Blog Archives

Citrus Checkup

7/29/2011

Seedless Kishu Mandarins

Despite the awful freezes this past winter and the terrible drought this summer, it looks like we'll still have some citrus to eat this year. I picked all the young fruit off the in-ground citrus trees to promote growth, but I left the fruit on all the container citrus trees. The Republic of Texas orange tree went through the freezes largely unprotected, but it only set two or three fruits as a result. The usually precocious Pong Koa appeared to have only suffered minor damage, but it didn't set any fruit at all this year. Hopefully if we're spared another arctic blast this year, we'll have even more fruit next year.

This fall/winter we should get to taste some Seedless Kishu mandarins, Changshou kumquats, Meiwa kumquats , Ujukitsus, and a few Republic of Texas oranges. Last year Boy #1 ate 90% of all the kumquats, so I don't expect to be able to sneak too many away from him this year. The Changshou kumquat is one of my favorite citrus fruits, I don't think I could have too many of these. To my palate the Meiwa kumquats are just Ok, but as I mentioned Boy #1 loves them so I'll keep them around for now, although I've considered top-working the Meiwa tree over to Changshou.

I can't wait to pick the Seedless Kishus and the Ujukitsus. I've tried both varieties before at John Panzarella's annual citrus tasting, and both were very good, but that's not quite the same as tasting fruit from your own yard. I have tasted Ujukitsu fruits that really tasted like lemonade, and others that tasted more like plain supermarket oranges. I suspect that the taste difference was probably related to when the fruit was picked, but I'll have to wait until December to see what my particular fruit will taste like. To me the Seedless Kishu is very similar to most other satsumas, the only big difference being that the fruit is only 1.5-inches in diameter. It is a compact little tree that I planted in a 30-gallon pot by the porch, and it has grown very well there. This winter I plan to post more descriptions and photographs of each variety as they ripen

Changshou Kumquats

Meiwa Kumquats

Republic of Texas Orange

Ujukitsus

Meyer Lemons

Calamondins

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Citrus Leaf Miners

7/26/2011

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Adult Leaf Miner - Photo from cisr.ucr.edu

While I was working in south Texas all last week, the leaf miners decided to move in and have a party. The Asian citrus leaf miner is a little moth that lays its eggs on citrus leaves. The larvae then hatch and burrow into the leaves, where they leave sinuous trails as they feed on the interior leaf tissues. I have usually seen damage in April or May, but the hard freezes of the past two years have set them back a few months to July-August.

These little jerks just drive me crazy. To control them you can spray different organic pesticides, such as spinosad or neem oil, but I haven't found them to be particularly effective. Even when I've sprayed all of the trees but one to leave as a sacrificial lamb, they still strike wherever there is tender new growth. You also have to reapply the sprays after every rain (not a problem this summer), and I've pretty much given up spraying anything except on my newly-grafted trees. They're also hard to control because it is very difficult to get the sprays on both sides of every leaf, and once the larvae are inside the leaves they are impossible to kill.

Fortunately, leaf miners don't bother the developing fruits and won't kill the trees, although I'm sure they would be healthier and produce better if the little moths could be controlled. In my experience, they don't seem to prefer any one kind of citrus over another, they lay eggs on any tender new growth that happens to coincide with that part of their life cycle. If anyone has a good solution to this problem I'd love to see it, but then again, the more fruit I grow the less interested I am in spraying any kind of pesticides. I just may have to learn to live with ugly foliage for a few months out of the year.

Leaf miner damage.

All over my small Ruby grapefruit.

Almost all the new growth is affected.

Boy #2 trying some pears

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Prickly Pear Cactus - Opuntia ficus-indica

7/20/2011

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Prickly Pear Cactus Fruit

I've been working in deep south Texas all this week, far away from my beautiful wife, sons, and fruit trees. It has been 100+ degrees every day, with hardly any shade, and tough drilling conditions.

While taking a break earlier this week, something purple caught my eye out in the brush. It turned out to be prickly pear cactus fruit. I had eaten nopalitos (young cactus pads) before, but I had never tried the fruit. The fruits themselves are purple, roughly fig shaped, and covered with clusters of small spines. It is from the fruit's shape that the prickly pear gets the scientific name Opuntia ficus-indica, or "Indian Fig".

Wearing the toughest leather gloves I had, I collected around 25 fruits into a plastic bucket. Despite my best efforts to avoid the spines, I still got stuck quite a few times. The large spines are easy to avoid, but the little ones are very hard to see. I brought them all back to the hotel, and did my best to skin them with a fork and a Swiss Army knife. A vegetable peeler would have been much better, but regardless, the darn things are so prickly that they're very difficult to handle without getting a few spines. After a few spines and lots of swearing, I finally got a few of the fruits peeled and split, and scooped out the seeds.

To me they taste something like a mildly sweet cucumber, alright, but not really tasty. Maybe other cactus fruits like tunas, pitayas, and dragon fruit taste better, but these were definitely not worth the effort or the spines. This is unfortunate considering how easily they seem to grow in some of the harshest conditions imaginable.

Cactus

Nasty little thorns cover the fruit.

