Have you watered your peach tree?

This morning, as I was writing my field note for the upcoming market, I started thinking about my peach tree. Right on cue, on the 1st of September its blossoms arrived and I have a tree full of pink flowers.

It is something I have made myself notice each year. Maybe it is because people say the seasons are all over the place, but sometimes I think the world moves so quickly that we don’t really remember a year has passed unless we intentionally watch it unfold.

While I was thinking about my peach tree, I remembered that soon I would have to start looking for peach leaf curl. Peach trees are prone to it, especially if we have a wet spring. This year, however, spring may be more windier and drier.

With the wind and dry weather came another memory.

Most days, an older man zooms past my house on his electric pushbike, usually wearing a red helmet, although some days he rebeliously wears none at all, with his shirt often flapping in the wind from the speed he is doing. He hasn’t been past lately because our road is closed while they dig it up and fix the drains.

I know that when the road opens, the man will ride past our house again. If he catches me outside on the front porch in the middle of summer, he will often call out and ask whether I have watered my peach tree. He knows when I haven’t watered it because he has an eye for those things.

He has also stopped to suggest that I should fertilise it with seaweed collected from one of the local beaches. When I am busy, I can feel mildly irritated. Other times, it reminds me that kindness often turns up in surprising moments.

Last summer, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and he gave me one of the peaches from his own tree. It was fat and juicy, and possibly the best homegrown peach I had ever eaten.

It made me think that if I looked after my peach tree instead of treating it as an afterthought, my tree might also grow big, beautiful, juicy peaches.

As I write this, I wonder if I can get ahead of the game this year. When the road opens again and he rides past, maybe I will have collected that seaweed and popped it around the bottom of my peach tree. 

I will remind myself to water it while the wind is blowing this spring, and maybe, just maybe, come January, I will be rewarded with big, fat, juicy peaches, all thanks to the kindness of the man who zooms past my house on his bike.