Growing Up Surrounded By Citrus

I grew up about 35 miles east of Los Angeles, in a small city called La Verne. When I was a kid, the city and surrounding areas were full of citrus groves. We would play in the groves, and pick up the falls for juicing. My dad worked for a large nursery, but had dreams of starting his own place. He set up greenhouses in our backyard, and started production. Dad and mom worked nights and weekends expanding the business. He was finally able to leave his job and set out on his own. They bought land, leased land built more greenhouses, and the company grew.

La Verne Nursery specialized in Citrus, Avocados and grafted Ornamentals. Mostly though, I remember the citrus. There were 30 plus varieties of citrus on the nursery property…. everything from oranges, to kumquats, to lemons and limes to these crazy looking Buddha’s Hand Citron. Fruit was always around, and there was never any danger of me succomming to scurvy.

As a young person I ran free through the nursery property. We played hide and seek in the rows and climbed on and around the benches in the greenhouses. I still remember that damp earth smell and the splinters I got. The huge piles of earth made great sand boxes, and we’d stack the planting containers into play houses. I even learned to drive on the electric carts that were used to move plants around. It was a great place to grow up.

When I got older, I went to work in the nursery mornings during the summer. I’d plant seedlings or stake plants for hours. Other days it was office work… folding, stapling and labeling price sheets for mailing. It was good work, and I saved a load of money.

Nursery work is farming, you are working with living things that grow and change. Plants constantly need tending. So much depends on the weather; I remember dad getting up in the middle of the night to light smudge pots on freezing nights. The nursery was part of my life…. dirt under the fingernails, and a love for the smell of earth and plants.

The company is gone now, sold… but still in business. I’m proud of what my parents did. The hard work, the long hours, and the sacrifices that they put in to the business. It was time for them to let go, but it does make me more than a little sad, the end of an era.

And now… I live in a place where I can’t just go out on the yard to pick my lemons… I’ve got to go buy my citrus…