I predict that avocados will be going cheap next summer, if my tree is any indication of the vintage. (Actually, I have two trees, but while one fruits, the other is locked in a battle for survival with a huge Phoenix palm on the boundary. I thought the Phoenix palm finally suffocated it last summer but a miraculous resurrection is underway: the avocado "stick" has put out a clump of fresh new foliage!)I love avocados, so it was a thrill to find one tucked in between the elderberries when I bought this garden three years ago. I have no idea what variety I have (perhaps someone can identify it from this photo?) and I have no idea how old my tree is either, but it produces about 20-30 fat avocados a year. Each spring, the tree literally disappears into a cloud of small flowers, yet avocados aren't known for their fertility. A mature tree can produce up to a million flowers in order to form a couple of hundred avocados.
The biggest problem with my tree is its height. It's at least five metres tall and it's a spindly, gawky sort of thing. Plus it has a lousy position: it grows on my north-western boundary, in semi-shade, in very wet soil. I'm surprised that it has even made it this far, because avocados hate wet feet. Thus I treat every fruit as a sort of miracle baby and I get out there with my super long Fiskars pruning wand thingie (I know this extendable tool has a proper name but I've forgotten what it is) to deliver each fruit safely to my fruit bowl to ripen.
I haven't pruned the tree since I've lived here, but there's one branch that's growing practically horizontally. It casts quite a lot of shade over my potato patch so I decided this year that it would get the chop. I headed out tonight with the pruning saw, only to discover that... there are about 50 fruit on that branch alone! Looks like I'm in for a bumper crop.
Typical. I'll have to wait until this time next year to give it a haircut.
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Hi Lynda,
I live in S. California (N. of San Diego) and as you probably know, we grow quite a few avocados in this area. Your fruit looks like the Haas variety which is the most common type of avocado although it would be helpful to see the actual plant with leaves in it's "healthy" state. I am also surprised that you're getting any fruit because the optimal place for avocados in in decomposed granite on a slope in an almost frost-free climate (they tolerate a small bit of frost).
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