Week of February 6, 2022

The citrus season is essentially over in the Florida Garden, with remaining ripe grapefruit, oranges, and Key limes picked and in the refrigerator for juice-making over the next weeks. The exceptions are the KUMQUATS, which ripen later in January and February. Kumquats were imported to Florida in the 1880’s from Japan, where kumquat means “gold orange.” The current “Kumquat Capital” is St.Joseph, Pasco County, Florida. We have had a producing kumquat tree for several years, with this year’s crop the biggest to date and likely productive until April. This variety is the Nagami, an oval fruit which contains a sour pulp but a sweet skin. We use these for marmalade but especially cut in strips and frozen for use with baked or grilled fish. An addition to this year’s Florida garden is the second type of kumquat variety, the Meiwa or sweet kumquat. These are round and a bit larger, and the whole fruit is eaten, including its sweet pulp. This sapling produced fruit right after planting last fall, an will be ripe in the coming month. This nicely extends our Citrus season from November to April.