Bucket of cactus fruit. Wear gloves to pick them.

Slicing up the fruit.

Taste is Ok, but not worth the spines in my opinion.

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Field Trip - Mr. Texas Citrus

7/17/2011

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The Mr. Texas Place - Beaumont, Texas

On the way back from a recent job in Port Arthur, I stopped by the home of Mr. Texas in Beaumont, TX. Pretty much everyone interested in growing citrus has stumbled across his website at one time or another. Mr. Texas himself was on vacation during my visit, but he graciously allowed me to give myself a quick tour of his backyard during his absence. It was getting dark and raining when I stopped by, so I apologize for the poor quality photographs.

Did you ever get the feeling you were being watched? As I was looking around and taking pictures, I kept getting this strange feeling and hearing scratching noises. I turned a corner and suddenly found myself face to face with 20 or so rabbits! I guess they thought I was there to feed them because they got pretty excited. I saw that their droppings were being used to fertilize the plants and trees. Rabbit manure is special because it is higher in available nitrogen than other manures, and it can be applied directly to plants without first being composted, unlike poultry, cattle, or horse manures.

Another interesting thing I noticed was that instead of just bark or wood chips, Mr. Texas is using a living mulch of watermelon plants under his trees. This is a great example of the permaculture principle of "stacking", or getting more than one crop out of the same space. He said that this was his first year to try it, but that he was getting 30+ pound watermelons, and that the best have been the Black Diamond variety. I'm definitely going to have to try it next year. I love melons.

All or nearly all of Mr. Texas' citrus trees are t-budded on flying dragon rootstocks, which he grows from seeds collected from a mature flying dragon tree in his front yard. A year or two ago he told me his method for growing rootstocks is to just plant a bunch of seeds (50 or so) in a 3 gallon pot and grow them for a year. The following winter he will separate them into individual pots, and grow them until they are big enough to graft.

I perused his unique collection of rare citrus, persimmons, pomegranates, blackberries, and other trees, and admired his grafts until a clap of thunder said it was time to go. Before I left I picked up a Cocktail grapefruit, a Sanguinelli blood orange, and a Clementine de Nules. I plan to add budwood from the sanguinelli to my multiple-variety blood orange tree, add Cocktail grapefruit to my Republic of Texas orange tree, and use the Clementine de Nules as a seed parent for future attempts at citrus hybridization. I'm just sorry I couldn't get the tour from Mr. Texas himself. Perhaps on a future trip.

I'm very jealous of this set up.

More citrus trees.

Flying Dragons Rootstocks

Top-working Grafts

Citrus Everywhere

Mulch Melon

Fertilizer Factory

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Grafting Follow Up

7/13/2011

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Bark Inlay Graft

With no ripe fruit to eat right now, I decided to go around the yard and unwrap all my grafts from back in March. I had top-worked my Meyer lemon into a multi-mandarin tree with Fairchild, Pixie, Kinnow, and Dobashi Beni mandarins/satsumas, and I top-worked my container Everhard navel to a multi-blood orange tree with Ruby, Moro, and Tarocco blood oranges.

I had ordered citrus budwood from the Texas A&M Citrus Center in Weslaco, Texas, and another TXRFG member was kind enough to give me some Dobashi Beni budwood. I used cleft grafts and Joe Real's citrus bark graft method, with almost 100% success. I had one Dobashi Beni cleft graft fail, but the others took with no problems. I also used cleft and whip grafts on my plum tree to add Santa Rosa and Beauty to my Methley plum.

One thing I learned is that I shouldn't wrap the grafts so tightly. Especially on the plum grafts, I could see where the rubber bands and green plastic wrap was constraining growth. In the future I'll try to wrap the grafts snug but not tight, and unwrap them sooner. However, in spite of this all the grafts healed very quickly, and I've been amazed at how vigorously they've grown. If I ever sell my house, the new owners will probably be very surprised to see different kinds of fruit coming from one tree.

This winter I plan on grafting several more varieties of citrus, figs, persimmons, pears, and apples to my trees. I'm thinking of hosting a grafting class/demonstration in the spring as well. It would be kind of like the class taught by John Panzarella in Lake Jackson, only it would have to be smaller, and I don't have near the experience and expertise that John does. However, I do have 20+ trifoliate rootstocks, a source for citrus budwood, and plenty of grafting tape. Send me an email and let me know if you'd be interested, and if there are enough takers I'll try to set it up.

Multi-Blood Orange Tree - Before and After

Multi-Mandarin Tree - Before and After

Bark Inlay Graft

Healed Whip Graft

Cleft Graft - Wrapped Too Tight

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Cleaning the Cider Press

7/11/2011

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Grimy old cider press.

Several months ago, my grandfather heard I was making hard cider, and sent me an old cider press. It was pretty dirty and rusty, but looked to be in pretty good shape overall. Since I didn't have any fruit to press at the time, I just stuck it in the garage and forgot about it.

Now that my neighbor's pear tree is loaded with a few hundred pounds of fruit, I figured it was time to get out the press and clean it up. Boy #1 and I took it completely apart, and cleaned all the pieces. I used a wire brush to take off all the flaking paint and the worst of the rust, tightened all the bolts and screws, and cleaned out and oiled the threads.

