Hello Fellow Citrus Lovers!

My personal thanks to all of you well-wishers! Please forgive me if I can't catch up with all the emails and postings as of late. Been really too busy with the company growing and many changes in the family... But hoping it will be back to normal sometime in the future and correspond with most you again. I'll drop in from to time to give some updates whenever I can.

Most of you already know that my son is doing okay and I am personally helping him prepare to go to college, UC Santa Barbara most likely (cannot talk him out of it). Been spending a lot of time with all my kids. And as Benny have mentioned, and Millet personally congratulated (my personal thanks Bob!), we gave celebration party to thank God for fulfilling my wife's long dream of becoming a professional Nurse. Getting into the nursing school is tough and competitive in our area, and she got in after a very long wait but finished quickly and graduated with honors, passed the NCLEX and got a job... and so we celebrated with many friends, relatives, colleagues... We've had short-step yard tour, fruit tasting, wine tasting (20 fruit wines and 4 gold medal commercial wines), plenty of food, music, karaoke, wish you were all here... and I am still cleaning up.

As a gift, and to take advantage of the excellent real estate deals, my dear wife is planning to buy us a ranch style home with a 2.3 acre backyard, and so you could only imagine how much that size of backyard is going to limit my online activities. I managed to grow 550 fruiting cultivars in a 1/50th (725 sq ft) acre backyard of our primary residence, so just imagine what I could do with 2.3 acres! Finally, I would be able to build my own dream greenhouses with land to spare. But that would be several years down the road, God willing. Meanwhile, we are working out a deal to buy this formerly $1.45M home with 2.3 acre lot that is now being sold at less than half its original price:


By joereal at 2008-09-10


Nothing is final in a volatile market. If we can't get this one, we will look for another. There's plenty to go around. I myself love the bare back yard... this place has lots of "growing" potential. I love rebuilding a yard from scratch and nothing to uproot except the wild grasses. The first plants would be citruses, pomegranates, and cold hardy avocadoes. Already my list of plants is a mile long, just inside the imaginary greenhouse,

Oh, Wow!
THat looks heavenly.
Hope you luck Joe.

I just wired a house like that and it is now selling for 2.95 mil. but I think it is still smaller and much less acreage.

Joe, I have always admired you, your quite a human being. God take care of you, your family, and your dreams and aspirations. Whether it is this property or not, you most certainly will wind up with your dream. From experience, I can tell you owning land is a lot of work, but it is good work, self satisfying work and fulfilling work. You will do well. God is not making any more land, but some of it has your name written all over it............. Take care - Millet

(BTW I seen your name in the current issue of the CFRG Fruit Gardner magazine.)

Congratulations and welcome back. You've been missed!

Phillip

That's a good size, Joe. Much bigger than that and weeds become a real challenge to manage in our climate.

Not that it would probably change your mind on the property, but you should take a water sample and send it in for an "Irrigation Water Suitability" test. There in Yolo County much of the groundwater is high in boron with a high pH. I saw the other day that the USDA repository purifies all of their well water for their greenhouse use with storage of about 10,000 gallons.

Good luck!

Nice place Joe. Glad to see your doing well.

And most of all, the city regulators are minimally interfering. Unlike Davis, you feel that you live inside a prison when it comes to expressing your ideas in your backyard.... But I'll have all my structures inspected by the city, but practically, anything you want to build or plant....

In Davis, petitions should be filed and hearings are made if you want to cut just a single branch of the tree if the limb is over 6" diameter, and the tree is in your yard! But once approved, the city will assign a professional arborist to cut the tree branches for you at the city's cost, funded by the exorbitant property tax of course.

Joe, Your plans for the property sound like they have been a subject of much thought over many years! It sounds like a lifetime dream come true, and I hope everything works to your advantage. I am so excited for you! It is good to hear from you again. Barbara

Now, how to transplant a 80-something in one tree.... I know that if it can be done, you will do it! And with pictures!

Don't be stubborn, Joe. Do the tests, they are cheap and help you know what to deal with before you discover the problems later on. Speaking from EXPERIENCE! A soil and water test combined will only set you back about $100, IIRC.

I also think you're going to need more water than what you'll be capturing from the skies (especially in years like 2008).

I wish I had treated my entire chestnut orchard with sulfuric acid before I planted it. Most of it was okay but even within 4 acres the soil varies quite a bit and trees in one area are week.