Hand pollinating avocados
It was 95 years ago that J. Eliot Coit, who would later be called the father of the avocado industry, wrote the article “How to make the avocado tree bear.” In other words, we've always wished avocado trees gave us more fruit. One way to encourage production is to be...
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Growing fruit trees in Southern California
April is a dynamic time to talk about fruit trees -- as they are all blooming and flushing -- and this last week I did so as the monthly speaker for the Ocean Hills Garden Club in Oceanside. When allotted only an hour to cover "Growing fruit trees in Southern...
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How to outsmart garden weeds
Weeding the garden is not mindless work. This struck me the other day when my wife was helping in the garden and I saw her do what we all instinctively do to a weed: rip it out of the ground. That's generally a fine thing to do with a small weed, but this was a big...
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Growing and harvesting lettuce in Southern California
Gardening as sport: This year, I took the challenge of growing more lettuce than my brother’s family could eat. He and my sister-in-law fuel their family of six with a quasi paleo diet, which includes a lot of lettuce, and they would be spending a week at our house in...
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What’s the best kind of avocado to grow?
This question is unanswerable in an absolute sense. For who has tasted, let alone grown, every kind of avocado? Certainly not me. But I'm game to attack it with a more fun and more practical twist. I'm imagining that I just moved into a new house with a blank yard ....
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Rain is coming! How do I garden?
I get frantic when rain is forecast. Southern California doesn’t get rain often, so I really feel the need to take advantage of each event. Rain provides ideal conditions for certain garden tasks. Some are best done just before the rain starts, some during the...
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Don’t cut off the fruiting wood: Pruning lesson number one
The first time I pruned a plum tree, I climbed into it and started snipping off stubby branches that looked good for nothing. They were kind of in my way too, snagging on my shirt. Hmm, the plum tree didn't flower much that year. It set only six plums in total....
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The Quetzal and the Wild Avocado
Our guide through the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve in the highlands of Costa Rica had just picked up a fallen orchid to show us when we heard a whistle. He put the orchid down and started walking briskly toward the whistle. We followed. He turned back to...
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The sucker frost
Both my plants and I got suckered by this week’s frost. I had gone up to Oregon and Washington, not thinking any plants in my yard would need protection while I was gone. It was snowing up north, and I thought of returning to Southern California as returning to...
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Oh, the mistakes I’ve made: Thinking flowers were for girls
I found myself doing the strangest thing in the yard the other day: planting flowers. A few years ago, I could not have predicted this day would come. Flowers were for girls. Or maybe for old men who like to prune roses. But no -- I’ve since become enlightened:...
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Don’t judge a tree by its first fruit
My Pixie mandarin tree is carrying its first fruit, which look pitiful. They’re small, warped. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Pixie mandarins are no good, and I’d replace it with a different mandarin. Luckily, I've had fruit off of mature Pixie trees. They're...
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Dealing with aphids on broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower
Aphids in many Southern California vegetable gardens are particularly bad this winter. What a good opportunity to test some control methods and make observations about aphid behavior. Brevicoryne brassicae, that’s the scientific name for the particular aphid I'm...
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I'm Greg. My goal is to help others grow some food at home, with a focus on vegetables and fruits -- especially avocados -- in Southern California. I write a new post every Friday morning. 