With Citrus, Christmas Can't Be Far Away

Grapefruit - Rio Red

Bounteous amounts of citrus means the calendar is closing in on Christmas time.  Here in Bakersfield and probably most of the San Joaquin Valley, residents with citrus trees are looking for neighbors to unload the bounty.  Citrus is winter's zucchini - but in a very good way.  Citrus is my favorite. The scent is in everything from the bloom to the peel to the fruit.  It's even in the limbs when they are pruned.  Wonderful.  The fruit can remain on the tree for quite a long time so it can be harvested as needed.  Local nurseries sponsor citrus tasting events throughout the winter where gardeners can learn about the different varieties, sample the fruit/juice, and purchase health stock.

Grapefruit is my favorite citrus.  Rio Red is delicious.  My dwarf tree is weighted down with the most fruit ever.  That little tree should give enough fruit to last through the winter months.  No scurvy here.

Navel Oranges - Robertson

The fruit is now starting to gain color that is really accentuated by the rain washed leaves.  Yes, it rained yesterday and just a bit today.  Wonderful.  Some of the oranges have split.  That is probably due to uneven irrigation.  Any split fruit is removed as soon as it is detected and disposed.  2014 looks to be a bumper year for the oranges as well.

Lemon - Pink Variegated

Two of the fruit trees are potted - lemon and mandarin.  Neither have fruit.  The Satsuma mandarin is very young and having no fruit is expected while it develops.  The lemon, however, usually has some fruit.  Currently, it's blooming.  In the photo above, some Leaf Miner damage can be seen in the leaf on the left.  That's only cosmetic.

Leaf Miner Larva

Leaf Miner larva mine just below the surface of the young leaves and the skin of the fruit.  These moth babies are annoying but not scary like the Asian Citrus Psyllid that can carry the Huanglongbing (HLB or citrus greening) disease.  Many areas of California are quarantined because of this pest.   That pest is the reason I have not added a lime tree to my citrus collection. 

Asian Citrus Psyllid

In the meantime, it's a joy to work in the soft soil in the garden after some wonderful rain. (Let's not talk about the amount of dirt the wind blew in before the rain.  Yuck.)  All the winter vegetables are experiencing a growth boost with the cooler weather and the rain.

Lettuce - Cimmaron

Grrrrrreat Grapefruit!

Rain! We received heavenly rain.  It even looks like we may receive more. Keep it coming. The weather is beautiful and cool. Most all of the spring blossoms have faded giving way to infant fruit that will surely drop as they develop. 

The Rio Red grapefruit tree is loaded with babies thanks to lots of busy bees.  In the photo above, the current crop being harvested can be seen below the new flush of growth.  I've had one grapefruit almost every morning since January. Wish I would have kept count.  Needless to say, there is no chance of a scurvy outbreak in this garden with grapefruit, orange, manderin, and lemon producing beautifully. The only imperfections would be the cosmetic damage from miners.  The next citrus tree I will bring to the garden is a Bearrs lime.  One of my favorite drinks is chunks of a variety of citrus all squished in a glass with ice and club soda.  So good.

Ajax doesn't care for citrus, but he's enjoying the cool beautiful weather.  High 5 paws for this great weather.  We need to duck inside.  It looks like the skies are threatening to open.

Thanks for the rain and snow!

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.

Citrus Christmas

Rio Red Grapefruit

Well, well, well.  Looks like all I had to do was to wait a bit and Blogger would sort out the mess that kept me from posting.  Unfortunately, I deleted a few images to try to add space.  If you notice any missing images, please let me know and I'll try to restore. 

This morning, I enjoyed the first of many grapefruits of the season. It was delicious and cold.  Boy did it smell good too.  No sugar required either.  All the fruit trees in the garden are dwarf to enable our aging bodies to easily maintain and harvest.  The orange and grapefruit are in the ground and the lemon (currently blooming - beautiful) and mandarin are potted.  All have fruit except the mandarin. 

