by Greg Alder | Sep 19, 2025 | Avocados |
Right on the coast this is less important, but inland you’ll find it beneficial to thin the crop on certain branches of avocado trees. By inland, I mean roughly five miles or farther from the water, and by thin, I mean remove some of the avocados. Rather than...
by Greg Alder | Sep 19, 2025 | Avocados |
Below is my video profile of the Hellen variety of avocado. You can read my full profile of the Hellen variety here, where I share my experience with the Hellen tree and its characteristics also. Interested in buying an avocado tree or finding scion wood to graft? See...
by Greg Alder | Aug 29, 2025 | Avocados |
In June of 2023, I planted a GEM avocado tree. It was a good-looking tree, on top and bottom. The leaves showed healthy new growth and the roots were abundant and with new white tips. I planted in the best way I knew, a way in which I’d planted many trees before that...
by Greg Alder | Aug 22, 2025 | Avocados |
“The skin is tough and leathery and peels easily (as a glove would),” wrote Carter Barrett of the Hellen avocado in the 1939 Yearbook of the California Avocado Society. Mr. Barrett was right. Hellen avocados do peel like a glove. They are also large, usually weighing...
by Greg Alder | Aug 7, 2025 | Avocados |
On August 23, you can join John Schoustra in a tasting of six varieties that are in season at Apricot Lane Farms in Moorpark, Ventura County: Pinkerton, Hass, Nabal, Reed, Lamb, and Gelado. Schoustra is the orchard manager at Apricot Lane. In addition, he cultivates...
by Greg Alder | Jul 12, 2025 | Avocados |
In 1956, when Bob Bergh began developing new varieties at the University of California, Fuerte was the most popular avocado in California. Frustrating for farmers, some Fuerte trees were fruitful whereas others were not. And Fuerte trees made more avocados in certain...
by Greg Alder | Jun 27, 2025 | Avocados |
While I like many things about the Lamb variety of avocado (one of which is how late the fruit can hang on the tree), one of its weaknesses is that it tends to make a lot of avocados one year but little the next. Alternate bearing, this is called. So a handful of...
by Greg Alder | May 23, 2025 | Avocados |
A “super” avocado tree is one that make lots of fruit, more fruit year-after-year than other trees of the same variety in a particular grove. The most important question is why a tree is super. And secondly, can you make a copies of it? (I want one in my...
by Greg Alder | Apr 19, 2025 | Avocados |
You can get lucky and plant an avocado tree in your yard and find success on your first try. But for many people, myself included, it takes killing a few trees to learn how to grow an avocado successfully in a particular situation. One situation that many people find...
by Greg Alder | Apr 18, 2025 | Avocados |
Unlike many other fruit trees, avocados are hard to root. Rooting is where you cut a branch off a tree and stick it partly in the ground or a container so that the cut branch will form roots where it is buried. It’s a way of copying, or cloning, a tree. Try this...
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