Bacon avocado: a profile

Appearance, size, texture, flavor of the Bacon variety of avocado. For more information on the Bacon avocado and other varieties, see my website: gregalder.com/...

[@nirep2]

Thank you, liked your information on bacon avocado. Not much information out there on bacon variety. Good job.

[@iDONTdoFacebook]

I’ll be 61 years old in a few weeks. I live in Arkansas today. Came here in late 1969 when I was 10. I’ll share a memory with you... From 1961 up until November of 1969 (my age 2 - 10) if you walked out the front door of our home and looked left 2 houses down to the open end of our quiet little culdesac, across the street there and over the top of the houses you could see the deep-green leafy tops of a shady grove of mature trees that bordered that side of our neighborhood. It was the only “woods” for miles around as the big city had, by the time I came on the scene in the 60’s, grown up around that grove leaving it an isolated island out of time and place for a young city boy. That quiet, shady grove was a veritable “forest” in my young eyes and I was a young “Lewis & Clark” at heart and could not resist the compulsion “to explore strange new worlds -to seek out new life and new civilizations -to boldly go where no kid had gone before”. The “woods” behind the houses at the end of our street were a MAGNET to this then-young boy and I was drawn in by the promise of adventure that always accompanies exploration. A couple of times, beginning at about age 7, I organized parties of exploration, recruiting similarly youthful volunteers from the neighborhood to enter the forest with me. I remember one sunny morning leading a party of about 6 or 7 of us in. Over the back block wall of someone’s back yard we went like Special Ops, slipping quietly and cautiously into the cool and musty-smelling shadows of “The Forest”. We slowly made our way thru, a couple of us periodically climbing up into the sturdy trees as “lookouts” for any incoming “danger” and to get a better view of what might lie up ahead so we could better plot our course -or quickly escape if we needed to. Well I guess we needed more Special Ops training because 6 or 7 highly excited 6 to 8 year-old boys can’t match real Special Ops furtiveness. We had made enough noise that we attracted the attention of the Master of The Forest who tracked us down and caught up to us as we were trying to help little 6 year-old Timmy Carson get over the block wall so we could make our escape. Most of us had already hopped the wall and were home free when we heard little Timmy bawling and screaming for someone to help him get over the wall and that “the man” was going to get him and was almost there. Being “professional” explorers rather than just a bunch of scared neighborhood kids, we had real loyalty to one another and wouldn’t leave the smallest and youngest of our party to be captured or slaughtered so we climbed back over that block wall and as the man approached, dry leaves crunching under each of his steps, we started boosting Timmy up. Timmy had just mounted the top of the wall when the man arrived. He was tall, kind of old (compared to us anyway), wore old-timey-looking thick-glass eyeglasses, and instead of yanking us up, slaughtering us, or yelling at us, he just nicely asked us what we were doing and stated that his main concern was us getting hurt on his property. He turned out to be a nice neighbor and upon our getting ‘caught’ again on a later excursion into “the forest” he gave us a tour of his property that included the old home he and his wife lived in, an old barn, some sheds, and a really old 2-story building standing silently in the shade of some big trees that grew all around it. The latter looked like it had been used as a shop over the past few decades but more recently to just store old seldom used tools or farm equipment (I’ve more recently learned thru some historical research that that old 2-story was the oldest building in the entire city). It was dim in the old building that morning with the only light coming in thru a couple of windows. I well remember the dust motes floating aimlessly in the ambient light as I took in the ancient atmosphere and the old oily smell of the place. I remember the man pointing at the old broken wooden stairs to our left in the front corner of the building and telling us the story of how those stairs and that corner of the building came to be seriously damaged. And damaged they were. There was a section of the stairs that was busted up and some of its steps just hanging. And the wall itself was shattered there to the point that you could see outside. The man told us that many decades ago there was a team of horses hooked up to a wagon and the horses had spooked and took off without anyone on the wagon to control them. As the team ran past that corner of the building pulling the wagon, the wagon slid sideways slamming into the building nearly taking out that corner. So why am I sharing all this here? Our neighborhood “forest” was an avocado orchard and “the man” was indeed the Master of that place. It was Buena Park of Orange County California in the 1960’s and the man was none other than James “Jim” Bacon, developer of the frost tolerant Bacon Avocado. Mr. Bacon was my neighbor and his old avocado orchard was my “forest” -a special playground of my youth. Those old sturdy trees I climbed were THE ORIGINAL Bacon Avocado trees from which all other Bacon trees descend. I went back in there several times. And got caught a couple more times. But each time we did get caught Mr. Bacon took the time to make something special out of these surprise visits. One time when it was just my little brother and me, Mr. Bacon put a ladder up against a shed that had a large golden plum tree growing up against it and sent us up to pick a bunch to bring home with us. Those were the sweetest most magnificent tasting plums I’ve ever eaten to this day. After getting our plums picked and a little more conversation with him, Mr. Bacon loaded us into his car and gave us a ride home. On another occasion he took us in his home to meet Mrs. Bacon. She had just baked some cookies and sat us down with a glass of milk and a couple of cookies each and we got to have a nice visit with her. About 2 years later I was happy to find that I’d been assigned to Mrs. Bacon’s 5th Grade class at Dysinger Elementary School. But I only had her for half the school year as that was the year that we moved from Buena Park to Arkansas in November of 1969. Some years later on a trip back to the old Buena Park neighborhood I was DEVASTATED to find the old Bacon home, barn, sheds, the old 2-story building, all gone. And with them, all those special trees - my beloved avocado “forest” - and Mr and Mrs. Bacon. All...gone. Everything had been leveled to the ground to make way for “progress” and development. What was once a magical enchanted place -once a peaceful island of quiet and cool shade under a canopy of deep green, insulated from the city surrounding it, was now a hot asphalt parking lot surrounding a modern hotel which are constantly being assaulted by the neverending noise of Hwy 39’s Beach Blvd. Sacred special memories. Some things ought to last forever. But alas, this is yet a temporal world we live in. We’re still looking forward to when it’s made Eternal and all good things can last. But I do still have those memories of Mr. and Mrs. Bacon and their ‘magical’ mature avocado orchard which I cherish DEARLY. They were warm, wonderful, welcoming people and I miss them.

