Invasion of the sunflowers
One recent visitor to my yard asked, "Why all the sunflowers?" "I didn't plant them," I said. "Not even one." "You didn't plant them?" "They're all volunteers. I used to plant sunflowers, but lately, every year, they just pop up on their own all over. I think the...
Have you ever seen an avocado do this?
Are there any lessons to be drawn from this?
Watering vegetable seedling trays from the bottom
Have you ever sown vegetable seeds and then watered them only to see the seeds float up with the water? Here is a simple way that I avoid that. Rather than watering from the top, I water from the bottom and let the soil/compost/planting mix pull the water up. Here are...
Thinning avocados from young trees and grafts
This post's goal is to show in action, in real life, the application of the guidelines in the posts listed below. I know it looks harsh and you may think I'm sacrificing too much, but in my experience, this thinning pays off in the following years. This is me doing...
The Wurtz avocado tree: a profile
Is Wurtz that bad of a name? Why can't nurseries leave it alone? They'll call the variety anything: Dwarf Avocado, Hybrid Dwarf Avocado, Little Cado. Anything except the original, real name: Wurtz. "Dwarf Avocado" "Hybrid Dwarf" "Dwarf Little Cado" Wurtz variety...
Do gopher baskets work?
Do they actually protect a tree's roots from being munched by gophers? And once the tree is big, do gopher baskets not girdle the tree's roots? Here are some avocado trees planted in a yard riddled with gophers that indicate the answers: https://youtu.be/F4N59jOe7C0 I...
Earle’s Mangos in Southern California, Part One
We don't have to learn to grow mangos in Southern California from scratch because others have already been learning for decades. And some of these pioneers are generous enough to walk us through their trial and errors, to teach us what they've figured out about...
Signs your avocado tree is healthy . . . or not
May is usually an easy time of year for an avocado tree in Southern California. Therefore, signs of ill health now should be taken seriously and, if possible, remedied before the potential stress of heat or drought during summer arrives. In my yard this May I have...






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