| Axel Kratel Axel Kratel is an avid plant enthusiast who loves to grow exotic fruits and palms. But the plants don't always have to be exotic. After discovering that his Santa Cruz Mountains garden produces truly delicious apples, Axel decided to delve deeper and started to explore the world of apples and its wide assortment of flavors, colors and textures. He currently nurtures a collection of over 450 apple varieties from all over the world. He also has devoted significant time in exploring the Lost crops of the Incas, successfully growing numerous obscure Andean crops in the cool Santa Cruz Summers, including ice cream beans, cherimoyas, capulin cherries, tamarillos and passion fruits. His latest quest is to succeed with lucumas. Axel applies principles of modern permaculture to manage his orchard and produce organic fruits and vegetables, finding inspiration in Rudolf Steiner's biodynamics methodology and Bill Mollison's permaculture design patterns. In his spare time, Axel runs the Cloudforest gardener at www.cloudforest.com where he writes about growing exotic fruits and palms and answers numerous questions in the Cloudforest Cafe. Axel has a PhD in Physics from the California Institute of Technology, but he is convinced you don't need a PhD to grow fruits. |
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