By Noah Elhardt:

When I was a kid, my family had access to a fantastic public library. As home schoolers, visits to the library were a weekly tradition, especially during the summer months when the southern California heat made sprawling across living room furniture with a book a favorite pastime.

Joseph reads Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy, 2004

An elevated strawberry bed, made from bamboo

Dendrocalamus minor

Bambusa lako

Dendrocalamus latiflorus 'Mei-nung'

Recently harvested culms laid out to dry

If you happen to be walking around ECHO, you might see some strange white stumps in our fruit tree arboretum. Don't be alarmed! The trees have undergone some dramatic 'pruning' in an effort to make the trees more productive i.e. PRODUCE MORE LYCHEES!

We are trying a 

Tree Rejuvenation

pruning technique which begins with 'hat-racking' or 'stumping' the trees.  

We will follow up with more frequent pruning to create a globe shaped canopy that is low to the ground allowing us to harvest the fruit more easily.

We painted the trunks to prevent them from over-heating and blistering or cracking.  The remaining limbs are called 'nurse limbs' which help (possibly) to reduce shock to the tree's root system from such severe pruning. In true ECHO fashion, the four largest trees were each given a different amount of 'nurse limbs' as an ongoing experiment.

This technique is used to bring overgrown orchards of fruit trees back into good production.  Usually the trees are restored to production in 2 years time. And don't worry, we are only doing this to some of our trees, especially those that are very large.

So, celebrate with us! Two years to more lychees!

When a network only connects at one point it often resembles a wheel with spokes all coming from the center hub. ECHO always works to connect our network members so that interaction and sharing can happen. We want our network to look more like a complex spider web.

To facilitate more connections between network members we have launched multiple discussions on our ECHO Facebook Page. This simple tool allows anyone to view 

Network member discussions and contribute and answer others’ questions.

Have a question for ECHO or other ECHO Network members? Visit ECHO’s Facebook Discussion page here.

You do not have to be on facebook to view discussions,but you must register with facebook if you would like to post a discussion or contribute to someone else’s discussion. We hope you will take advantage of this great resource, the depth of ECHO’s network members. Don't be a spoke!

Get into Gardening is always a fun event! We love having so many members of the community come out to learn together!

Enjoy these photos of the event!

You would have thought that an ant hill had erupted if you had been in ECHO's Tropical Fruit Nursery on Friday April 30th! ECHO staff and volunteers were moving to and fro, carrying wheelbarrows, raking shell, moving plants, installing sprinklers, sweeping, hoeing, driving tractors and even handing out water! 

The Nursery is being moved into the front area of the bookstore parking lot to facilitate easier access for customers. We'll also save money because we will only have one retail point, so less duplicating of staff time and resources.

The Nursery already had two customers before the move was completed on Friday. We hope you can come out and see our new Nursery sale floor!