can’t wait for our trees to start bearing.  

The thinnings of ‘Tropic Beauty’ gain a second life with forcing. These peach blossoms are such a welcome sight after the buds pop open.

Wire Weeding

The lengthening daylight is now imperceptible. A month ago when I got home from teaching, there was barely enough twilight to do anything outside. However, now I find that I can see easily until about 6:15 pm, giving me almost an hour of time gardening in the evenings.

My recent task has been cleaning out the vegetable garden for the coming peas and potatoes. The freeze that hit over the holidays while I was gone was severe, enough to tank the broccoli, mustard, and Swiss chard that I’m usually continuing to harvest. By now, the mustards are usually bolting to provide some early season nectar for insects, but they’ve just turned to mush. I’ve learned my lesson for next year. I’ll cover plants with floating row cover before traveling for the holidays.

The biggest surprise is that the soil is fairly clean of weeds, even more so than it has been in the past few years.  It’s not because I used my leaf mold mulch; no, I’m saving that precious resource for the tomatoes in the spring.  

I credit the practice of using the wire hoe.  This ingenious tool was my favorite discovery of 2021. It features a long wooden handle that holds a thin piece of wire bent into a triangle and attached to a hex head insert, much like the head one would use in an interchangeable cordless drill. There are four sizes of these triangles from roughly 8 inches wide to barely over 2 inches that can be changed out based on plant spacing.

Wire weeding is a pleasant task in the garden. Doing it regularly beats hand pulling all those weeds.

The wire is not sharpened. No, the strategy here is to get weeds while they are mere threads through shallow cultivation, perhaps only disturbing the top 1/2–1 inch of soil. It’s almost like sweeping the garden of weeds, much like one would sweep the kitchen regularly to get the crumbs up from making dinner. If weeds are controlled early in the first several weeks of plant growth, the plants will typically then cast enough shade to discourage other weed growth.  

It is incredibly pleasant to use. The handle is long enough to allow the user to stand up straight with both thumbs facing upward and weeding the garden.  I was amazed years ago when reading Eliot Coleman in The New Organic Grower write about the four thumb positions on a handle while weeding.  I mean, who thinks about these things? But, such a consideration has a big impact on the ergonomics of the tool. Both thumbs out or both thumbs in don’t make much sense, so I won’t discuss those. Both thumbs down toward the blade is horrible on the back and how most gardeners have to hold a common hoe to actually cultivate the soil due to the head length and angle.  Both thumbs up away from the blade is how one wants to hold a handle to be to minimize back issues, and the wire hoe allows for this position.  

I made it the first task in the garden, and in 15 to 20 minutes I could weed over 700 square feet by shallowly cultivating the top layer of the soil.  They key is not digging deep; it is actually better because that will reduce the number of new weed seeds brought to the surface.  I had students use this tool on campus last fall, and it did a good job of keeping the beds clean of weeds as well where they used it.  You can use it in perennial beds, too, but I find that Roy Diblik’s Dewit diamond hoe works better.

The design of the wire hoe is so simple.

Working with this hoe has given me that this-tool-is-so-simple-I-could-have-created-it-and-been-a-millionaire feeling. But, it was the brain child of aforementioned Eliot Coleman. On the episode of the Winter Growers podcast (1:01:30), Eliot notes how he was first inspired by Michael Fitzpatrick who said that his favorite tool was this little hand held device that had wires on it for cultivating in the greenhouse. He went back and made a version that could be attached to a long handle using a bolt you screw onto the handle. Conor Crickmore then took the design and put hex head inserts on the wires and ran with it making several versions of the wire hoe. And, really it has been Conor who has helped popularize it and get it into mainstream horticulture.

You’ll note earlier I didn’t just say that it was the wire hoe but the practice of using the tool. The key to weeding in the vegetable garden is developing it into a routine to see results. It becomes something you do frequently, every day or a few times a week.  Seth Godin shared Elizabeth King’s quote in the front of his book The Practice, “Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions.” And, wire weeding has saved me from a wealth of weeds.

Tomato and Carrot Soup

It’s cold. Well, cold for Texas. I love winter, but these days where the clouds dim the sun and frigid gusts cut through clothes, its requires more to be outside.  So, I bundle up head to toe with layers. And, with the neck gaiter I’m sporting, the band around my eyes is the only skin visible. 

