Seed to fruit in 5 years is pretty amazing for grapefruit. I have a good friend who tasted a grapefruit he really liked in graduate school. He decided to grow one of the seeds. After graduating he got a job in Houston and eventually decided to plant the grapefruit seedling in his yard. The year before he retired (perhaps 35+ years after extracting that seed from the store-bought fruit) it finally bloomed and fruited! He told me the fruit tasted just like he remembered. I have grown several hundred Citrus trees from seeds and my record is 6 months from seed to fruit (Golden Bean kumquat), with about 1 year from seed to fruit with procimequat coming in as a close second. The vast majority of my seedling Citrus trees (virtually all in-ground, near Houston, TX) have yet to flower at 10+ years. Pat yourself on your back!
At first I planted the seeded grapefruit for shade. I thought itâs going to be a monster, at least 20 feet tall. It turn out, itâs only 10 feet tall. Donât even need a ladder to get the fruits. It like to grow more side way than up. The tree have the most flowers last year and produce the most crop this year. The fruits have been hanging for over a year. Usually the fruits would be gone in April, but because I got my teeth extracted I wasnât able to eat them much. My partner donât eat this grapefruit because of the sharp taste, but the taste changed because itâs truly ripe. Itâs now balance of sweetness and sourness with hint have bitterness. The sharp taste went away.
Life give you a seed. Plant it and you never know what youâre going to get.
My second batch of Australian finger limes this year (The Woodlands near Houston, Texas). I picked about a of them pound a few weeks ago and gave them all away to a fellow rare fruit grower, then harvested the remaining full-sized fruit from just 2 of my in-ground trees (bushes really) a few days ago. I have about 40 finger lime trees planted in-ground, and many are blooming now. Now, what do I do with another 1.5 pounds of finger limes?!?!
Miho-wase mandarin
A few years ago I got a single scion (bud wood) of Australian Desert Lime from a local (Houston, TX area) citrus grower. I grafted it on some Flying Dragon rootstock and it bloomed this year, setting over a dozen fruit. The ripe fruits have started dropping. Here is a photo of the in-container bush (about 4â tall now):
some of the fallen fruits (with a ripe calamondin for size reference):
and one sliced in half:
I eat these limes whole, peel and all. No seeds so far. Taste is mild acidic lime, not sharp acid like Persian or Key limes. No turpentine undertones, unlike Australian Finger Limes. A winner, even if quite small.
Those little limes look quite good! Always surprising to see a basically wild plant produce seedless or nearly seedless fruit.
How much do you protect it and what kind of temperatures has it seen?
AHHHH the infamous concord kumquat!
I was so confused until the photos loaded.
So far I have babied my three container plants during hard freezes by moving them into the garage. Not sure how cold they would tolerate. This summer has been very hot and dry, and they have laughed off the Texas drought. Many of my citrus are struggling, but not these.
Had a few Owari yesterday, really delicious. Pretty wild the variation in seed amount, 1 with zero seeds, 1 with 3 seeds and 1 with so many I lost count. I have a lot of citrus varieties so I never expect near seedless fruit, just surprising how random it seems to be.
I agree on poor Citrus peel coloring so far. On Saturday, Oct. 11, I taught a 2-hour class on growing citrus in SE Texas to the Montgomery County Master Gardeners and general public in Conroe, TX (about 40 miles north of Houston). On Friday I picked a selection of many of my home-grown (in The Woodlands, TX) citrus fruits for students to sample at the end of the class. We have not had any nights drop below 60 F here yet this fall, so most of the fruit peels are poorly colored, even though many are sufficiently ripe to eat already. I will make a new montage in late November or early December with more of my 110+ varieties once my citrus fruits color up better and post it here.
If any readers of this post live in the greater Houston area and missed my class, there will be another opportunity to attend it (for free) on November 12 at Mercer Arboretum. See details below.
Same here, last night we got 59 out of nowhere, and looks like a couple of cool nights on the horizon this week; before the high 60s low 70s are back.
From left to right
Owari, Sunburst tangerine, Arctic Frost, Clementine
Gonna do a taste test to see which one we like the most. Iâll grade on a scale for the clementine and sunburst as these are the first and only fruits
Not even close, Owari by a mile. The sunburst was maybe needing to hang a bit longer as it was pretty sour, the arctic frost and clementine were good. But itâs just hard to beat a ripe Owari.
Your Clementine is ahead of mine, I think itâll be a few weeks before theyâre ready.
Picked our first ever satsuma yesterday, I donât remember if it was Owari or Kimbrough. Man, just about a perfect mandarin, easy to peel, fragrant, plump, juicy, sweet, seedless, and a clean, classic flavor.
Iâm really hoping this winter isnât too rough, because while only one set fruit this year after that hard January we had, now all four satsumas I have are pretty well sided up and should be able to support a dozen or more fruit each next year assuming they donât take too much winter damage.
Do you have arctic frost? The peels aroma is very aromatic of a redacted scent. Very strange, the fruit is fine, but itâs smaller and a bit worse than the Owari are.
No, donât have that one. I have Owari, Kimbrough, Silverhill, and Xie Shan.
Today I will pick fruits from the 6 Satsuma cultivars of mine that set fruit this year (out of the about 12 total varieties I grow in The Woodlands, near Houston, TX) and have my wife taste-test them for me for adjectives (to me they are all good!). FYI, I let all my in-ground Satsuma trees suffer through the 20F freeze we had last January completely unprotected and most were ânot very happyâ about it. Until those taste-test comparison photos and results are ready, Iâll add a post about citrus rootstock seeds.
This past week I extracted, cleaned and bagged over 1000 seeds for 3 different Citrus rootstock types: Flying Dragon Trifoliate Orange, Carrizo Citrange, and Seville Sour Orange:
I have bagged up and will refrigerate these seeds and give them away at my formal class on growing citrus in a couple weeks (at Mercer Arboretum), the annual Texas Rare Fruit Growers (TRFG) Houston area Chapter citrus tasting (Dec. 6), at John Panzarellaâs Citrus tasting open house in Lake Jackson (Dec. 13), and, if any are still left over, at the annual TRFG scion exchange in Houston next February.
If anyone lives in the greater Houston area and wants details about any of these FREE events, let me know.
I picked and took a photo of the my six Satsuma varieties that fruited this year (FYI, I grow 6 other Satsuma cultivars without any fruit this year, Seto, Silverhill, BC-2, Xie Shan, Dobashi Beni, Okitsu Wase):
I donât recall what variety the seedling originated from (possibly Okitsu Wase). About 10 years ago I was eating some of my Satsumas while planting my kumquat bed and dropped a few seeds in the soil of the bed. 5-6 years later the seedling started bearing fruits and it is now my best Satsuma tree! Usually seedless, but this year some of the fruits are fairly seedy.
Once the âofficial taste-testerâ of the family is ready, Iâll capture her adjectives and comparisons.
Here is a second photo of just the Texas-originated Gremoy changsat (Changshou x Satsuma) âsiblingsâ:
Today I picked a selection of about 30 varieties of our homegrown citrus for attendees to taste at my free 2-hour Lunch-n-Learn formal talk entitled âAgainst All Odds: Growing Citrus in Southeastern Texasâ from Noon to 2 pm tomorrow, Nov. 12, at Mercer Arboretum in Humble, TX (near Houston). I will also have 4 types of free citrus rootstock seeds available and will answer attendeeâs questions about citrus. If you live near Houston, then bring your own lunch and come sample some excellent homegrown citrus fruits!
