Oranges

[fifi]

I travel to LA area on business a couple of times a year. I usually try to time the trip so that I can spend the weekend poking around. I noted on one of your posts that you sometimes write about agriculture. One time, I drove up the coast to Santa Barbara. On the way back to Pasadena, I took a more inland route. I drove through MILES of orange groves. Most of them appeared to be abandoned. Oranges were everywhere, rotting under the trees. I have been curious about that ever since. What was going on? They appeared to be abandoned.

Any other interesting information on agriculture in the area?

Many thanks for your participation on the Q&A and for your many excellent posts.

[russ parsons]

I think I know where you're talking about fifi, that area roughly between Ojai and Magic Mountain, around Santa Paula. Those groves aren't abandoned, at least most of them; in fact, they produce some really great fruit (also, in the hills above there are where you can find some of the last surviving Royal/Blenheim and Moorpark apricots growing on 100-year-old trees). You really should try to get through that area in mid-spring, which the orange trees are blooming. It's like miles of perfumeries.

Agriculture in the wild tends to look messy, especially when compared to our gardens. I can't keep up with the windfallen fruit from my own backyard trees (tangelo, navel orange, kumquat, avocado and, of course, Meyer lemon), I can't imagine if I had 10 acres of them.

Another interesting aspect of that is the whole holistic agriculture thing, which for me incorporates biodynamic, organic, sustainable and all the rest of it. You'll notice that fields/orchards/vineyards that are grown that way often look much sloppier than the neat, clean rows we have come to expect from good farming. The idea (and this is a broad overgeneralization), is that the less you do to the plants, the better off they are. "Weeds" growing between rows help hold moisture, provide shelter for birds, small animals and bugs that eat harmful bugs and also turn into "green manure" when they are disked back into the soil at the end of the season.

Key up the soundtrack: "Great Circle of Life."

[fifi]

That makes sense. Thank you for the explanation.

I have driven through that area when the trees were blooming. You are right. The perfume is like swimming through a sea of orange flower water.

God, I want an apricot from a hundred year old tree. I will plan my next trip to achieve that goal. I haven't had a decent apricot in 30 years. The last one was from a roadside stand in West Texas. We actually made ourselves sick we ate so many.

Thanks again.