Leaf miner damage (Wikipedia)

All of the citrus show cosmetic damage from leaf miners.  The skin of the fruit show some of those squiggle trails as well. I haven't heard reports of the Asian Citrus Psyllid in Kern County yet.  Hope that plight stays away even though it is in adjacent Los Angeles and Tulare counties.  Probably just a matter of time.

For now, we have grapefruit, oranges, and lemons to enjoy throughout the Christmas season.

It's also nice to be able to add to my garden journal.

Fruit Trees – Love in Bloom in the Garden

Checking on the fruit trees on this sunny afternoon.  The espalier were pruned some time ago.  They had the 1st application of dormant spray on January 16th.  The next application is scheduled for Super Bowl Sunday, February 6th.  The buds are fattening up just a little bit.  Once the buds break, dormant spray can no longer be applied.

My garden assistant for the afternoon was checking out the other end of the line where the plum, peach, and apple grow while I inspected the apricot, nectarine, and pear on my end.  Each tree will be getting fertilized and additional compost prior to Valentine’s Day.  We moved on to the only citrus tree currently producing.

The Rio Red Grapefruit tree.

The dwarf tree, planted on Valentine’s Day 2009, has produced 7 fruits this season.  Farmer MacGregor and I enjoyed the 1st pick several weeks ago; but old MacGregor declared that the fruit was a wee bit too tart yet.  I thought it was just right.  That could be due to the fact that I’m so sweet and counteract any tartness. We’ll wait just a bit longer until more is harvested.  I prefer to eat grapefruit with a spoon and never like I would eat an orange.  It must be some kind of reaction with the metal of the spoon or something that makes the grapefruit more appealing to me to eat that way.

The stakes surrounding the tree will remain in place until all danger of frost has passed.  Plastic sheeting is draped over the stakes to form a small greenhouse and help ward off any damage from cold weather.  Other than frost dangers, citrus are fairly maintenance free here in zone 8-9.

Perhaps the next time the farmer and I enjoy a grapefruit, we can use something like this to celebrate Valentine’s Day after the trees are fed and composted.  Ain’t it romantic?

Almost RED!

The Rio Red Grapefruit was planted February 14, 2009.  It looks like I may be able to enjoy fruit about 2 years after planting.  This is a dwarf variety and seems to be one of the more vigorous citrus trees here in the garden.  There are about 7 fruits on the tree.  The immature branches needed to be supported because the weight of the fruit is too much.

The tree is planted in the ground on the west side of the shed.  It was sprayed with dormant oil earlier in the year.  It’s fertilized about every 6 – 8 weeks and watered irregularly.  One thing I learned is that citrus don’t like to be too wet.  In fact, a little neglect when it comes to irrigation seems to work better.  Leaf miners have invaded all of the citrus in the garden except for the new mandarin.  Hopefully the upcoming dormant spraying will control the damage of leaf curl and those snail like trails on the fruit skin.  Recent freezing conditions made it necessary to build a temporary cold frame around the tree.  The plastic gets draped over the frame as needed.  Currently, the tree is exposed to the wonderful steady rain California is enjoying.

Delicious Citrus

The replacement Satsuma Mandarin tree was potted today.  Sadly, the 1st tree didn’t make it. Four Winds Growers in Winters, California produce some nice trees. 

This is the newest addition to the garden.  Owari Satsum Mandarin produces seedless, easy to peel fruit that ripens in early winter.  This variety is supposed to be the hardiest of all the mandarins.  The dwarf variety is expected to mature to 6’-8’ but pruning will keep it where I prefer.

Here is the Satsuma Mandarin that didn’t make it.  It produced fruit in it’s 1st season; but it didn’t make it through the spring of 2009.  This picture was taken on November 1, 2009.  I hope to remember to take a similar photo of the new tree on November 1, 2011 to note the progress.

There are other dwarf citrus from Four Winds that are growing well in the garden.

  The Variegated Pink Lemon is doing so well that it needs regular pruning.  I never realized that the branches were scented until I pruned this tree recently.  The cut branches were heavy with a citrus scent.  Wonderful.  This tree has produced some fruit.