A sane person would wait it out inside, but I find these dreary days good for tackling projects that have been on my to-do list—woodworking and building fences, cutting out invasive plants along the fencerows, raking leaves, and earthworking.  Planting is out of the question until the weather moderates as I don’t want to to have the desiccating winds dry my new installs out.

I find myself craving soup after being outside in this weather as it warms the soul.  And, one of my favorites is tomato and carrot soup. I love the blending of summer and winter in this flavorful dish.

We entomb the taste of those hot days long gone by freezing tomatoes we pick in June. We process those delicious orbs into crushed pulp and juice and save both for cooking later in the year. The former makes delicious spaghetti and chicken cacciatore sauce, and the latter stores well in large glass jars for later soups.

And, then there’s the carrots from the dark side of the calendar. My carrot tops are blemished from the sudden cold snap we had earlier this month.  But, as they emerge from the ground, I find they are beautiful. And, sweet!  As Eliot Coleman described in his book The Winter Harvest Handbook, he sells these overwintered carrots as “candy carrots,” and kids go wild over them.

When carrots are exposed the cold temperatures, the roots accumulate sugars to help act as an antifreeze.  So, I like to harvest carrots in January once we’ve had some chillier weather.  They taste sweeter than those harvested in warmer spells.  The roots come out of the ground all shapes and sizes, but they taste and cook the same. Often, I will harvest a whole batch, steam them, and freeze them at this peak of taste. Once they’ve been vernalized (chilling exposure that induces flowering), it won’t be long until they start bolting, which for us can start as early as February. ‘Rainbow’ is a favorite cultivar of mine for its incredible sweetness, and I like ‘Napoli’, ‘Mokum’, and ‘Bolero’, too.

Sweet multi-colored ‘Rainbow’ carrots picked and ready to go into soup.

I had not thought of adding carrots to tomato soup until we travelled through Washington, Connecticut a few years ago. I still remember our visit as clear as ever.  Karen had wanted to see the town that inspired Gilmore Girls, and after walking around for a few hours on a cold, sunny day, we were hungry. We made our way up the hill to G.W. Tavern, a quaint restaurant in an 1850’s colonial home. On a whim, I ordered their tomato soup, and it was THE most delicious tomato soup I’ve ever eaten in my life. There was a texture and especially a sweetness to it that I had never tasted, and it wasn’t too runny. They even had these little harvest crackers to go along with it that were made with sunflower seeds and other grains.

The revolutionary styled G.W. Tavern where I first had this delicious soup

I immediately got online and found a copycat recipe from whenwegettoit.com. We made it after returning home, and it was very close to the original we had on our trip.

But, I realized over the holidays that the website was no longer active, and that recipe was gone! Fortunately, I had saved it, and I want to welcome this delicious dish back to the internet with a few changes of my own.

Let me know what you think. We serve ours with gooey grilled cheese.

Ingredients

Two tablespoons olive oil 

Two medium-sized onions

Two large carrots (or several small-to-medium-sized carrots if you like more texture)

Two cloves of garlic

One 32 ounce jar of tomato juice frozen from the summer (or tomato juice from the store)

Additional fresh or canned tomatoes as needed (depends on how tomatoey you want it)

One 32 ounce container of stock (chicken or vegetable)

Fresh or dried basil

1/4 to 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Sugar, salt, & pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Peel and chop up carrots, onions, and garlic.

2. Heat olive oil in a big soup pot.  Add the vegetables and cook for 10 minutes.  Cook until onions are golden and carrots are just getting soft.  A little water can help prevent the vegetables from browning.

3. Add stock, tomato juice, and additional tomatoes. (For the additional tomatoes, I’ve used diced, stewed, paste, crushed, or fresh. It just depends on how much tomato flavor you want or what you have available in the pantry). Bring to a boil, then simmer for another 10 minutes. If the tomato juice is too runny, you can simmer for longer periods of time to boil off more water.

4. Turn off the heat and add dry or fresh basil leaves to the soup. 

5. Blend the soup with a hand blender until smooth or in batches in a normal blender.  Mix in cream as needed until soup reaches the desired consistency, usually 1/4 to 1/2 cup for me.  Add sugar (I like to add at least 1 tablespoon to help play off the sweet carrots), salt (I add 1 tsp as a general rule), and pepper to taste.  Place back on heat to warm if needed.

6. Enjoy after a long day of winter gardening.