Holy Guaca-Moly

 The avocado is an evergreen tree and requires full sun. Light, frequent watering is necessary. The tree itself has shallow roots so a nice bed of leaf mulch protects the roots and provides less watering. Plus, wide spreading branches with heavy foliage make dense shade beneath. The avocado tree drops its leaves quite heavily all year round.
Where I live in California we have two kinds of avocados grown here: Mexican and Guatemalan. We have lots of Fuerte avocado trees on our land and it is thought to be a hybrid of the two.

Guatemalan varieties find ideal climate protected from direct wind. Mexican varieties bear smaller fruit. Avocado trees are very hardy and will grow up to 30 feet and spread wider. We have a gentle slope on a hillside of 2 1/2 acres for all 77 avocado trees to grow and they have the best protection from the real strong winds.

The most important factor in growing avocados is good drainage. Most roots of the avocado tree are in the top 2 feet of soil, so water lightly and frequently. I would hate for you to see our water bill living in Southern California. So, us farmers welcome the rain!

An important note to remember is that Avocado trees cannot survive freezing temperatures. Only one winter did the temperature drop below 28 degrees for more than 4 hours and we lost our whole crop. We stumped all our trees and started all over. Oh, the perils of a farmer.

The other type of avocado that is found in abundance on our ranch is the Hass avocado with bumpy, pebbly skin. It is a very large spreading tree and its fruit is almost dark purple to black in color. Many times you will hear others refer to the avocado as buttery in taste. I love to hide avocados along with brightly colored eggs at Easter time for our Grandchildren to find. What fun!

Here is a list of other kinds of avocado fruit besides the Fuerte and Hass varieties:

Bacon, Duke, Gwen, Jim, Mexicola, Pinkerton (very large green fruit), Reed, Rincon, Santana, Whitsell, Wurtz, and the Zutano (pear-shaped fruit).

Perhaps you’ve seen Fingerling Avocados that are called cocktail avocados. What happens is that these small fingerling fruits form after the embryo of a pollinated flower dies. Winds or sudden heat cause this to happen especially on our Fuerte avocado trees. Pick the little mature avocados, peel them and cut in half. You’ll find that they’re always seedless.

You’ll also find lots of information online regarding health benefits of the avocado oil in natural skin care and hair products. there's avocado lip balm and face cream as well. I’ve also read many articles that monounsaturated fatty acids lower the bad cholesterol. So, the avocado has good fat for us!

Twice a year our son works the Holy Guaca-Moly stand (our friends own this business) as a side job at the local Avocado Festival and Street Fair. The company has 6 stands on the main street offering free samples of guacamole and chips and one tray sells for $7.00 I've heard of one avocado selling for $4.00 each in New York.

We are a small organic avocado farm using mushroom compost and water for our healthy trees. And we love the bees, too! The market price for us farmers will very and being organic we just get a nickel more per pound in sales. Doesn't seem fair sometimes with all the amount of work we do but it's rewarding in other ways. In fact we are the only organic farmers around in our area.

Whether you use the avocado in your salad dressing (avocado vinaigrette with cilantro, cumin), barbecue them, make them into ice cream, smash them into guacamole or just eat them plain, avocados are yummy and very good for you! Enjoy!

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Kids' Kitchen

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Step into the kitchen for some child-friendly fun with food. The forty recipes in this colorful deck are based around the five main food groups, and offer a healthy and exciting way to learn about cooking.

Ages 8 and up
Written By: Fiona Bird
Illustrated By: Roberta Arenson

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 ~ LadyD
“You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.” — C. S. Lewis