Restoring a 30+ year old avocado orchard

[Pasca]

I thoroughly enjoy your post, pictures and follow up comments.  Personally, I love seeing people's yards and on-going projects.  Yours is just fantastic to follow.  The property definitely requires a lot of work and looks like it has hidden treasures to surprise you.  Thanks so much for sharing.

[johnb51]

On our other property just a few minutes away, we have a seasonal creek that runs through it.  We were able to implement some of the techniques in the books, and had water in the creek until June.  So there are ways to make use of the rain when it does fall.  Right now the infrastructure of California is set up to channel all the rain back into the ocean.  We could do so much more.

Nice!

[Zambezi]

A really beautiful orchard, Janet!

It is truly amazing to see how resilient old trees, esp. old fruit trees are.

Thank you for sharing the photos. It is really inspiring. Some of the trees have their own stories to tell. I can only imagine how daunting the task of pruning will be, but I am certain, slowly but surely, you will get it all done one beautiful tree limb at a time.

I agree with your Husband that this is a lifetime project. But one that comes with deep fulfillment. I wish you and your family the very best of luck on this great adventure! I look forward to learning alongside you, and to seeing your progress and updates as you move along, and seeing you succeed!

[Greg A]

Hi Janet,
Yes, that's me. Thank you. It's great to hear that you plan to keep and propagate those trees that are showing themselves to be tougher than others. Maybe we will all benefit from what you find someday.

[JCorte]

Pasca and Zambezi, thank you for the encouragement and kind words!

Greg A, I hope to find something special to be able to share.  I have several variety trials with many different fruits and some breeding projects I’m excited about.

These next photos give an overview of the property.  One of our biggest concerns is water erosion.  The property is shaped like a bowl with some very steep slopes.  It was originally designed to channel all the rain off the property with large culverts all over the orchard.  This has caused all the rain runoff to be channeled into a few areas too fast, causing erosion and destabilizing the hillsides.  It’s ironic that our two biggest challenges are lack of water and water damage when the rain does fall.

In this photo, I’m on the south hill looking towards the north/northeast hill of the property that is south facing exposed to full sun all day.  This is the driest part of the property.  On the other side of this north hill, the trees actually look pretty good.  It’s hard to tell in the photo but the homes in this pic are on a different hill on neighboring properties.



Here I’m standing on the north hill looking toward the south hill I was standing on in previous photo.



This is viewpoint standing on the eastern side of the property showing the bowl shape I mentioned.



These are examples of the culverts and erosion damage.









The top of the south slope has flat areas at the property line, some of our best trees are on the south facing part of this hill.



Our plan is to slow the water starting from the top of the property.  We will have to excavate some areas to create contours to hold and redirect the runoff.  We have to be careful not to destabilize any of the hillsides by doing this. 

We’ll be planting in all the waterways and where water flows onto the property from the neighboring hill.  I’m thinking lots of vetiver grass along the roads.  We have more ideas but that’s a start. 

For the most part we’re waiting to observe how and where the rain flows this winter.  We are open to any ideas to help us improve and address these challenges.

Janet

[elouicious]

It's an insane amount of work, but there is a reason a lot of the ancient growing areas that are still around are terraced

[johnb51]

The mountains in the background are Palomar?

[JCorte]

Hi John, we're by the Santa Margarita Mountains and Elsinore Mountains.

Elouicious, if we were starting from scratch, we would have created swales on contour lines and created terrace plantings.  Right now we want to save as many trees as we can if possible.  We're going to measure and map out the contour lines and figure out some of the angles of the slopes to see where we can excavate and where we can bring in soil to create boomerang swales.  For sure, we have a lot of work ahead of us.

Janet

[K-Rimes]

Do you have a small excavator or are you renting one? My neighbor rented a small one a few months back and I was blown away with how quick you could get a job done with it. Having one for a week would probably get done every drainage dream you have.

If you have logs around that you can use to shore up soil that you move, they work for a few years and can be sort of a hugelkultur. I have a really hilly area I planted on and I used oak rounds to hold the soil up.

[johnb51]

Hi John, we're by the Santa Margarita Mountains and Elsinore Mountains.

Nice.  Thanks.  Love all the mountains!  When we moved to FL from CA, we missed the mountains big time (and the cool nights).  Highest point in FL 345 ft.  What a joke!

[JCorte]

K-Rimes, we're going to rent an excavator.  We rented one for a couple weeks for the other property, they're great.  The logs are a good idea.  Did you cover yours with soil?  Do you have rattlesnakes in your area?  I wonder if that would create a lot of nice habitat for them.  On a side note, Scott is in Santa Barbara for the 100 mile cycling event.  I thought about contacting you to see if we could trade some plants.  Maybe next time?

Hi John, Scott would love to live in the mountains, but I don't want to live where it gets too cold.  He takes mountain bike and fishing trip every year.  Fallbrook is a good compromise.

Janet