I often wonder why people do crazy things like growing citrus in a hostile environment? I started just a few years back in citrus, now I grow some of the finest in mandarin and Pomelo’s.
I enjoy them tremendously every time I walk in my yard among “ normal trees “. Pears? Common! Peach? Common! Figs? Common! Humongous seed grown peach tree? Not common.
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I understand Bob!
Citrus in 6a/6b border.
The New Zealand lemonade is the only tree producing in quantity with quality at 82 lemons so far
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Looking good Steve.Hope you don’t turn yellow eating that much citrus.
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What was the result of that lemon tree with the snow on it?
Even the blossoms look so enjoyable to smell beside the fruits
I forgot to mark it. The snow covered tree is my other seed grown Fukushu kumquat and it is in a 30 gallon container.
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Nice! 6b i’m growing some hardy trifolates, as well as a meyer lemon, kumquat, and I have some satsuma mandarin cuttings rooting and the super-hardy lime-like hybrid “thomasville citrangequat” grafted:
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What’s your secret for productive NZ lemonade? My tree produced about a dozen fruit but is a measly looking tree. Quality of fruit not better than my Meyer lemon. Limes seem to do better here.
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my calamondin ripened me 5 fruit over the winter. its currently got 20 small fruit started on a 3ft tree in 5gal pot. my little kumquat that nearly died last year has put on growth and set 2 fruit but its only 12in. just got a 4ft. mineola on dwarf rootstook also put in a 5 gal pot. all in south facing windows in my house untill june then in my greenhouse. they grow suprisingly well inside over winter. i think the light reflecting off the snow gives them more light when they really could use it. even if they only produce a doz. fruit for me per year thats fine considering the size of the pots and the size they have to be kept at. love growing them. im using some organic citrus fertilizer i got from a discount store and its doing ok. what do you guys feed your citrus? ph?
My in ground New Zealand lemonade is about 7 feet by 7 feet so it has a lot of leaves. That helps a lot. My potted New Zealand lemonade trees look pathetic and I have had 2 trees Flower them selves to death. Non stop flowering and setting fruit to eventually start dropping fruits and leaves to produce more flowers. After 5 months of flowering, numbering into the thousands, the twigs and larger branches dried up and died. The flowers stopped and 2 months later the main trunks died.
I am spraying my NZL with ammonium sulfate to promote flowering this year and it appears to be working. I have NZL on C35, US897, and sour orange. I will be attempting to graft a mature bud on an NZL seedling to have a tree on its own cultivar roots.
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I bought NZL from a well known citrus grower in South TX. He advised that NZL was more prone to Mg deficiency so recommended epsom salts. I use Osmocote Plus and Foliage Pro mainly. Tried epsom salts with little benefit.
Steve, do you still have that monkey that help you pick your apples in that big tree of yours? I like to borrow him picking peaches later this year.
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You must have seen a picture of me picking apple in the top of my tree.
That tablesaw really deserves some love
That peach tree you have is Colossal
This year might be the making of another year of below average production. Last year we had a lot of rain in the spring followed by a drought that summer. Tons of rain now, very mild temps, my citrus need more heat, got to collect more rainwater for the summer.
Hope to gorge on cherries soon this coming season( store bought) of course, don’t grow them. Yes, big fat cherries! 3 lb a box for around $5.00 ? Money well spend, can’t wait! 6 boxes be good enough for the year. A yearly ritual!!
My ‘grown from seed’ apricot has fruit this year, it’s 5th year. So satisfying.
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