Rain-Soaked, Jam-Packed : Mother Nature: Downpour that grew fruit for prize-winning preserves also helped wreck the Anaheim Hills’ home of gardener.

For Lou Delmonico, last winter’s unrelenting rains brought two large surprises.

First, it drove the landslide that split the earth under his home, sliding it from a hillside perch. Second, it produced a bumper crop in his back-yard fruit tree orchard, which he used to concoct jams and jellies that just won three blue ribbons at the Orange County Fair--the first time he has ever entered.

“When you’ve got lemons, you make lemonade,” said Delmonico, 52, chairman and chief executive officer of PDA Engineering, a Costa Mesa-based computer company.

There are noticeable cracks in retaining walls of the Delmonico home and an upper balcony has shifted. A jagged crack runs through the kitchen floor. Stonework and a sunroof that Delmonico installed on weekends have shifted, and geologists’ monitoring devices dot the home.

“Mother Nature was good to the trees, but Mother Nature was not good to the house--big time,” Delmonico said.

Past the broken house, a small orchard dots a sloping canyon wall. When you’ve got six varieties of apple trees, three kinds of peach trees and dozens of grapefruit, orange, plum, apricot and fig trees, you make jams, jellies and preserves, Delmonico says.

His homemade preserves captured not only three blue ribbons but also a handful of second- and third-place finishes at the fair, pushing him within a point of third place in the coveted sweepstakes.

The strong showing also got Delmonico’s competitive juices flowing. Delmonico, who holds a Ph.D. in industrial marketing, already is mapping next year’s campaign. He wants to add marmalades and chutneys to his proven collection of jams and jellies.

“Look out, ladies,” Delmonico cautioned. “Look out.”

Delmonico, who began planting fruit trees as a hobby, now has about 100 hand-planted trees in his orchard. Along the way, the hobby evolved into a form of therapy.

“It’s dad’s hobby, yes, but it’s also dad’s quiet time,” said Delmonico, the father of three. “I like to garden, either vegetables or flowers. But fruit trees . . . when you pick a plum from a tree, and it’s ready, oh, it’s just unbelievable.”

The native New Yorker traces his green thumb to a World War II victory garden that his mother tended in their back yard in Queens. He planted his first fruit tree in California more than a dozen years ago, but didn’t put away his first jar of jam until the late 1980s.

He already has filled 150 jars for holiday gifts, each carrying a tag that tells his orchard’s story.

“Nestled in the north-facing slopes of Southern California’s rolling hills, the sun-drenched Delmonico Orchards are renown for the quality of their products. Every jar of homemade Delmonico jam and preserves contains only the ripest, sweetest fruit. No water added, no chemicals or preservatives of any kind are ever used.”

The corporate executive tends to his orchard on weekday mornings, making his way down the hill when the sun is low. He is constantly repairing damage done by coyotes, deer, raccoon, birds and rabbits who treat the orchard as a natural fast-food restaurant.

“I grow a lot for them and some for me,” Delmonico quipped.

When he’s not planting, pruning, picking and preserving, Delmonico is running a company that manufactures computer-aided engineering products.

Delmonico carves out time on weekends for major jobs--fertilizing, planting and repairing the orchard’s extensive drip irrigation system. But it’s not all work.

“You pick it and you eat it,” Delmonico said with a grin. “It’s just like being in a candy store.”

Remainders of the past winter are hidden among the orchard. Several trees died after he shut down the drip irrigation system as a safety precaution. Nearby are the remains of a vegetable garden and berry patch that were washed away.

There is no master plan for Delmonico’s orchard. The only constant is the search for stock that promises to deliver good-tasting fruit.

“You give a lot of love to the trees in return for the fruit,” Delmonico said. “Just look at this nectarine . . . this is just like dying and going to heaven. The taste is just so special.”

And, when it comes to competition, “you don’t enter to enter,” Delmonico said. “You enter to win.”

“He’s right,” said Bob Allen, a California Highway Patrol officer and one of the few men competing--successfully--on a regular basis in the baking division. “It’s a kick to beat the little old ladies with your sugar cookies.”

Delmonico has a trick waiting for next year’s competition: The “secret” he uncovered while preparing an apricot jam that won the coveted blue ribbon. “I can apply that (secret) to all of the jams and jellies next year,” Delmonico said.

Costa Mesa resident Gail Noble, who finished second in the overall sweepstakes to Allen’s wife, Eleanor, perked up when told that the blue ribbon for apricot jam went to a man.

“My husband is real picky when I try to give away my apricot jam,” Noble said. “He wants it all. Maybe I should go talk to this guy.”