Bacon Avocado
2003: In September I planted a Bacon avocado tree in place of the Hass. Perhaps when this tree has matured we can graft on some Hass sprigs. The Bacon is small, but seems very healthy.

2004: 3/10/04: The leaves are again brown at the edges, presumably due to too much water during our winter. 4/11/04: New growth is coming on. Many leaves have fallen, and now I read that perhaps I have been ill-advised in my efforts to care for avocado trees. It seems that I should water it lightly 2-3 times per week. 4/18/04: New leaves are coming out, and some blossoms are coming on. 6/5/04 Leaves are dying and small branches are drying and blackening, so I applied a special fertilizer that is supposed to help the tree recover from shock. 6/20/04: I'm applying the fertilizer once per week, and the tree is healthier, but still drying out. I asked at a local nursery and they suggested that I water the tree twice per week (once with fertilizer, once without). 7/11/04 The VF-11 fertilizer seems to be doing the trick as the tree is clearly a bit taller than it was when we bought it. 9/5/04: The tree is growing ever so slowly, but looks very healthy. I haven't yet seen any blossoms, however.

2005: 2/27/05: We covered the tree with plastic and burlap during the winter, and removed the covering in late January. Much growth was frozen to death, and this seems to be partly because we had plastic sheeting in contact with the leaves. A burlap covering that is kept slightly away from the leaves would be much better. The tree is still very short, there is much evidence of frost damage, but new growth is coming on very well. 3/24/05: In spite of using VF-11 to energize the tree I don't see it doing well, and it certainly needs to grow a great deal before I stop worrying about it. 5/23/05: The tree has a few blossoms on it. I doubt if any fruit will develop this season, however. 6/12/05: There are at least two very small fruits developing. I still doubt if they will reach maturity, however. 7/10/05: One avocado is about the size of an acorn, while the other is still very, very small. 7/21/05: The acorn-sized avocado has disappeared, as of 3 days ago. I'm not sure whether this is due to too much or too little water, or just something that would have happened anyway. 9/6/05: For several weeks I've noticed dryness at the end and edges of some leaves, mostly near the bottom of the tree. I suspect this is due to over-watering, as the soil has been moist every time I checked. I won't give this tree more than one bucket per week. 10/6/05: I've cut back on the watering, but the tree still has lots of leaves that are dry around the edges. Soil is moist, so I don't think the problem is due to lack of water.

DSCN0625.JPG 2006: 2/26/06: Last year's new growth added about 1 foot to the height of the tree. The leaves are brown and dry at the tips and edges (except for the new growth), but overall the tree looks healthy. It may need to be pruned/thinned a bit. As of mid- or late-January I noticed a ton of buds, but I don't know if these are leaves or blossoms. 4/13/06: I noticed two days ago the first blossoms opened up. Now if only the rain will go away and leave this tree to grow some fruit! 4/29/06: The blossoms are opening up nicely now. I have two very low branches that I'd like to clip, but I'm not sure what effect this will have on the tree. 5/19/06: The old leaves have all been shed, the new ones are very healthy, and the blossoms are falling off left and right. There must have been thousands of blossoms on the tree in total, which will hopefully lead to a couple of fruits in late Autumn. 5/30/06: Most of the blossoms are finished, so we'll know shortly if we have a chance to get any fruit this year. 6/2/06: I found one very tiny avocado today. I think that we need to see 10-20 fruits germinate in order to obtain about 4 or 5 ripe ones. Hopefully we can actually harvest something this year. 6/21/06: I believe we have about a dozen small fruits, some of which are slightly larger than a cherry pit. 6/24/06: I found 2 baby fruits on the ground this morning. I wonder if that's just random action, or if it's because of too much or not enough water? The soil seems moist enough, and the last time I watered was 6/21/06 in the evening. I'll water again tonight. 7/4/06: The tree is growing nicely and the leaves look healthy. We're down to about 6 avocadoes on the tree, so I'm still worried that we may end up with nothing. 7/19/06: Still have about 5 avocadoes, the largest of which is the size of a large pecan. Some leaves are falling now. 7/23/06: We had a temperature of 108 degrees yesterday, and many of the leaves were cooked. I'm afraid that this trauma will cause the remaining fruit to fall. What's surprising is that the Hass was barely damaged due to my earlier application of Cloudcover. I was patting myself on the back for how well the Bacon was handling the hot weather, but yesterday was just too much for the tree to handle. 8/2/06: The remaining fruits dropped by 7/30/06, apparently due to the heat trauma. 8/13/06: A few new leaves are beginning to appear, but the tree is in general recovering from the heat wave only with difficulty. 9/8/06: The tree is holding up well, with new growth and very little leaf-fall, but the place that got severely sunburned now has something like a white fungus on it. Don't yet know what to do. 9/22/06: Growth is very good. Hope it continues.

