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

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 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.

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