by Greg Alder | Jan 27, 2023 | Avocados |
At times an avocado tree will set more fruit than it can grow to maturity without negative consequences. The tree might be too small such that carrying much fruit will stunt its growth, or the fruitlets might be too numerous on a single branch such that it will bend...
by Greg Alder | Jan 26, 2023 | Avocados |
That’s a group of winter avocados with an early-picked Hass. Today, I can offer two of the winter varieties: Bacon and Fuerte. Order a mixed box or one filled with just Fuerte. Here are the order pages: Mixed or Fuerte only. Bacon These avocados are named after...
by Greg Alder | Jan 6, 2023 | Avocados |
Enjoy this video profile of an avocado variety that comes from Florida and is rarely grown in California. Here the fruit matures early, even earlier than Fuerte. In Israel, the Day variety has been found to be a good rootstock in some situations. I present the Day...
by Greg Alder | Jan 5, 2023 | Avocados |
Let’s start 2023 off right with a harvest of one of the finest avocados of all time: Fuerte. I had thought of waiting another week to pick, but after I tasted the beauty pictured above and it contained every bit of flavor you could hope for, I could not delay....
by Greg Alder | Dec 30, 2022 | Avocados |
Thank you to everyone who ordered avocados in 2022. It was a joy to share with you different varieties and to connect you to the farmers throughout Southern California who grew them. For 2023, I’m predicting the following harvest schedule: January: Fuerte,...
by Greg Alder | Dec 23, 2022 | Fruit |
My son and I were pruning our macadamia nut tree when his loppers couldn’t cut through a branch. I saw that they were undersized for the branch. “Don’t force it,” I said. “If it feels like you have to use a lot of strength, it means you...
by Greg Alder | Dec 9, 2022 | Avocados |
At times I feel more in common with folks growing avocados 300 miles north of me in California’s Central Valley than I do with those just twenty miles west in Encinitas. A coastal location like Encinitas is never hot and never cold whereas the Central...
by Greg Alder | Nov 25, 2022 | Citrus |
I spotted this sign in a Starbucks the other day, featuring a coffee that is claimed to have Meyer lemon in its flavor profile, and I wondered how that would make Frank Meyer feel. Initially, he might shake his head because he clearly requested that no plant be named...
by Greg Alder | Nov 25, 2022 | Citrus, Fruit |
A friend asked me how to know when to pick the tangerines from his tree. My first thought was, it’s obvious, you pick them when they taste good. But then I remembered that for some people gardening is full of rights and wrongs; he was afraid there was a correct...
by Greg Alder | Nov 4, 2022 | Avocados |
In 1984, a new avocado variety was patented by the University of California and released to growers. It was called Gwen, and it showed great promise. Gwen was estimated to produce approximately double the amount of fruit per acre compared to Hass, the standard...
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