During peak citrus season we had an afternoon picnic with a few neighbors in the back yard, and I bought a bunch of the more … unusual citrus to slice up for a citrus sampler platter. It went over very well! Even the sour ones were fun to compare.
When I was cutting them, I was throwing all the seeds in the same jar, and did not take any care to figure out which was which, but in the end I decided to save them anyhow, and have been germinating them.
Here is my best recollection (over a month later) of what we had on that platter:
- Mandarinquat (mandarin x kumquat)
- Limequat (key lime x kumquat)
- Wonderful key lime flavor in a neat little kumquat form
- A generic “mandarin” (satsuma type)
- Had very few seeds, so least likely % wise
- Yuzu
- I included this mostly to see how people would react to it. Lots of seeds of course, but I only cut one up, so not really over represented in seed jar.
- A Vaniglia Sanguigno acidless sweet orange
- This was the blandest orange I’ve ever tasted and the only thing here I really wouldn’t want to grow
- Ordinary generic lemon
These will end up in a corner of my new greenhouse, space permitting, until they either die or flower. I just thought it might be fun to see how early they can be identified from this diverse collection.
I’ve never grown citrus before (other than other seeds I’m germinating from this same season of grocery store fruit), so I welcome any advice or suggestions.
Now for the first photo, this one was polyembryonic (if that helps narrow it down), but the other two embryos were weak and didn’t sprout fully:
Next up, a much pointier leaf shape, and thorns:
Those are the only two big enough to be worth including. More to come over the next few weeks, I’m sure!
