African Violets, Orchids! my biggest love of all

[OrchidJeff]

I love the flowers I have grown and now attempting to grow, but my biggest love of all and its the main reason I moved to SoCal, and here they are, I just love em!! there the best..

[lmartiny]

California is a great place for growing things. Do you use all your fruit? We've got a couple small trees and try to use the fruits. I saw a beautiful pommegranate tree when I was in California the last time. Olive trees are cool too and I recently read there are some varieties that will grow here and are very cold hardy. Our next door neighbor has citrus, banana and a peach tree. It drops to the ground every year and the squirrels take the peaches. My neighbor on the other side has citrus, figs and avacados and also does not harvest. The squirrels drop avacados in our yard. Such a waste.

[Phalcycle]

Jelous of the great weather you guys are having.! It is a perfect place for growing, where I live, the temps range from 20-30 degrees f.
Yes I know cold... burrr

[OrchidJeff]

Originally Posted by lmartiny

California is a great place for growing things. Do you use all your fruit? We've got a couple small trees and try to use the fruits. I saw a beautiful pommegranate tree when I was in California the last time. Olive trees are cool too and I recently read there are some varieties that will grow here and are very cold hardy. Our next door neighbor has citrus, banana and a peach tree. It drops to the ground every year and the squirrels take the peaches. My neighbor on the other side has citrus, figs and avacados and also does not harvest. The squirrels drop avacados in our yard. Such a waste.

oh yea!! the squirrels tear up my pomegranates, avocados and figs and when there is none of those, they will occasionally even eat oranges, they haven't touched the bananas yet, I also have plums, apple and those rodents sure do a lot of damage to the fruits...

[OrchidJeff]

Originally Posted by Phalcycle

Jelous of the great weather you guys are having.! It is a perfect place for growing, where I live, the temps range from 20-30 degrees f.
Yes I know cold... burrr

I am originally from Northern Minnesota, so I know about cold weather, I use to always try a grow orange trees inside that I got started from seeds, I had one for 5 years, I did have some nice violets though...yes!! SoCal is a nice place for growing, but most the time it sure is hot and very dry..

[OrchidJeff]

Originally Posted by OrchidJeff

oh yea!! the squirrels tear up my pomegranates, avocados and figs and when there is none of those, they will occasionally even eat oranges, they haven't touched the bananas yet, I also have plums, apple and those rodents sure do a lot of damage to the fruits...

we give lots of our fruit to charity, like food shelves..they actually have an organization here if you call them, they will come out and pick the fruit themselves..hahaha...we drink lots of orange juice..

[hulaorchid]

I love Socal too! Great trees!! Love those pomegranates!

[PhalNewbie89]

I think I am coming to live with you. I LOVE pomegranates but they are so expensive :P. Looks like you have some amazing trees there.

[OrchidJeff]

hahaha!! I love em also, I got some very very sweet and juicey oranges, and the rodents really tear up them pomegranates, I don't know what to do with them, I would say the rodents eat a good 75% of my pomegranates, while I wait for them to get ripe, they don't, we can have as many as 6 - 8 squirrels in the tree at a time, any advice from anyone else in Socal that might have a salution to the problem..

[lmartiny]

First suggestion not politically correct. (Are you sick of that term yet?)
Second suggestion: Feed em dog food. They will stay interested in how to trigger the container lid, even when you've put a box on top to stop the raids. Maybe that will distract them from the fruit trees. All kidding aside, I don't think there is a sure fire way to discourage the buggers.

[OrchidJeff]

mmm!! not politically correct, and that coming in a state that some cities has made it criminal to declaw house cats, I could try live traps and relocation or I could try to get them to attack me, then I would be allowed to defend myself...hahaha

[Celcat]

Squirrels are a pain!!! They are smart lil things!!! One year, I have decided to grow some vegetables and strawberries. Everyday I would check on my strawberries. When the strawberries were almost ready I say to myself: Tomorrow, I will eat you Well, tomorrow when I came back from a long day at work the ready strawberry were gone I could not understand until one day a friend of mine was enjoying a drink in the garden and saw the d#*n lil thing eating my strawberries!!! They know exactely when it is the right time to take the fruits. I have to build a kind of cage around my strawberries plants to stop these lil rodents to get them before me!!!

BTW beautiful citrus trees, I would not dream to have orange, avocado ( I avocados) etc in england...

[OrchidJeff]

I hear ya!! I had strawberries also and I totally gave up on those and I grew some corn, it took them awhile to figure those out, and if the stalks were to high which most where, they just chewed the damn thing down like little beavers and then eat the corn, I would try getting some wild cat, but I been having coyotes in the yard at night so they will just take care of the cat...hahaha. its kind of funny actually cus you never see cats patrolling the streets at night as you normally would in most places, I got 5 avocados from my tree this year, the rodents got the rest... I would use the Minnesota method, but here that would just land me a place in the county jail...

[OrchidJeff]

I got this tree, the rodents just love the fruit on this tree and so do the wild parrots, it has a taste simular to kiwi and kind of looks like a kiwi, but its not kiwi, it fruits twice a year and I never did figure out what kind of fruit it is, I think this tree is what really brings the rodents in, I will have to get a shot of it and see if anyone knows what it is....