2007: 1/13/07: I put the floodlight on this tree a day later than I should have, so it suffered more frost damage than need be. Two days of hard, sub-20-degree frosts have done serious damage. 3/11/07: I cut back a lot of branches yesterday. Fortunately, a few leaves managed to stay green in spite of the severe cold, but these leaves were low on the tree, near the floodlight. 5/13/07: The leaves are coming on strong, so this tree is very much alive. Hopefully we'll get some blossoms, but I doubt it, as this time last year the blossoms were in full bloom. Looks like the tree will have a "growing" year before we get any fruit. 5/23/07: Some of the leaves growing from frost-damaged branches have shrivelled and died, similar to what happened on the Bearss Lime tree. It seems that while damaged branches can sometimes sprout foliage, they are unable to support. 6/9/07: The new growth is up to 10 inches in places, but some of the damaged branches continue to die back, unable to support any foliage. Still no blossoms. 6/19/07: The tree looks very healthy. Growth is vigorous and well-balanced.

DSCN0625.JPG 2008: 3/13/08: The new growth has begun in earnest. Leaves have a lot of brown at the tips and edges, but I don't know if this is due to wind, over or under watering, or what. The soil has been consistently moist for months, so under-watering shouldn't be the problem. 3/23/08: The new growth is well underway. 4/7/08: Added some photos. The tree is roughly 4 feet tall, nearly 1.5 inches at the base, and covered by a canopy that we built to protect it from sun and wind (which we get a great deal of here in Hollister). 4/10/08: First blossoms were observed today. 6/7/08: It turns out that a possible cause of the brown leaves was the fact that the soil level rose a few inches up the trunk. All of the brown leaves have fallen, and the remaining leaves look fine, except for the fact that some of them appear to be getting chewed around the edges. I'm not sure whether this is actually pest damage, or physical damage cause by wind. There are still a few blossoms on the tree, but the possibility of fruit this year is very low. New growth has extended tree height by 8 inches or so. I've also observed some blackening of leaves and new branches. According to information gathered from other websites, blackening of leaves is due to underwatering, but the two days in mid-May of 100-degree weather probably contributed to this condition. So I'm now consistently watering both avocado trees twice per peek with a 2.5 gallon bucket. 6/22/08: Two days ago we had another surprise heat wave, reaching 108 degrees yet again. In late afternoon I came to inspect the tree and found all the leaves wilted. I thought that I might be in for another tree-resuscitation effort, so I gave the tree a full bucket of water, and the next morning, when I went to spray it with cloudcover (expecting another 105+ degree day) I found the leaves looking strong and refreshed. At end of day they still looked OK, though the heat had taken a toll. Surprisingly, the Mexicola Grande didn't seem to mind the heat at all. Of course, I still have canopies over both avocado trees to protect them from just such intense sun as we've had of late.

2009: 2/20/09: This tree looks just as miserable as usual here in February. I can't imagine this tree starting new growth by mid-March, or having blossoms in April. I think the frost back in December-January caused some minor damage. 3/26/09: New growth finally started. I began to wonder if this tree would ever grow again after the frost damage. The existing leaves are almost completely brown. 4/23/09: New growth has been just about to start for several weeks now, but I think not until today did some very tiny leaves finally begin to sprout. This tree looks unhealthy, and I don't see how it can possibly have any fruit this year. I think the continuing cold nights that we had up until early this month really put the kabosh on any possibility for fruit. 5/9/09: New growth is coming out, finally, and I think that the tree is trying to put forth some blossoms. However, I lost the battle to save this tree, so we removed it to a less-desirable location and planted a Nagami Kumquat in its place.