By Karen England, for Let's Talk Plants! January 2023.
Beyond Bananas! Subtropical Fruits for Southern California with Richard Reid
If you missed the presentation or want to hear and see it again, you are in luck! It has been uploaded to our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/3IPp6NeV9Ew Happy viewing and happy new year.
Richard Reid has been an avid gardener for as long as he can remember. Growing up in San Diego, with its 365-day growing season, never a day went by when he was not getting his hands dirty.
After finishing his PhD in Chemistry at the University of California Santa Barbara, Richard returned to San Diego and moved out to the East County to start a life and backyard garden. Soon, after settling in, a chance encounter with a forlorn potted jaboticaba, Myrciaria cauliflora Berg., at the old Simpson’s Nursery would change his life forever. He had been bitten by the exotic fruit bug and started collecting and growing every exotic fruit he could find. Time passed, and he left that collection, but not his interest in exotics. He currently lives in Carmel Valley with his wife, daughter and far too many potted plants on a too small suburban lot.
His main plant interests are finding new species of fruit to grow in Southern California as well as “zone pushing,” trying to figure out just what tropical fruits might be able to adapt to our climate zones.
