2024, three peach trees
We planted three peach trees on the hillside at our new food forest in the spring of 2024, and that summer South Carolina went into a deep drought. The one at the bottom of the slope, closest to the creek, was the last holdout, and two of us spent the summer hauling five-gallon buckets up from the creek to keep it going.
The next spring
We stopped rescuing plants one bucket at a time and asked why the land couldn't hold water on its own. We shaped the ground to slow rain down and let it sink. We covered bare soil. We planted roots that feed the microbes that feed everything else.
The next year more saplings went in the ground, and they held. The summer was gentler, and water also stays with us longer now. The plants feed the microbes, the microbes feed the roots, and every layer gains a little more footing.