I thought about repainting the metal pieces and sealing the wood with a polyurethane, but decided against it. I read that the polyurethane would affect the taste of the cider, and since the metal wasn't in that bad of shape I decided to leave it alone. Also, since I don't have a sandblaster, it would take a long time to take off all the rust with just a wire brush and steel wool. The wood slats will be pretty easy to replace if I decide to do that later.

Of course, once I got it all put back together we had to test it out. We placed half of an Asian pear in the press, and Boy #1 helped squish it. Success! Juice flowed out of the press easily with each turn of the handle. Boy #1 happily drank all the pear juice and asked for more. The next step will be to build some sort of fruit crusher to pulverize the fruit before it goes into the press. I'm thinking of building something out of a garbage disposal, but haven't decided yet. I may just use my food processor or the blender.

Boy #1 helping me take it apart and clean it.

Completely cleaned and reassembled.

The press works beautifully.

One very flat Asian pear.

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Picking Pears

7/7/2011

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Neighbor's Pear Tree - Unknown Cultivar

Some of the pears on my neighbor's tree have started to drop, and the birds and the squirrels have been getting quit a few, so I decided it was time to go pear picking. They may not be ripe yet, but if I figured that if I didn't pick them soon the varmints would get them all.

I don't know what variety of pears these are, or how big they should be. With the drought this year, all the fruit from unirrigated trees seem much smaller than usual. These pears are roughly baseball sized, light green, and hard, with a concave bottom. Most had a little bit of what I believe to be pear scab, and I noticed some codling moth damage, but over all they looked pretty good. I took a test bite, and even though the flesh was very hard, it was fairly sweet.

According to Master Gardener and Gulf Coast Fruit Study Group Coordinator Yvonne Gibbs, the recommended method to ripen pears is as follows:

1. Pick the pears when they have most of their color, but aren't yet ripe. Leave the stems on.
2. Wrap individual pears in paper towels, and pack two layers deep in a box.
3. Put the box of pears in the fridge for 2+ weeks.
4. Pull box out of fridge and keep at room temperature for a week. They will ripen and soften.

I kind-of followed these directions. I didn't wrap every pear in a paper towel (that's a lot of paper towels), and since I didn't have enough room in the fridge for multiple boxes with only two layers of pears, I just packed them all into one box. I put the box in the fridge, and marked the calendar so I wouldn't forget to take them out.

Boy #1 was disappointed that we couldn't eat the pears right then, but I'm sure he's going to enjoy them in a few weeks. We also plan to mush some up for Boy #2. There are still hundreds of small pears on the other pear tree that are only slightly bigger than golf balls. With no rain in the forecast, I'm pretty sure they're not going to get much bigger. I'm thinking of picking those next week, letting them ripen, and juicing them to make pear cider and baby food.

I guess they would be bigger if not for the drought.

Boy #1 loves helping put the pears in the bucket.

5 gal. bucket full of pears.

Wrapping pears in paper towels.

Packing pears for cold storage in the fridge.

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Field Trip - Home of Scott Johnsgard

7/4/2011

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Planting the orchard, April 2010

Scott Johnsgard is a genius.

While most of us are out in the blistering heat pushing our lawn mowers, Scott is tending his backyard orchard of fruit trees. He only has 10 square feet of grass to keep trimmed. He has transformed the rest of his lot into a wonderful suburban orchard, with figs, bananas, persimmons, feijoas, grapes, passion fruit, and citrus of all kinds.

I first met Scott last year at John Panzarella's annual citrus tasting, where he impressed me with his enthusiasm for citrus trees, and seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of different varieties. I was also very impressed to hear that he was growing all these citrus trees in The Woodlands, where the potential for terrible freezes and even more terrible home owner's associations might give others pause. I finally got the chance to go visit last week while Dr. Wife and the boys were out of town.

Scott's orchard began just a few years ago. First he got rid of all the grass, buried corrugated drain tubes and irrigation lines, and then laid down several inches of cedar mulch. All of his trees are planted in nice raised rows separated by swales for drainage, and irrigated by circular drip emitters. The plantings are very nicely arranged, and full of tangelos, kumquats, calamondins, oranges, grapefruit, pummelos, and more. It doesn't take too much imagination to visualize what it will be like in just a few years. When all his trees reach maturity, he'll hardly be able to walk back there. I don't know the exact number, but I bet he has around 100 trees planted in the ground.

During my visit, I was struck by two things: First, Scott never refers to his lot as his "yard". He always refers to it as his "orchard". Damn right. We're not talking about a few trees planted out in the lawn, his is a well thought out and well executed suburban orchard design. If Dr. Wife would let me, I would do the exact same thing (and I still might, depending on whether or not she reads this). Second, all of his trees looked really good in spite of receiving NO COLD PROTECTION! That's quite an accomplishment considering that the last two years have brought the harshest winters since the 1980's.

Scott's a true fruit explorer, pushing the northern limits of growing citrus. I really look forward to watching his orchard mature over the next few years.