It is the citrus season!

[WebSlave]

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.

 

[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.

 

[WebSlave]

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.

 

[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.

 

[WebSlave]

Maybe this will bring back fond memories of those thorns....

 

[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?

 

[WebSlave]

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.

 

[AbsoluteApril]

That's crazy big, have never seen one before! Does it taste like a grapefruit? Looks really good!

 

[WebSlave]

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/JFE/product/hirado-butan-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.

 

[WebSlave]

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.

 

[JColt]

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 wish it were sweater weather here also!

Hope everything survives!

 

[WebSlave]

Heck, there was a time when I thought that 40 degrees was downright balmy. But we just got back from covering as much of the citrus as we could, and I swear I was feeling like I was getting frostbite on my thumbs right through my gloves. I guess living in Florida for 26 years changes your cold tolerance significantly.

 

[WebSlave]

BTW, one interesting way I have discovered to determine that a cold night is heading our way is that spiders will start dropping out of the trees to get close to the ground. Somehow they know... At times in the past it looked surreal with all these spider lines glinting in the exterior lights off of the building late at night.

And yes, I saw some this evening while Connie and I were covering plants.

 

[JColt]

Yeah if you pay attention, Nature will tell you a lot of things. Well 9 degrees right now and work called. No heat downstairs. Since I slept 2 hours I guess I'll head in 6 hours early.

 

[WebSlave]

So last night we had some good news in that the temps didn't get as low as they were predicting. The bad news part, however, is that we got freezing rain and sleet, so the tarps on the citrus trees had slush on them when we uncovered some of them. When I got up early there was actually some white crud on the ground in spots. WAY too close to being actual snow for my tastes!

Some of the bigger citrus we couldn't cover are not looking happy at all, and I guess we are going to have a lot of leaf loss on those trees. Hopefully none will get killed outright.

I am seriously not happy with 2018 so far. The weather has been pretty crappy and the rest of this first week of 2018 isn't looking like it is going to get any better.

 

[JColt]

It's so cold in Florida, iguanas are falling from trees

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/i...-are-falling-from-trees/ar-BBHSgVa?li=BBnb7Kz

 

[bcr229]

So the store had oranges on sale today and right next to the display was a bunch of pomelos for sale, so I picked one up.

Looked like a large grapefruit on the outside. It was bigger than a grapefruit by maybe another inch or so in diameter. It was nowhere near as big as the ones you grew.

Inside... well it kind of resembled the one from your plants in that the fleshy part was pink, but holy heck the rind was THICK on it. Maybe that's just because it's a variety that's shipped? There was actually less edible in it than in a typical grapefruit, which was disappointing because it tasted really good, just not three times the cost of a pink grapefruit good.

 

[WebSlave]

Just like the oranges and tangerines, there are a LOT of different types of pomelos, evidently. The skin on Connie's are relatively thin, in relation to the size. I'll have to try to remember to take a pic when she opens up the next one. She just opened up another one, and it takes her quite a while to eat it. The individual sections of these things are larger than the entire tangerines that I eat while she is eating her pomelo.

 

[Helenthereef]

I have NEVER seen pomelos that size!!! As Melinda says, the ones we get occasionally are like pink grapefruits with really thick rinds. Yours are just spectacular - I'm salivating (We don't get much in the way of grapefruits here, so it's a real treat).

We do have kumquats, and have found the ideal use for these little things - slice in half and freeze. Fabulous in gin & tonics. We have new trees growing up outside the window from which we eject the used ones, so they are our (pre-marinated) G&T trees.

 

[bcr229]

Just like the oranges and tangerines, there are a LOT of different types of pomelos, evidently. The skin on Connie's are relatively thin, in relation to the size. I'll have to try to remember to take a pic when she opens up the next one. She just opened up another one, and it takes her quite a while to eat it.

Holy carp, I can see why!