Installing drip irrigation for a vegetable garden
My friend Erik recently planted a new vegetable garden at his new house, but now he's off traveling. So right before he left I helped him install drip irrigation that will take care of his plants while he's gone -- and beyond. Here's what his garden looked like before...
How avocado trees flower
Bloom season is the most exciting for me when it comes to avocados. First, I look at the buds on the branches of trees to try to predict how many will become flowers. Then I observe the bees and flies visiting the flowers. Are there enough? Are the flowers getting...
Growing cucumbers in Southern California
Even on a hot summer day, I can go into the yard and pick a cucumber and bite into it and feel cooled and refreshed. How does that work? There’s no other vegetable quite like a cuke. I need to have them in my garden. Here’s how I go about accomplishing that. Varieties...
Eating pineapple guava flowers
This week I was in the kitchen while my three kids were at the dining room table and I overheard this conversation. Miles (six years old): "There are lots of edible flowers, like pineapple guava, broccoli . . ." Reeve (four years old): "Broccoli is not a flower." Cass...
The GEM avocado tree: a profile
“I believe that 15 years from now we’ll be standing here and we’ll be talking GEM. We won’t be talking Hass. People will go, ‘What is Hass?’” said Mary Lu Arpaia to a room of California avocado growers in 2017. Arpaia knows avocado varieties. She has been the director...
Watering fruit trees with drip irrigation
I water about half of my fruit trees with mini-sprinklers while the other half is on drip irrigation. For example, the citrus trees along my driveway pictured above are all on drip. In this post, I’ll explain why I use drip on many trees, and I’ll give you my best...
Monkey flower: native plant in Southern California that feeds bees and hummingbirds
Monkey flowers dot the hills of Southern California in the spring with their yellow, orange, and red flowers. They're natives; they grow wild here. Monkey flowers also grow along the road in front of my house, but these ones were planted by me. Nevertheless, they feel...
Woolly blue curls: attractive plant native to Southern California that feeds bees
The name is strange but it fits. Woolly blue curls has long candles of velvet-covered, purple-blue flowers that bloom to the sky in April. And the male parts of the flowers, the stamen, arch out just waiting for native bees to land on them. I get a kick out of...
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