Poor little Robertson Navel Orange was having a tough time.  It may have suffered whatever attacked the Satsuma last year.  I kept pruning off the affected areas with pruning shears that were sterilized after every cut.  It seems to be doing better and needs a bit of dead wood removed.  It has produced some fruit but dropped it early on.  All the trees are very immature and really aren’t ready to hold fruit.  (Someone needs to read the memo to the grapefruit tree.)

The Rio Red Grapefruit is producing some monster sized fruit that should be ready this winter.  The citrus  trees are fed about every 6 weeks.  They seem to be doing fine with that schedule.  It’s important not to overwater citrus.  I let the soil dry out pretty good before irrigating.  The pot or growing basin is filled with water then allowed to drain down through the root system.  A moisture monitor is really useful.  When the surface is dry, it’s very tempting to irrigate the trees.  The moisture meter indicates that just below the surface the soil is moist and no water needs to be applied.

When the rain came, I needed help draining the soil.  GardenMax seemed to help keep the drainage from getting clogged by surrounding native clay.  Truly.  The native soil is simply adobe.  Most all the garden soil has been imported or amended - otherwise I would be able to only grow tumbleweeds.

The lot where I garden was supposed to have been an Orange grove in the 1960s; so I know it can be done.  This area on the west side of the Sierra Nevada has a thermal zone that is suitable for citrus to thrive.  Having citrus to enjoy in the winter is a great treat that reminds me of Christmases long ago.

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.

War Is Hell

On Saturday morning, I noticed that the apple (Granny Smith) had busted into blossoms.  Like all the other fruit trees in the garden, the blooms are one week ahead of the 2009 schedule. Wait.  The blossoms don’t look perfect.  Random holes in the leaves of the petals of the apple tree are getting me steamed.  There is a garden pest about.  I inspected the rest of the trees for damage.  WHAT?  There is a hole gnawed into one of the peaches?!  The nectarine has been hit as well.  This calls for war.  The offenders seem to be ants. Although the insects outnumber humans by a quadzillion or more, I would like to think that I have the upper hand in my garden.  It’s a delusion I’m comfortable with. Farmer MacGregor brought out his artillery and blasted the trees with pyrethrum.  He was in full G.I. Joe mode annihilating the enemy.  Pyrethrum is a natural insecticide made from the dried flower heads of chrysanthemum (C. cinerariifolium and C. coccineum). Pyrethrum was used for centuries as an insecticide.

I’m certain the army of ants will send in another wave to attack again (They are probably already out there as I’m typing this.).  We’ll continue the fight for the right to (garden) party.

Next:  I believe the citrus have blight.  This may be fatal.

Merry Christmas Mandarin

This year we planted quite a few trees.  Not shade trees.  Not pretty-to-look-at trees.  Fruit trees.  Trees that really earn their keep.  Stone fruit, apple, pear, and citrus.  I think citrus is my favorite.  Citrus ripens around Christmas time here and is delicious when it’s juicy and cold.  Of course, I’ll switch gears in the summer stating that the stone fruit is my favorite.  I’m fickle that way.

Today, I picked the 1st Satsuma Mandarin.

March 2009- 

November 2009-

December 2009-  Delicious. 

Merry Christmas.

Citrus Christmas

Here in California citrus grows most everywhere.  I have 4 trees in my garden:  mandarin, lemon, orange, and grapefruit.  These are baby dwarf varieties.  Three out of four trees are producing.  The blossoms wouldn’t hold on to the grapefruit.

To me the taste of cold citrus fresh off of a tree tastes like Christmas to me.  When I was a kid, my parents would take us out to the orchards and have citrus shipped to friends and relatives that didn’t have access to fresh oranges.  Of course, there were samples for us to scarf down.  And who doesn’t love the scent of the blossoms?

Here’s how things are looking.

mandarin

navel orange (Not quite there yet.)

variegated lemon