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Making Marmalade

11/27/2011

Look! It's a kumquat!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had decided to process my sour citrus harvest into a lemon-kumquat-calamondin marmalade. Boy #1 helped me pick all the fruit, and had a great time showing the different kinds to Boy #2. Once we were finished we had at least a couple of gallons of Meyer lemons, Changshou and Meiwa kumquats, and calamondins.

Once the kids were asleep, I got to work washing the fruit, removing the seeds, and running it all through the food processor. One thing that is very nice about making marmalade is that the fruit contains plenty of natural pectin, so you don't have to add any. Just three ingredients: fruit, water, and sugar. I also learned from previous experience to wear gloves (nitrile) while handing all the fruit. The acidic juice will find its way into your eyes, and every little cut, nick, and scrape on your hands.

It took me until 1 am to finish. I wound up with enough pureed fruit to make three batches (12 pints). I sleepily cleaned up the kitchen (turns out I didn't do a very good job), and lumbered off to bed. The next morning, I had homemade marmalade on homemade bread with fresh squeezed grapefruit juice for breakfast. I was very pleasantly surprised with how well it came out. The calamondins really gave it a nice zing without making it too tart. I have found that jars of homemade preserves of homegrown fruit make great gifts, and I look forward to sharing this batch with many of my fruit-growing friends.

Meyer Lemons, Calamondins, and Kumquats

Wash fruit and remove the seeds.

Shred the fruit in a fruit processor.

Boil down 6 cup of water and 6 cups of fruit for 30 minutes.

Add sugar and boil down for another 30 minutes or until it gels on a frozen plate.

Pour into jars and process for 10 minutes. This recipe makes 4 pints per batch. Now its time to clean up...

I think its the best batch of marmalade I've made yet.

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Planting Strawberries

11/20/2011

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Sweet Charlie Strawberry - Spring 2011

This past week my strawberry order from Ison's finally arrived. Last year I planted 50 or so Sweet Charlie plants in the flower beds, and this past spring we were rewarded with a great crop of berries from late March to May. Unfortunately, the plants didn't survive the brutal summer, but I'm not discouraged. I bargained with Dr. Wife for more space in the beds, and ordered 200 Sweet Charlie plants. I've also grown Chandler and All Star, but Sweet Charlie has performed the best for me. They're small but very tasty, prolific, and they seem to bear over a long season.

The plants came in bundles of 25, held together with rubber bands, and packed with some sort of gelatinous substance to keep them moist. They arrived late on Thursday afternoon, and I just didn't have time to get all 200 planted, or even finish preparing the flower bed. To keep them from drying out until the weekend, I placed the bundles in 3-gallon pots with some peat moss and potting soil, and watered them well.

Once the weekend finally rolled around, and the kids were down for their naps, I got to work. I dug up the flower beds, pulled out as much grass as I could, threw down several pounds of MicroLife 6-2-4 and cottonseed meal, and planted the strawberries on a 6-inch spacing in three rows spaced approximately one foot apart. I also planted six strawberry plants in each of the four 30-gallon pots set into the flower beds, and put 16 into a terracotta strawberry pot to give to my five-year-old niece later. She'll love it once they start fruiting.

Our harvest last year was big enough for Boy #1 to go out and pick a small handful everyday for several weeks, and even share a few with Dr. Wife and I. This coming spring, Boy #2 will be out toddling around too, so I'm going to need twice as many berries. I want both my boys to be able to pick as many as they want, and someday look back and have fun memories of picking strawberries with their silly old dad.

Package from Ison's

Strawberries in pots until I could get them planted in the flower beds.

Flower beds are now full of strawberries.

Plants are growing fast after only a couple of days.

Strawberry pot with 16 plants. My niece will be thrilled when they start bearing.

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Sour Citrus

11/13/2011

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Lemon, Calamondin, and Kumquat

Let me start off by saying that while citrus trees are my favorite plants, I'm just not that crazy about sour citrus. Sure, you can use them in cooking or to make lemonade, but you can't just pick one off the tree and eat it (or at least I can't). I just can't get too excited about fruit that isn't palatable without lots of added sugar. Most people I know with Meyer lemon trees wind up giving away most of the fruit anyway, because what do you do with 300+ lemons!? I still have lemon juice in my freezer from 2009! I still grow some sour citrus, but they're mostly restricted to containers. Real estate in the yard is reserved for ready-to-eat fruits like tangerines and grapefruits. In spite of the drought, this year I'm picking Improved Meyer lemons, calamondins, and kumquats.

The Meyer lemon is thought to be an orange-lemon hybrid that was discovered by the legendary fruit explorer Frank Meyer, and brought to the United States from Beijing China in 1908. If you see a tag that says 'Improved' Meyer lemon, this simply means that it came from a source that was certified to be free of the Tristeza citrus virus. It blooms profusely every year, and is a favorite of the honey bees. Even though small, and in a container, my tree set somewhere around 30 fruit this year, each about the size of a tennis ball. The lemons themselves are very juicy (but with lots of seeds), with an excellent lemon flavor which I prefer to supermarket lemons.

Improved Meyer lemon in a 30-gallon container.

The calamondin (aka 'acid orange') is thought to be a natural cross between a sour mandarin and a kumquat, and it is also produces bountiful crops of fruit. The fruits are small, no bigger than a golf ball, and are both extremely flavorful and acidic. Eating a calamondin after eating miracle fruit was perhaps one of the best things I have ever tasted in my life! In his book, Dr. Randall commented that he would almost always rather have a calamondin than a lemon or lime, and I would have to agree. My favorite use of the fruit is to just squeeze them into a glass of ice water. The trees are valuable because they can flower and produce fruit almost year round, although mine definitely produces more heavily in the winter.

