Old California Botanicals

Comment MAGIC to get the reservation link and full evening schedule. Like, save, and share this with the people you want at your table.

On October 3, Kimberly Crest opens its gates for ch*****ne, al fresco dining, close-up magic, a featured performance, desserts and cordials beneath the stars—all in support of preserving one of Southern California’s most romantic historic estates.

Saturday, October 3 | 5–9 p.m. | Black tie optional | Guests 21+

Comment FIG to get matched with a fig variety for your climate. Then add your city or growing zone and whether you prefer BERRY, HONEY, or JAMMY. Like, save, and share this with the person planning a backyard orchard.
The wrong fig can sulk for years; the right one can become the tree you cannot keep up with. Heat, winter chill, humidity, and season length all affect which varieties ripen well. Some also produce a smaller early breba crop before the main crop.
Fresh figs have almost no interest in shelf life, so pick them fully ripe and use or refrigerate them promptly.
California Figs Visit Fresno County

Pomegranates are easier to enjoy when you work with their natural sections instead of cutting straight through the middle. A few extra handling tips make the fruit even more useful: wear an apron or use a washable surface because the juice can stain; rinse the whole fruit before cutting; and refrigerate the arils in a covered container once removed. For longer storage, spread the arils on a tray, freeze them separately, and then transfer them to a freezer bag so they do not become one solid block.
Save this for pomegranate season, and send it to the person who always ends up with juice everywhere.

Pomegranates are part of our family table as well as our garden. At Thanksgiving, we make cranberry sauce with orange and pomegranate - bright, tart, and unmistakably Californian. Pomegranate jelly is another old preserving tradition worth keeping alive.
In the garden, pomegranates tolerate heat and can be trained as a small tree, allowed to form a multi-stemmed shrub, or managed as a fruiting hedge. Remove unwanted suckers and dead or crossing wood, but avoid indiscriminate heavy pruning: much of the fruit is carried on short spurs on older wood.
The Ariana shown here is valued for its soft seeds and vivid arils. It is associated with Turkmenistan, part of the broader region where pomegranates have been cultivated and selected for centuries. That orange-and-pomegranate combination also inspired one of our beeswax lip balms - a small bridge between the fruit we grow and the botanical products we make.

OldCaliforniaBotanicals

California’s 2026 w**e-grape harvest produced strikingly early milestones. Chandon reported a July 24 first pick - the earliest in its 53-year Napa history. Tablas Creek began on August 7, one week ahead of its previous record. Those dates help show that this was not simply one unusually early vineyard.
A warm March advanced budbreak, shifting the seasonal clock forward. Later cool and wet spring conditions complicated fruit set and disease pressure in some areas, so ‘early’ does not mean every region or variety followed the same pattern. It also does not automatically mean poorer fruit or a shorter growing season. If budbreak, flowering, veraison, and harvest all move earlier, the grapes may still accumulate a normal amount of time on the vine.
Picking decisions still depend on the balance among sugar, acidity, flavor, tannin, weather, and w**ery style. Earlier picking can help preserve acidity, but a calendar date alone cannot tell us the quality of a vintage. The finished w**es - and the differences among regions - will tell the fuller story.
Sources for the harvest milestones: Chandon and Tablas Creek Vineyard harvest reports. Comment HARVEST if you want more 2026 vintage updates.

You can still plan a California road trip around heirloom apples, but the fruit is seasonal and availability changes quickly. Oak Glen and Julian are the best-known Southern California apple destinations. Farther north, Sebastopol and Sonoma County, the Santa Cruz region, Anderson Valley and Mendocino County still carry important apple-growing traditions. Historic orchards in the Owens Valley, including Manzanar, preserve another chapter of the state’s apple story.
Apple season generally runs from late summer into fall, with individual varieties ripening on their own schedules. Some heirlooms appear only briefly or in very small quantities. Call orchards, farm stands, markets, or historic sites before making a special trip, and ask for the variety by name rather than assuming it will be available that week.
Save this as the beginning of an heirloom-apple road trip. Which variety would you most want to find?

The age gap is bigger than it looks.

Museums preserve English bell-bowled w**e glasses dating to roughly 1700–1730 and throughout the 18th century.

The modern story is different.

Claus J. Riedel’s 1958 design philosophy reduced stemware to bowl, stem and base and treated the shape of the bowl as functional rather than primarily ornamental. Riedel’s Sommeliers line followed in 1973 with shapes created around different w**es.

Important distinction: Riedel did not invent every tulip-like w**e-glass shape that came before him.

His influence was helping make function-first bowl geometry central to the modern w**e-tasting glass.

Comment GLASS and I’ll post a visual timeline from Georgian w**e glasses to modern stemware.

No Googling. Which design has the older history:
BELL or TULIP?

And for bonus points, what century do you think the more modern philosophy of w**e-glass design comes from?

I’ll post the answer next.

Native plants are having a moment. Again.
Nothing new under the California sun.
A century before native landscaping returned to fashion, Californians were already asking a surprisingly modern question: how much of the landscape that made California California could disappear before something irreplaceable was lost?
The housing need was real. So was the extraordinary subdivision boom that followed it. And while California already had individual protected places — Big Basin dates to 1902 — the state itself acknowledges that before 1927 there was no comprehensive statewide plan for preserving its natural, recreational and cultural treasures.
CA State Parks
Native plants weren’t new either. Californians had appreciated and cultivated them for decades. What began changing in the 1920s was the idea that California native landscape itself deserved to be deliberately preserved and interpreted.
Three remarkable women help tell that story: Anna Dorinda Blaksley Bliss in Santa Barbara; Susanna Bixby Bryant at Rancho Santa Ana; and Olivia Phelps Stokes in Redlands. Santa Barbara Botanic Garden is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, while Bryant’s institution traces its native-plant conservation work to 1927.
Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and at Caroline Park, Olivia’s request still says it best: leave the land “as far as possible in its natural condition.”
A hundred years later, native plants may be fashionable again. Good.
But native plants aren’t a new California trend. They’re an old California tradition.
What plant — or native landscape — says California to you? Tell me what town you’re watching from, too.
Save this one for your next California-history rabbit hole, and send it to the person in your life who thinks native plants are something we just discovered.
Follow Old California Botanicals for more stories about what grows in California — in gardens, groves, and the wild.

That dusty coating has a name: bloom.

On grapes, it is formed by microscopic epicuticular wax crystals on the berry’s surface.

The important distinction: the white “frost” itself is not yeast. Grapes can carry microorganisms — including yeasts — on their surfaces, but bloom is the fruit’s own waxy coating.

It helps reduce water loss, makes the surface strongly water-repellent and can help protect the berry from environmental stresses including intense light and pathogens.

And once you recognize it, you’ll notice the same effect on other fruit.

Comment BLOOM and I’ll do a visual guide to the others.