Comparing four mixes for starting vegetable seeds
Before doing this experiment, if you had asked me which mix to buy for starting vegetable seeds I would have recommended the most expensive you could find. You generally get what you pay for with potting and seed-starting mixes, was my view. My view has changed. The...
Avocados for sale
I always wished there were a way to taste the fruit of an avocado variety before deciding whether to plant that kind of tree in my yard. I also wished there were more places to buy avocados of varieties other than Hass. I know that some of you also have these wishes;...
The story of one avocado tree that sprouted from a compost heap
We've all found avocado seeds sprouting in our compost heaps, right? Here's the story of one that was allowed to grow and grow and grow, and then some. All of my Yard Posts are listed HERE
Pinkerton avocado tree: a profile
No less an authority on avocado varieties than Oliver Atkins wrote in 1978 that Pinkerton “appears to be the best variety we have come up with for California since the Hass.” Why then, over the ensuing 44 years, have most of us in California never eaten a Pinkerton...
Ceanothus, wild lilac: the blue bushes on the hills
Take a drive out of town here in early spring and you can’t miss the blue bushes glowing on the California hillsides. There’s nothing else like them. What are they? Ceanothus some people call them, or wild lilac they’re called by others, and some refer to them as...
Growing tomatoes in Southern California
Occasionally, if I’m not producing certain vegetables in the garden, my wife buys them at the grocery store. She’ll buy some peppers in winter, for example, or cauliflower in summer. But never do we buy tomatoes. Tomatoes that aren’t home grown aren’t worth eating. If...
Where do fruit trees flower?
This is the time of year when I stroll through my yard looking closely at the flowers on my fruit trees. Where are they? Are the flowers on branches that are growing anew right now, or on branches that grew last summer, or on older branches? Are the flowers forming...
Cara Cara navel orange tree: a profile
Cara Caras are tasting like candy here in mid-February. They’re like a pink Jolly Rancher – even though they’re an “orange.” I hear of people harvesting Cara Caras around Christmas, and the entry for Cara Cara navel orange in the University of California at...
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