I revel in visiting other yards and farms, where I learn so much. This past year I got around a bit, and below are a few of the remarkable things I saw and lessons I took away, presented in chronological order.
January 4, 2021. How far north can lemon trees grow outdoors? I don’t know, but they can certainly survive above the California border, as proven by this lemon tree thriving in a yard in the town of Harbor, Oregon.
January 6, 2021. Check out the extraordinary “off bloom” and fruitset on this Carmen avocado tree in the yard of some expert growers near Santa Cruz.
This Carmen variety grows and flowers differently from most others, and I’m still learning about its habits.
February 2, 2021. A canyon yard I got to visit near San Diego State University had lots of creative features and surprising plants, including this productive coffee bush.
March 7, 2021. A friend showed me a Reed tree in his avocado grove that had a single branch growing mysteriously mishapen fruit. Was it a sport limb, a natural mutation? I took this photo.
Later, he informed me that he discovered a graft union. He had grafted onto the tree a couple years prior, but forgot to label the branch. It was fruit of a variety from Australia that some people call Koala. Lesson: label your grafts. You might think you’ll remember but you won’t.
April 11, 2021. Fremontodendron californicum is a large bush with showy yellow flowers that is native to California, especially the San Gabriel Mountains of Los Angeles County, which is where I found this one planted in a yard in the foothills town of Glendora. Natives can give you color without much care, and they often feed bees and birds too.
June 26, 2021. Near the beach you can grow broccoli into the summer and still harvest heads bigger than a golf ball. Here is one heading up nicely in early summer within a couple miles of the ocean in my aunt’s garden in Encinitas.
July 9, 2021. Can you get fruit from an avocado tree in a pot? These tall Reed and Hass trees in pots in a San Diego yard leave no doubt as to the answer.
August 8, 2021. At the entrance to the Carpinteria community garden, in Santa Barbara County, there is a massive – and massively productive – passionfruit vine growing over an arbor (with some grapevine mixed in). Passionfruit vines grow incredibly well throughout Southern California.
August 12, 2021. Also in Carpinteria, I noticed a pineapple guava (Feijoa sellowiana) bush that had been pruned up into the form of a tree, with a turtle shell top. This takes constant and consistent attention to pruning, in case you didn’t know. Pineapple guavas naturally grow like pomegranates, as multi-stem bushes.
November 23, 2021. Jan Boyce is a variety of avocado tree that has an open growth habit, making it not ideally suited to hot, inland locations where fruit is vulnerable to sunburn. However, as I discovered in a grove in the hills overlooking cool Monterey Bay, Jan Boyce can thrive where summers are mild.
November 24, 2021. An apple grower near Santa Cruz shared with me some red-fleshed varieties that he grows, and they blew my mind. I realized how much more than sweet and crisp an apple can be.
December 25, 2021. Our family had a white Christmas as we spent it up in the Sierra foothills at my brother and sister-in-law’s place. Here is what their home orchard looked like.
Chill hours are not something they worry about.
Thank you to everyone who let me visit their yards, farms, and orchards this year, and learn more about growing food, and share about it here so that you can learn too.
An overall lesson that I have been reminded of in 2021 is how superior it is to be out in the world touching things compared to merely reading about them. Let’s turn off our computers, put down our phones, close our books, and visit one another and observe and touch the real, physical world often in 2022.
All of my Yard Posts are listed HERE
Fantastic photos and stories! But now I’m hungry for exotic fruit. Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and great growing in 2022!
I had no idea that a pineapple guava could grow so large. August 12th: The diameter of the trunk and size of the bush surprised me!
I have several planted around my place, now I am second guessing about their locations. LOL
Hi Richard,
How old do you think that one is? Maybe I’ll ask the owner next time I’m there.
I have a pineapple guava planted only two feet from the wall of my house. Luckily, it doesn’t complain about severe pruning!
I recognize that coffee plant. Let me know when you’re in the area and you can see some Lavender Gem Tangelos on the tree. We’re going to start picking them here and there. Happy New Year.
Thank you so much for sharing your stories and pics.
Keep on going, Greg!!!
Hi Greg! Curious to hear your thoughts on avocados grown in Santa Clarita. I was driving through Canyon Country of Santa Clarita and noticed there was not a single avocado tree growing anywhere in the area. I was in zone 9b, which I thought would have an abundance of avocado trees. Is it because the winters are too cold? Summers too hot? Do you know of anyone successfully growing avocados in that region of Santa Clarita? Thank you again for all of your wonderful updates.
Hi Eric-in lieu of Greg’s response, I’ll offer my own amateur opinion, based on my experiences out here in Chatsworth (not too far from there).
It could be that the reason Canyon Country doesn’t support large scale avocado farming isn’t because of the heat (very!) or cold (can be!), but instead, the wind. When the offshore Santa Ana winds blow from the deserts out through the valleys and coasts of So Cal, they can gust very high indeed. I’ve faced 60MPH wind gusts in my neighborhood, and I believe it can be as strong or even stronger out there in Santa Clarita. Those winds have stripped leaves off of young tender avocado trees that I’ve lost, and even broken branches. Areas that were deep in mulch are swept bare, and the humidity that accompanies such events is extremely low, often in single digits, all of which are antithetical to avocado growing.
My own personal remedy (so far) has been to build shelters with shade cloth to break the wind, but I’m not ready to declare success just yet. That solution may be available for a backyard grower with a few trees, but in a commercial grove that would probably be too much cost and work for an unsure payoff. What will I do when my trees get too big for their shelters? I’ll hope for the best and celebrate having lived long enough to see them that tall.
This is all just conjecture on my part, I hope Greg follows up with a more expert, informed opinion.
Hi Eric and Doug,
Thanks for sharing, Doug. You’re right about everything, as far as I know. We have heard from some people growing avocados in Santa Clarita generally here in the comments sections, so maybe they can chime in about Canyon Country specifically.
Hi Greg, I’ve been trying to find where to post this, so I’m giving this a shot. Today (1/5/22) the San Francisco Chronicle has an article about an amazingly huge and prolific avocado tree, that has not yet been identified. It looked like a Reed avocado to me, and in my search for info about the Reed I came across your site (so happy to have found you, even though I’m in the Bay Area). I wondered what you would think, looking at the images! So I’m posting this here in case you might take a gander and weigh in. I’m fascinated and inspired seeing this enormous tree in the middle of SF.
Hi Jenny,
That tree sounds very interesting. I can’t see any of the images without a subscription, unfortunately. Maybe there is another way to share them?
Hi Jenny,
But based on the two photos that I can partially see, Nabal would be my first guess. Reed is possible too though. However, if an avocado tree is very large it often ends up being a seedling; so it might be a unique variety that someone grew from a seed many decades ago.
Let us know if you know where the tree is and maybe we can get better photos of it or I can visit it and make a better guess.
Thanks Greg! I’m not familiar with Nabal, so I’ll go do some homework.
His store (and the yard behind with the tree) is the Pacific Heights True Value Hardware Store, in SF. So, we can’t just casually go check it out. But with this article, I’m curious what identifications will come out. And whether Ammar Swalim will be open to having plant identifiers come into his back yard!
Hello Greg,
I’m looking for your post that included photos of healthy avocado trees growing in locations that are typically not recommended for planting avocado trees (in a lawn, next to a sidewalk, close to a building…). What is the title of that Yard Post?
Appreciatively,
Olivia
Hi Olivia,
I think it’s “How far apart to plant avocado trees.”
Yes! That’s the post I was trying to find. Thanks, Greg, for your speedy reply!