Week of November 27, 2022

The citrus fruit season has just arrived at our Florida garden with lots of fruit ripening on eleven of our seventeen citrus trees. The picking has commenced on our two GRAPEFRUIT trees. None of the fruit are at peak sweetness, but the size of the grapefruit trees and the number of fruit involved supports the idea of starting the harvest early. Both trees had been pruned in the spring and produced abundant flowers. The Ruby Red variety set too many fruit, necessitating thinning of small, green fruit in early summer. Nonetheless, the fruit have mostly remained somewhat small, and many will be used very nicely for juice. On the other hand, the pink grapefruit are also abundant but enormous, six inches or more in diameter, and pulling down the limbs. The large fruit are juicy and easily prepared for breakfast by cutting in half and sectioning with a grapefruit knife. They are expected to continue to sweeten with cool/cold weather, just in time for the families’ visit at Christmas time.