[@gregalderdotcom]

Hi Randall, Thank you very much for sharing those stories and memories. Wonderful! Sad too, but wonderful!

[@MetalBum]

Thanks for sharing

[@vegardno]

This brought a tear to my eyes. Thank you for sharing

[@eythantorres5086]

Great video. Thanks for sharing.

[@westcoaststacker569]

Thanks for the reviews.

[@MetalBum]

Love these videos

[@RareAvoTrees]

Pretty good description , but I've had bacon turn dark skin when very ripe not long before they go bad, also when very soft and ripe the peel pretty easy, I can have mild leave burn at about 30 on my own trees but that's on new young trees I'm sure 4 year old tree would do much better in the cold.bacon seeds make good rootsock.

[@bahista21]

Hi Greg, what’s the average bloom to harvest time of a Bacon and Zutano? Thanks.

[@beemcplayz1044]

Hey, Greg, should I plant a Bacon in my backyard?

[@gregalderdotcom]

I tried to answer that for you here: gregalder.com/yardposts/the-bacon-avocado-tree-a-profile/

[@ivanramirez5602]

How would you compare the taste to a Jim Bacon or Ettinger?

[@gregalderdotcom]

Hi Ivan, Ettinger has a slightly nuttier flavor than Bacon.

[@NMW80]

What’s the best time to graft avos mate? I live in a cool temperate zone in Australia. I’m assuming warmer weather yeah? So summer time like now I was going to start grafting.

[@NMW80]

Greg do you know of a nursery that sells avocado seeds or scions that are able to sell and send internationally? I heard there are some in California and even Hawaii but I don’t know what they are called. Do you know or if anyone else can help me please let me know 🙏 I just want to be able to purchase some pure Mexican avocado seeds specifically Mexicola or Mexicola grande etc. any kind of cold hardy nice tasting avocado with the black shiny thing skin would be fine. It’s near impossible to find them here in Australia and it’s ridiculous. We should be aloud to grow them here too, we have plenty of colder climates in Australia that need these cold hardy avo trees to be able to grow them successfully in these cooler climates

[@ZamaniSahib]

Hey Greg, I was wondering what your recommendations would be for a little colder tolerant avocado trees? For example for zone 9b?

[@gregalderdotcom]

Which city are you in, or which Sunset zone? My location is apparently considered USDA zone 9a, but I can grow any variety of avocado that is grown anywhere else here in Southern California just fine.

[@ZamaniSahib]

@@gregalderdotcom Currently in Folsom, CA

[@RareAvoTrees]

For cold area duke, boony doon, aravaipa or full mexican types like stewart or mexicola grande are a few to try

[@ZamaniSahib]

Honestly, I was thinking along the lines of Bacon/Jim Bacon, Stewart, or Mexicola.... I was really hoping to get a Reed but I don't think it could handle the frost we occasionally get.

[@NMW80]

@@ZamaniSahib I wish I could get a Mexicola or a Mexicola like avocado tree. Even be happy to buy some seeds off someone who has a Mexicola tree. I can’t find any in Australia it’s driving me nuts. It’s not fair how we can’t get these amazing cold hardy avocado trees here. Like Wilma, Lila, brogdon, winter Mexican, Mexicola grande, Joey etc.

[@abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy26]

Would you please do a profile on "Jim Bacon" avocado

[@gregalderdotcom]

OK, I'll keep it in mind.

[@sonotaps]

Not much of an endorsement of Bacon is what I got out of this.