Calamondin in a 10-gallon container.

Finally, I've been picking Meiwa and Changshou kumquats. These fall into a little bit of a different category than other sour citrus , because while the juice is very sour and tart, the peels are edible and sweet. When you bit into one, you get hit with both sensations simultaneously, and the result is very tasty. Personally, I think the Meiwa kumquats are just Ok, but the Changshou are outstanding. According to the late Dr. Nagle the variety commonly sold as 'Changshou' is probably a hybrid, and not the true Fortunella obovata, but it is delicious whatever you call it. Due to the terrible weather this summer, some of the fruit have been dried out and not worth eating, but others have been just fantastic. I like to snack on one or two every time I pass by the tree when I'm working in the yard. I'll definitely be planting this tree in the ground this spring.

Changshou kumquat in a 30-gallon container.

You may be asking, what about limes? Well, I had a Mexican lime in a large pot for a couple of years, but the harsh freezes this past winter killed it. I tried to protect it, but it just didn't pull through. I'm also growing a Lakeland limequat, a hybrid of the Key lime and a kumquat from Lakeland, Florida, but it didn't set fruit this year. It is more cold hardy than a lime (about the same hardiness as a navel orange), but still has a very nice lime flavor, and makes an excellent marmalade. I'm planning on making a few mixed batches of lemon-calamondin-kumquat marmalade this coming weekend. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Cross-sectional View

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Loquats

11/7/2011

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Loquat tree in bloom

November is here, and the loquats are in full bloom. Although not the most eye-catching flowers, I'm happy to see so many on my neighborhood trees. Loquats are very special because unlike most fruit trees, they bloom in late fall, and bear their fruit in the late winter/early spring, bridging the gap between the last of the citrus and the first strawberries. Unfortunately, this means that a really hard or late freeze (like February 2011) can wipe out the entire crop of fruit. Hopefully this year the winter weather will be a little milder, and if so, the loquat crop should be a good one.

I have five loquat trees, but only my Genoa Loquat is doing really well. The others are 'Texas' loquats (unnamed variety) that I planted in the front yard, where they just don't get enough sun. They're tall, but leggy, and they just don't compare to the Genoa loquat I planted in the back yard. The Genoa loquat is actually a seedling of John Panzarella's Genoa loquats in Lake Jackson, and I'm hoping its fruit is as large as its mother's. Unlike my Texas loquats, this tree was planted in full sun, and as a result is healthy and vigorous. It is larger than any of the other loquat trees, even though it was half their size when first planted.

None of my trees have flowered yet, but I'm hoping the Genoa loquat does in the next year or two. Even though they might fruit eventually, their sluggish growth compared to the Genoa loquat has convinced me that they will never be really productive in such a shady spot. I think that I may wind up replacing the Texas loquats with pawpaws. Pawpaws are said to like shade, and since my previous pawpaw planting failed, I would like to try again. I may also try a pineapple guava (feijoa). If you have a fruit tree that grows well and is productive in shade or partial shade, I'd love to hear about it. There's lots more room in the shady front flower bed, and I need to sneak in as many fruiting plants as I can before Dr. Wife fills it with flowers.

Finally, happy birthday to thebellhouse.weebly.com! I am very proud to say that with this post, I have met my goal of writing two fruit-related articles every week for one full year. Going forward, my goal is to continue to write at least one post each week. Thanks!

Loquat Blossoms

Bee pollinating loquat blossoms.

Leggy Texas loquats struggling without enough sunlight.

Thriving Genoa Loquat

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Date Palm - Phoenix dactylifera

11/3/2011

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Date Palm Tree

I was coming home from the auto parts store the other day, and I turned into my subdivision via a route I don't normally drive. As I entered the neighborhood, I was surprised to see a huge date palm loaded with golden fruit! I had seen this tree before, but I had no idea it was a date palm until now. I immediately pulled over and went to investigate. Lucky for me, the homeowner was just stepping outside when I got out of the truck, and was more than happy to tell me about his tree.

He told me that he had a degree in forestry from the University of Florida, and that he had planted this date palm when he had first purchased the house in 1988. Since then it had withstood tropical storms, hurricanes, and even getting hit by cars. The tree didn't always fruit, but because it had been so hot and dry this summer (date palms have a very high heat requirement to fruit), the tree had really put out a spectacular looking crop. Unfortunately, they didn't taste as good as they looked. I bit into one, and was shocked to find the fruit was just as astringent as an unripe persimmon!

The homeowner told me that the fruit this year were hollow with poorly developed seeds, and that he had never got any edible fruit from the tree anyway. I'm sure there must be a way to process the fruits to remove the astringency, but I haven't found it yet. According to the University of Florida, drying naturally removes all astringency in persimmons, so I may try drying some of the dates to see if that does the trick.

On a side note, in a previous post I had asked if anyone knew of a fruiting avocado tree north of I-10, and I received no responses. Well, right behind the date palm I noticed an avocado tree growing back from the roots. The homeowner told me that the tree had been quite large, and had produced fruit sporadically, but that it had been killed to the ground this past winter. He said that he and his wife had grown the tree from a seed they got from a grocery store avocado, which almost certainly means it was a Hass. The new trunk looked very healthy, and was almost six feet tall. The old trunk was almost 6-inches in diameter, and I really wish I had been able to see it before it was killed back.