It is the citrus season! - FaunaClassifieds
FaunaClassifieds  
  Tired of those Google and InfoLink ads? Upgrade Your Membership!
  Inside FaunaClassifieds » Photo Gallery  
 

Go Back   FaunaClassifieds > General Interest Forums > Preparedness & Self-Reliance Forum

Notices

Preparedness & Self-Reliance Forum Survivalism, Livestock, Preparedness, Self Reliant Homesteading, Individual Liberty

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 11-19-2017, 01:55 PM   #1
WebSlave
It is the citrus season!

Connie and I look forward to this time of year because of our citrus finally ripening. One of the real joys of being here in Florida is to be able to grow this stuff, and just take a walk outside, pluck a few tangerines off of a tree, and eat them while walking around the property. And the really cool thing is that we now have quite a few trees growing around the property that resulted from just spitting those seeds out onto the ground randomly. Matter of fact, the third picture in this series is of a tree that grew from a seed spit out some 20 odd years ago. So the seeds being spread around now will create a third generation of them. These are Changshi (or Changsha) which is a type of Satsuma, I believe, and they grow true from seed.

Not all of the citrus has ripened yet, as we have several locations and they all seem to ripen at different times. Which is great, because that spreads the "eating" season out over a much longer period of time.

Now with any luck, we won't have a hard freeze come through and wipe out all the fruit, or have a bear discover how tasty they are and destroy the trees getting to them.















The large fruits in the first two pics are of Connie's Pomelo tree. She has 10 fruits this year. We bought that tree and a Dancy tangerine a long while back and just set the pots between two buildings planning on finding a spot to plant them when we had time. Well, they stay there a LOT longer than we had planned, and I guess they are there for good now. The spot happens to be pretty protected, which allows the Pomelo to do so well, I guess. Connie is ecstatic about getting as many fruits as she has this year. It takes her about a week to eat just one of them, though. They are REALLY big! They should be ready to eat in about three weeks or so, if last year was any guide.
 
Old 11-23-2017, 02:14 PM   #2
JColt
You have any Kumquat's on property? When I grew up in Orlando we had several. Great in salads or spreading over turkey/duck/chicken. My mom used to make marmalade with it.
 
Old 11-23-2017, 04:12 PM   #3
WebSlave
Quote:
Originally Posted by JColt View Post
You have any Kumquat's on property? When I grew up in Orlando we had several. Great in salads or spreading over turkey/duck/chicken. My mom used to make marmalade with it.
No, no kumquats. Connie has never expressed any interest in them, and I just prefer tangerines if I am going to allocate space for a citrus tree. We did put in a navel orange tree last year, so hopefully that will do well for us. The ripening season for the navel is about the same as our tangerines, so I'm hoping it won't have any problems with the occasional cold nights we get here in north Florida. We really like navel oranges, but since we normally are up to our eyeballs in tangerines when the Florida grown navels are ripe, we don't often get them. I figure if we have our own here, then that would work better for us. I think I may even put in another navel next Spring if I can find a nice one locally. We don't see them often for sale around here, and when you do, you need to grab it, or they will all be gone pretty quickly. From what I understand all of the sellers of citrus trees only have a single source for citrus trees in this area, so I guess supplies are pretty limited as a result. Seems like everyone gets a load of citrus trees at the same time, once a year, and that is it for the local supply until next year.

We've been spreading around the changsha seeds quite a bit this year, so I would guess that in years to come, this property will become a virtual citrus forest. They seem to grow readily from seed and are pretty cold tolerant and do well here. Interestingly enough, the trees grown from seed are much thornier than the original trees we bought. But the fruit is just as good. Just have to be a bit more careful when harvesting them because those thorns just seem to aim for the knuckles on my hands.
 
Old 11-23-2017, 06:19 PM   #4
JColt
I remember those thorns well. My buddy and I would head out into groves and ask to pick. We would work a few days and have enough movie, coke and candy money for a couple weeks then go back. It was always the same. A huge black man with cigar in his mouth would be the boss and money man. My buddy and I were usually the only white people out there. Always treated well though and never any problem getting work. Every once in awhile someone would have a huge spider flash across them. You would hear a girl scream and someone fall off the ladder. Everyone would laugh and go right back to work.
 
Old 11-27-2017, 01:54 AM   #5
WebSlave
Maybe this will bring back fond memories of those thorns....

 
Old 11-28-2017, 08:50 PM   #6
Lucille
Those pomelos are spectacular. I don't think I've ever seen one 'in person'. When you harvest one could you please take a picture of the inside fruit part?
 
Old 12-07-2017, 03:09 PM   #7
WebSlave
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucille View Post
Those pomelos are spectacular. I don't think I've ever seen one 'in person'. When you harvest one could you please take a picture of the inside fruit part?
Okey dokey! This isn't the largest one on the tree, but Connie wanted to pull one to see if it is ripe yet. She said it tastes pretty good, but just a bit shy of being fully ripe.











Hopefully the cold nights coming in this weekend won't damage them any.
 
Old 12-07-2017, 03:14 PM   #8
AbsoluteApril
That's crazy big, have never seen one before! Does it taste like a grapefruit? Looks really good!
 
Old 12-07-2017, 03:30 PM   #9
WebSlave
Quote:
Originally Posted by AbsoluteApril View Post
That's crazy big, have never seen one before! Does it taste like a grapefruit? Looks really good!
Connie says it tastes like a grapefruit, but doesn't have the typical acidic bitter taste to it. She says they are "yummy". (direct quote)

I haven't tried any myself, since she hasn't gotten very many of them and I let her eat them while I eat the other citrus. But since she has 10 fruits this year, maybe I'll try a couple of bites. I don't really like typical grapefruit.

We just bought another small pomelo tree a few days ago, but it's going to be quite a while before it produces any fruit. If I am not mistaken, this particular variety is known as the "Hirado Butan" pummelo (or pomelo, depending on who you read).

http://www.justfruitsandexotics.com/...-pummelo-tree/

But it really wasn't labelled as such when we bought the original tree years ago. The above company (Just Fruits) is local to us and we've been buying from them ever since we moved down here to north Florida.
 
Old 01-01-2018, 01:23 PM   #10
WebSlave
Angry

Still only 41 degrees here at 1:15pm.

Supposed to drop down to around 23 degrees tonight, and pretty much the same for this entire week. I'm not real keen on this new year, so far.

So for the new year so far, our citrus trees might be history in 2018. We are going to cover what we can with whatever tarps we have. But I think it's going to be windy too, so that might wind up blowing the tarps off of the trees anyway.

Oh well. Growing our own citrus was real nice while it lasted. We won't be replacing the trees, since this sort of thing could happen again at any time. And honestly, we're getting up in age where running around at night throwing tarps over trees would be becoming a burden anyway.
 

Join now to reply to this thread or open new ones for your questions & comments! FaunaClassifieds.com is the largest online community about Reptile & Amphibians, Snakes, Lizards and number one classifieds service with thousands of ads to look for. Registration is open to everyone and FREE. Click Here to Register!

 
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
2010 LEMONBLAST MALES 300+GRAMS READY TO BREED NEXT SEASON POSS THIS SEASON Luis Alonso Exotics Trading and Bartering 0 11-07-2010 04:19 PM
First babies of new season, second season ever... BluGnat Geckos Discussion Forum 8 02-02-2006 07:31 PM


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 07:48 AM.







Fauna Top Sites


Powered by vBulletin® Version
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Page generated in 0.04930806 seconds with 12 queries
Content copyrighted ©2002-2022, FaunaClassifieds, LLC