Week of November 21, 2021

The winter holidays bring cooler weather and CITRUS to the Florida Garden. After an enthusiastic bloom, the 16 trees enjoyed the wet summer with the setting of lots of fruit; two for the first time. Our Hamlin juice oranges have the first real crop, and the new round kumquat has fruit in its first year of planting. The two grapefruit trees planted next to each other behaved very differently. The pink grapefruit tree has enormous fruit nicely spaced out, still with some ripening needed. The red grapefruit had an exuberant bloom and produced scores of small fruit which threatened to pull down the branches. This necessitated thinning of 3-4 gallons of small green fruit to enable the remaining fruit to grow larger. The grapefruit, the Satsuma tangerine, and the Meyer lemon required 3 and 4 foot props to raise the fruit-laden branches off the ground. The limequat tree required a rope to pull it up as it grew out onto the lawn. The final preparation for the citrus harvest was to wrap the Satsuma tangerine in bird netting as it became the first citrus to ripen. In previous years, we learned about ripe tangerines by having them all eaten by our voracious raccoons. This year, a supply was picked early for storage in the refrigerator and gifts to the grandchildren, even after netting the tree. We look forward to fresh fruit and juice through the Christmas season.