Book Review: The Urban Bestiary

...estiary is an exploration of the intimate intersection of humans and other urban animals, such as coyotes and raccoons and opossums and squirrels. In The Urban Bestiary, Haupt introduces us to our close neighbors, the animals which share our land, and sometimes even our homes. She gives us a naturalist’s overview of their behaviors, physiology and life cycles, interspersed with personal anecdotes and interviews with wildlife experts. The resulting...

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How to Deal With Thrips on Stone Fruit

...to our thrip problem. And perhaps some mulch and weeding around the base of the tree is in order. UC Davis goes on to suggest monitoring methods as well as organic controls if that’s your cup of tea. The scarred fruit gets rotten on the tree and is unappetizing. We did get some unblemished fruit, but there was enough of a thrip problem to warrant monitoring next year. Did you have thrip problems this season?...

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Welcome to the Summer Fruit Season

...I am very happy to begin the summer fruit season. I will continue to gorge myself on these sweet treats while they are at their peak over the next few months. And now for the shameless plugs- I’ll be at the Old L.A. Farmer’s Market in Highland Park this afternoon selling veggie seedlings and fruit trees. So come and visit and pick up your very own peach tree and some growing tips. And did you know fruit trees are excellent for irrigating with gre...

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What’s the Most Squirrel-Proof Fruit?

.... Perhaps it would be informative to see what trays in the buffet have any fruit left for the resident hominids. Towards that end, I’ve created an annoying, animated emoticon scale ranging from one to five squirrels with five being the most favored fruits and one being the least favored. In the give up all hope category: Figs: Everyone loves figs. Raccoons, squirrels, rats and even Roman emperors. I’ve even seen raccoons, in the middle of the day,...

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Fruit Tree Pruning Workshop in Silver Lake this Weekend

...and knowledge to raise money for this great cause. I need to prune my own fruit trees this weekend, so why not make it a workshop?! This Sunday, April 8th from 1pm-3:00 pm in HaFo SaFo (Echo Park/Silver Lake) I have taught fruit tree pruning classes at botanical gardens including The Huntington and I will adapt the same handouts I’ve used for this workshop. We will prune 1 peach, 1 apple and 1 lemon tree so that we can discuss the three most comm...

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