Thin

The peach tress in my backyard are done producing for the year.
Results are mixed.

For one of them -- but not the other three -- I took the time early in the season to thin the fruit.

Thinning always feels wrong.
I'm literally plucking dozens of tiny peaches and throwing them into the compost.

Part of me always imagines each of them large and sweet and juicy.
Culling them seems a shame.
Maybe I should let them all grow.

But now I wish I'd thinned all four trees.

Because where I thinned, I got fat juicy peaches.
And where I didn't, I just got a bunch of hard tiny fruit.

Sometimes getting the best results means deliberately giving up on perfectly good possibilities
so the ones you keep have room to flourish.

All the best,
A.