Past Events
September Orchard Tour
On September 15th, twenty-four of us toured Lena Shiroma and Cory Krell’s 7.6 acre Escondido property. Lena and Cory jokingly call their place Rancho de Topo, or Ranch of the Gopher. It sits on a hillside with sweeping views of the hills and valleys of Valley Center and Escondido. They live in a farmhouse that was built in 1947. There are a few even older buildings on the property.
When they moved in 12 years ago, the property was the center of a 20-acre Fuerte avocado grove, and some of the 80-year-old trees are still there, producing abundantly.
Cory and Lena have made a lot of improvements, and have lots of plans for continued improvement. They have added stone fruit trees, fruiting vines (including an interesting Akebia vining up trees in the old avocado orchard), citrus, persimmons, guavas, quince, lots of loquats, and other tropical fruits.
Cory and Lena make abundant use of mulch in their orchards. When trees are trimmed, the trimmings are piled up, and twice yearly a chipping crew from the Fire Safe Council of San Diego comes and chips them for free, leaving the chips to spread on the property.
Before and after the tour, we gathered under the farmhouse’s covered patio for tasty snacks, including an “Instant Pot apple cake” brought by Dawne Dickinson, the recipe for which can be found on our home page this month.
