Harvesting first honey

Harvesting first honey

“Harvesting honey completes a circle in your yard,” said Jacques, as he was guiding me through the process of taking honey from my hive of bees which he had helped me install three years prior. He explained: You grow these plants that flower (strawberries,...

Timely posts for May 8

Friends have been asking about these topics: 1. How will you support your tomatoes this season? I use cages for some, and I use stakes and string for others. Check out this post: “Comparing tomato supports: cage vs. stake-and-string” 2. Your avocado tree...
Supporting The Yard Posts

Supporting The Yard Posts

My goal with The Yard Posts is to help others grow food at home, with a focus on vegetables and fruits — especially avocados — in Southern California. How do I do this? I write short articles – “posts” – each Friday, and I augment each post with photos and...
The Anomalous March of 2026

The Anomalous March of 2026

One day it got up to 101 degrees in our yard, and on another day we played at the beach and got sunburned and the ocean water felt like summer — in March. It was hot, but how unusual was that for March? And how did plants in the food garden respond? HOT...
A Year of Tours through Jacques’ Food Garden

A Year of Tours through Jacques’ Food Garden

In 2025, I visited my friend Jacques about once a month to walk through his eclectic garden of edible plants and taste whatever was ripe. Our goal in filming these tours was to generally show the diversity of what can be grown in Southern California and specifically...
The yard of The Yard Posts

The yard of The Yard Posts

To help you make sense of, and apply to your own yard, the experiences I relate in my “Yard Posts,” I’d like to paint a picture of my yard’s physical aspects: where my yard is located, how big it is, the type of soil underneath, the climate above, and so on. I’ll add...
All Yard Posts

All Yard Posts

It’s a cornucopia, dig in. Find all of my Yard Posts under the categories and curations below. AVOCADOS California, where are your local avocados? How I girdle avocado trees A tour of John Schoustra’s innovative, organic, low-input, high-density avocado grove...
December in Jacques’ garden

December in Jacques’ garden

Dr. White, El Bumpo, Sabor, Lucida, Fino de Jete, Honeyhart, Fortuna, Deliciosa, Pierce, Booth. Who? Cherimoyas! It’s all about cherimoyas in Jacques’ garden this month. Have you ever eaten these “custard apples,” also called Annona cherimola?...
November in Jacques’ garden

November in Jacques’ garden

Last month many fruits were ripe in Jacques’ garden that are still available here in November: pomegranates, dragon fruit, pineapple guavas, tamarillos, and persimmons. So we skipped over those in this tour, but we did find a few new items to taste: longans,...
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