D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
July 2009
LIFE IN THE SOUTHWESTGoing Nuts
Sometimes it takes a superhero — or several — to plant
a pecan grove.
By Susan Baker / Photos by Dominic Roybal
Apparently, pecans are the new chile. According to what I've seen lately, I would say pecans are the "it" crop of southern New Mexico. On my commutes through the southern Rio Grande valley, I have noticed more and more pieces of farmland being laser-leveled and precisely divided into grids for the planting of new pecan orchards. Rows of young pecan trees girdled with white have gradually replaced crops in fields where I used to see alfalfa, or onions, or even wheat. Where cotton was once king, and chile has reigned over an annual festival complete with not just one but two queens, slight and unassuming pecan saplings are replacing fields of immediate-gratification green with the promise of future canopied splendor.
 |
Photo by Dominic Roybal |
As I drive along the valley, I imagine it transformed into a forested, shady corridor. I think of Stahmann Farms in La Mesa, where even at the height of summer's heat the cool darkness under the majestic pecan trees beckoned to me as a child with dreams of living among the geese next to the ancient lava outcroppings.
Well, who says dreams don't come true? You see, I recently became a pecan farmer. I had some spare "acreage" that wasn't under cultivation — the back part of my one-third acre lot in the Hatch Valley — so I put in a pecan grove on the idle land. Okay, there are only six trees, but the definitions of the words "orchard" and "grove" are not quantifiable, so I'm choosing to call it a grove. The saplings are just sticks, really — one inch in diameter and about four feet tall — and set against the bare dirt. My new pecan grove is hardly even noticeable. The trees won't produce for a few years yet. Nonetheless, I have visions of cool shade in my own grove on a hot summer's day, someday.
This is the part where you would be laughing your head off, if you knew me at all. I am the person who has rock-and-cactus landscaping in her yard because that is just about all I can keep alive. I am notoriously inept at yard work; therefore, I am the ultimate xeriscapist. I keep only plants that can survive on intermittent waterings. All the older trees in my yard have roots down to the water table, which is thankfully near the surface where I live, and my small plot of grass does well or poorly, depending on the amount of rainfall in any given summer. I have a "yard man" who occasionally cuts the grass and rakes leaves, and I must be his least-troublesome account. He used to suggest putting in some more intensive landscaping, but now that he knows me better he just pleads with me to water what I've got every once in a while.
So wherever did I get this notion that I could keep a pecan grove happy? And why did I even want pecan trees? It's not as though pecans aren't available around here. In December, my brother usually gives me pecans from his trees, and my neighbor Ralph sometimes brings me pecans during good production years, which I repay by baking him a pecan pie. A couple of days after I took Ralph the last pecan pie I baked for him, he offered me some more pecans.
"Don't you eat the pecans, Ralph?" I asked him.
"Can't," he said. "Don't have enough teeth," he added, using his tongue to point to the few he has left. Naturally, I felt bad. What good were my pies to him? But Ralph told me that he had scraped off the pecans and put them in the blender until they were finely chopped, then sprinkled them back onto the pie to enjoy. No, I am not making this up.
It had to be Ralph who started this whole idea of my own personal pecans — because if you think my yard is bare, you haven't seen his yard yet. Salt cedar dominates, but over in the corner, unnoticed by me until Ralph pointed it out, is a short and scrawny pecan tree that puts out pretty good-sized pecans. I don't think Ralph even owns a hose, so I can't say I've ever seen him watering, but he claimed to have gotten two grocery sacks of pecans off that thing.
It was that one-tree harvest, and the subliminally rooted image of new pecan trees being planted in the valley every year, that got me thinking: Ralph's getting these pecans off that tree? Well, hey, maybe I can be pecan-independent! I could be the benefactress of pecans to those not fortunate enough to have their very own pecan tree! I could be my own supplier of nuts for pecan pies, nut bars, Christmas baking!
So in January I asked another neighbor, Beto, who has a pecan orchard and who grows and grafts saplings, to come over and give me an estimate on how many trees would fit on my back lot and how much he would charge me for putting them in. In February he brought over a buddy and a few beers and they got down to measuring. Beto said I had enough room for eight trees.
Now, at this point I was inquiring casually, just to see if it was feasible, with no real idea of when I might get around to actually acquiring trees. I had a vague idea that pecan trees must be put in during the spring, but hadn't yet settled on putting them in this spring. Plus, I had other things on my mind: I had just become engaged, and I was feverishly planning a rather short-notice trip to Japan with my step-mom.
I was still sorting my Japanese souvenirs when Beto's wife called the day after I got home from Tokyo in March to ask me, in Spanish, if I still wanted pecan trees. I said "S" in my jet-lag-induced exhaustion. I think I was still processing thoughts in Japanese, where hai ("yes") can indicate acknowledgement rather than acquiescence, but 10 minutes later Beto was out in my backyard digging the first hole. Confused, I went outside — I thought we were still in the negotiating stage of this project!
"Wait a minute, seor!" I said. "How much are they? What kind are they? How often do I have to water them?" He gave me a price for only six trees, because he had expanded his own orchard and these six were all he had for sale. Then he named the type of pecan tree. I knew nothing of the names of what are known as "improved" pecan cultivars, which range from a whole slew of Native American tribe names to saints' names to proper names; between Beto's accent and my ignorance on the subject, I had a hard time making out what he was telling me. First I heard the name as "Western Slide," which sounded like a line dance. I asked him to repeat it, and the second time I heard "Western Sky." Very poetic, I thought, but I suspected that I was not understanding the name correctly. I asked him if he could spell it for me, which was a silly question to ask of a man who doesn't speak much English. He held out his hands in a helpless gesture. So I left him digging the holes for my new trees and went inside to check my bank balance, and to consult with that which provides more answers in this universe than the Oracle at Delphi: the Internet.
Before Beto finished digging the second hole, I was able to ascertain that we were dealing with the pecan cultivar "Western Schley," which is pronounced like "sly" with a "shhh" sound at the beginning (and which was exactly what Beto had been saying to me all along). It's the variety most recommended for our area, I learned, and should be watered every couple of days when it is newly transplanted. Since I have neither a well nor irrigation rights from the river, I started thinking about putting in a drip system for keeping the trees watered through the summer months, if I wanted them to produce anything besides comments from the neighbors.