Posted on 08/19/2022 11:39:47 AM PDT by grundle
Artist-teacher-gardener Jose Ramirez never considered a lawn for his Boyle Heights home. Instead, he created a smorgasbord landscape of fruit.
This is no ordinary orchard, with trees carefully spaced in neat rows. In a densely built residential neighborhood, he's crowded more than 250 fruit trees along winding paths; multiple varieties of pluots, apricots, nectarines, apples, citrus and avocados are planted so close that their branches intertwine. Just a few steps out his back door, Ramirez and his family can pick fruit from 10 trees around a small deck — Bearss lime, papaya, cherimoya, mango, apple, guava, Meyer lemon, mandarin, nectarine and ... cinnamon?
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
Talented.
Why did he get rid of the marijuana?
cool, I am starting the process of doing something similar on a roof.
See what can be done if you don’t have a nazi HOA stickin’ thier nose in your business?
Looks luscious!
I was just going to say, there’s clearly no HOA involved.
And major kudo’s to him. Very cool.
“See what can be done if you don’t have a nazi HOA stickin’ thier nose in your business?”
We live in an HOA and have bananas, guava, lime, lemon, papaya and more.
I would think that fruit trees require lots of water, or how else would they yield juicy fruit.
“...Ramirez, his neighbors, passersby, the homeless and his family can pick fruit from 10 trees around a small deck...”
ping
They do indeed. He's putting that water to good practical use rather than wasting it on a lush lawn or a swimming pool.
For his older trees, he uses gray water from his kitchen sink, and a rickety system of PVC pipes propped up on bricks to collect rainwater off his roof. Those pipes are dusty these days because of the drought, but when it rains, instead of running down his nearly vertical driveway into the street, all that free water gushes down the gutters around his roof and into the orchard soil, made spongey and friable by years of compost and mulch.
Then the - (filling the blank: home owners association, town counsel, ordinances) - made him tear it out and install grass.
“system of PVC pipes”
Not anymore! The government AOP/IRS anti-oil police will have him shut down by midnight. Too bad his secret was leaked.
How long until the gubmint steps in and makes him destroy it ? :-(
For several years, my SIL bought one type of every variety of fruit tree that costco had. He planted them in large tubes. They never got much more than 6 feet tall, but were very busy and supplied more than enough fruit for a family of four (and relatives) could eat. He had around 70 (I know because I’d have to water them when they went on vacation). A few years back someone offered him $500 for one of his apple trees. He sold it. They’re going to be moving out of state, so he’s now sold all but three for several hundred each. I never asked him how much his water bill was.
A tragic fire.
It all went up in smoke.
“I would think that fruit trees require lots of water, or how else would they yield juicy fruit.”
The guy in the article lives in L.A. The basin imports a huge amount from canals, reservoirs, and lakes from all over California. Surprisingly more trees are lost to over-irrigating than probably to any other cause. Over-irrigation combined with poor drainage especially leads to tree death. For the period after leaf drop in the fall and until shoot and leaf growth get underway in the spring, trees normally will not need irrigation.
https://homeorchard.ucanr.edu/The_Big_Picture/Irrigation/
In the San Joaquin Valley, north of L.A., one of the highest yield of fruit tress of different types in the US exists. And as long as they can get water from the Sierras and still have ground water, they can do quite well. The drought they are having over the last decade is effecting snow in the high mountains more than lack of rains. If it weren’t for irrigation in the valley the place would be a desert.
wy69
The house next door to my brother’s house was sold to a Polish immigrant who had his entire yard plowed under. He planted the whole place with potatoes. The neighborhood hated the look because they prided themselves on beautiful lawns. He left the potatoes in the ground that fall.
The following Spring he had the whole place plowed under again and planted grass. By the end of that summer he had the most beautiful lawn I’d ever seen before or since.
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