Rain makes dreams come true
This morning I awoke to the sound of rain. It's the most pleasant sound, a muffled pecking on the roof. This is the first storm in a series of four that the National Weather Service says will give us three to six inches by Tuesday, an event with more potential to...
Davis Garden Show, best radio podcast for Southern California gardening
How can the un-local Davis Garden Show be the best one for Southern California? It's partly that the radio show/podcast is that good, and it's partly that co-host Don Shor grew up in La Jolla and knows about growing plants here better than we...
Orange blossom or lemon blossom?
Can you tell? Hint: the purple blush on the back sides of the petals gives it away. See the comments section for the answer.
What kind of fruit tree should you plant?
There are so many options. In Southern California, we can grow pears, bananas, oranges, persimmons, figs, peaches, plums, nectarines, jujubes, cherimoyas, sapotes, pomegranates, tangerines, grapefruit, apricots, pluots, mangos, just to name a few. How do you choose?...
Grocery store vs. Backyard chicken egg
Which one of the above eggs is from the grocery store and which one is from one of the chickens in my yard? And why is there a difference in yolk color? Find the answers in the comments section in a few days.
The best fruit tree for kids, and the winner is . . . Kishu!
I suspected that when I pointed out to my son Cass that the Kishu mandarins were ready, it would be a whirlwind of peeling and chewing that wouldn't stop until the tree was bare, and I was right. The photo above shows Cass on December 3rd with the final fruit. He ate...
Miles and his placenta tree turn one, but one of them almost gets eaten by a gopher
I love avocado trees, and I sure love my son Miles, but toward the end of the summer his placenta tree started to lose leaves and then lose more leaves and then have some die back on branch tips, so I got emotional in a way I never have toward a tree. I've killed many...
Bare root season is here! The best time to buy and plant a deciduous fruit tree is now
It's as though there's a second Christmas for food gardeners because around this time nurseries receive shipments of bare root fruit trees (as do mail order suppliers like Peaceful Valley). What's so exciting about bare root fruit trees? And what are they...
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