It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year

(Owari) Satsuma Mandarin

We've had rain!  Holy cow.  It finally happened.  Wonderfully cool, wet weather has arrived.  The garden has been washed with rain that ran from a soft misty drizzle to a downpour.  It has been great. With that cool weather comes a variety of citrus and I love them all. 

First up are the mandarins.  These have been successfully marketed recently by local Paramount Farms as Little Cuties. They sold the rights to that name to Sun World and now market the name Halos. Fine, I'll grow my own whenever I can. The seedless mandarin fruit is easy to peel and taste like winter time in Bakersfield.  I have always enjoyed citrus.  As a kid, my parents would take us to the citrus orchards for fruit tasting.  Delicious.

In the garden is just one potted mandarin tree that is about 3 years old.  There are over 4 dozen mandarins loaded on the skinny little branches. The fruit stays on the trees until it's needed which is a nice feature. The potted lemons are abundant too. Tomorrow night's dinner is fried Lemon Chicken! The oranges are about the size of grapefruit.  Grapefruit is my absolute favorite.  There are a load of grapefruits to enjoy for many breakfasts this winter.  Limes are next on my list to bring into the garden once the threat of frost and freeze has past.

Tree Inspection

Some notable things are happening this spring in the garden as the trees mature.  For example, most all the trees are holding the most fruit they have ever produced.  At the same time, I thought the nectarine was doomed.  Not so fast.  An inspection revealed at least one viable piece of fruit.  There are others but those are so weak they will most likely blow away with the next breeze.

Nectarine – Fantasia

Citrus blossoms are plentiful on all of the citrus trees – lemon, mandarin, orange, and grapefruit.  The mandarin is the youngest of the citrus and has loads of little mandarins that should be ready around Christmas time.

Mandarin – Owari Satsuma

Lacking in age means this tree is lacking in strength to hold all this fruit.  Most will be lost until the tree is old enough to support the weight.  While inspecting the tree I spotted the thorns that are prevalent on citrus trees.  Holy Cow!

There are several thorns that measure around 5 inches.  Are these thorns?  They sure look like thorns; but mandarins aren’t noted for having thorns.  The thorns don’t appear to be growing from the scion so I can’t explain this nor do I know what to do – if I do anything.  The thorns were growing from the scion with some strange leaves.  Late tonight when I was outside re-examining the thorns to confirm where on the tree they were growing, the fragile branch broke off just like a sucker should.  Problem solved.

This is a tree from Four Winds Growers out of Winters, California.  That’s up by Sacramento.  Now Sacramento is famous for growing loads of blow hard politicians but I’ve never known them to be famous for thorns.  There is most probably no correlation.

Citrus Blight?

March 26, 2009

Okay.  What in the Wide World of Sports is going on with my Satsuma Mandarin Orange?  I believe it may be blight.  I’ve seen blight kill gardenias and the symptoms on my Satsuma are similar.  The tips on the new growth has curled up and turned black.  Leaf drop was out of control. 

Thinking it was potted too low, I pulled it up a bit hoping that would help drainage.  A moisture meter is used to try to keep the conditions right.  It was fed.  PVC pipe was driven deep down to help with aeration.  Nothing seemed to work.

An arborist visited the garden on another assignment  last weekend and thought the tree was still alive.  He recommended a fertilizer and blah, blah, blah.  I want to know what is happening to my tree.

A little research by me helped me to think the problem is blight.  I’ve pruned out the damaged bits with shears cleaned with rubbing alcohol after each cut and tossed the damaged parts away.

What has caused my potted dwarf Satsuma to go from this:

November 1, 2009

 

To this:

March 23, 2010

If citrus is going to be so danged temperamental, I want nothing to do with it.  I want vegetation that thrives in the conditions I have in the garden without having to be nursed and pampered along the way.