The Tropical Fruit Forum

I’m harvesting my Rio Reds and Croxton grapefruit now too. They have to be on tree almost a year and a half to ripen here too.

I don’t think I have a lack of cold weather problem here in western NC. I’m going to cut open some fruit and assess further.

I’m giving up on my from-seed papedas which die back every year from cold. I have/had two left that went unprotected this winter and kept green leaves all winter which was unusually warm, and pretty much died after two nights of 14 degrees in mid March. Cold hardy citrus is only hardy while dormant. Two weeks with temps in seventies and sixties followed by a polar plunge kills. Even my citranges look like garbage right now and my 15 foot tall Changsha unprotected this winter looks like a dry tumble weed although still green for now when scratch bark.

I don’t know about plastic envelope. From what I read it only mentions drying it out so it’s not wet and freezing it. Seems it would mold or be too wet in plastic. Some talk about putting it in glass tubes. I just don’t know. Three weeks sounds good though. Just need a few days.

A lot, actually most of my poncirus flower buds froze off this spring thanks to a warm winter followed by a fabulous two days of 14 degrees F in mid March. Anyway, I was outside today trying to extract pollen from the few flowers that are showing up. I noticed that some flowers only have stunted stamens inside and some only have pistils. A few had perfect flowers with nice yellow pollen on stamens.

Know that Woodlanders sells seedlings. Ichangensis does not always come true from seed so probably a hybrid. I have seedlings from a fruit I got from Woodlanders and from another place and the main leaves are a little longer than petiole at least most are.

I’ve seen a lot of my cold hardy citrus die when the bark at the base splits like this. It splits on the south side of the tree in spring after temps have risen enough to cause sap to flow and break dormancy, followed by a freeze that splits the bark. The trees need to stay cold and dormant as long as possible throughout fall, winter, spring. Some blooming and growing in winter even in the greenhouse is a problem since temperatures will drop below freezing in the greenhouse even with supplemental heating when outside temperatures get cold enough. Signs of new growth in March is a bad sign here.

The few citrus that I have overwintered in my house have not grown during winter although it is warm indoors and they were in a south window. As they got bigger and pots got heavier I got really aggravated every time I had to cart them in and out of the house spilling dirt and water on my carpeted floor. They go out once a week if possible to get hosed off for spider mites control, etc. So, this winter I decided to take a chance and just stash those not-so-cold-hardy potted varieties outside in a portable greenhouse with a couple of water barrels and two small space heaters inside, and they are doing just fine. Still not growing, but not frost damaged and no spider mites, and no dirt spilled on my floors. So far this warm winter my low has been 13 degrees F. My potted varieties are Santa Teresa lemon, Chandler pomelo, and Lakeland limequat.

It says on the Sure Jell instructions. 1000 to 3,000 feet adds 5 minutes. From 3,001 to 6,000 ft add 10 minutes.

If Ichang lemon isn’t sour enough, try citremon. It will be more cold hardy too. I like swingle citrumelo as a lemon substitute too.

Spray trees down with water hose and/ or neem oil solution once a week to deter spider mites if trees indoors in winter.

I tried the 5:1:1 mix but it was too aggravating to figure out what kind of pine bark mulch to buy, and I don’t want to do the sifting out the smaller pieces of bark thing. I like mixing the Turface with the Miracle Grow Garden soil. So much easier. I tried some kind of pumice stone mixed in potting soil but it was very heavy and did not drain nearly as well as the Turface. The pumice stone gravel stuff is meant to mix into garden to deter voles; I think it was Sunshine brand or something. Came in a white bag with a sun on it. Cheaper than Turface but I don’t like it.