Smart planting of avocado trees where soil is heavy and rainfall is high
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...
Avocado tree clones itself
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 with...
March in Jacques’ food garden
Spring has sprung. See what's ready to eat -- and what's in bloom -- in the diversified San Diego County food garden of Jacques: https://youtu.be/GT_9NRoLD00 Ever eaten an ice-cream bean? Do you have a favorite loquat? Do you share Jacques' chop-and-drop perspective...
Stewarding special avocado trees, with Stefan Koehne
Stefan was driving, taking me on a tour of avocados in South Africa, but he took a turn on a dirt road into a banana plantation. We got out of the truck and I followed him into the dark and humid canopy of green acres and acres of Dwarf Cavendish plants. We walked...
February in Jacques’ food garden
What's ripe in February on the fruit trees and other edible plants in Jacques' eclectic food garden? A lot of citrus and more. Have a look: Do you grow some of these same plants? Do they also taste good in February? See other months in Jacques' garden: January, March....
Rejuvenation pruning of stone fruit trees
On peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, and pluots, I want all of my fruit within reach. So I prune these stone fruit trees down to a height of about seven feet. But I also want my trees to make fruit at chest height, and waist height. I want the fruit within reach...
Gray Martin revisits his “Eight Predictions” from 1996
It is courageous to make predictions in public, especially in writing. Most of us sit on the sidelines and criticize privately or just shrug our shoulders and say, “Who knows how things will go?” Not Gray Martin. During the 1980’s and 90’s, Gray worked as a botany...
Growing carrots in containers
Yesterday morning I picked carrots to send with my kids in their lunches for the school day. I walked out to the pot on the driveway, pulled up about twenty, gave the green tops to the chickens, washed the roots off, and placed them in the lunch boxes. I grow carrots...
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