Days 137 - 150 Citrus, Citrus, Citrus!!!

Where the weeks prior had apples in the mix...we are now in the citrus-only time of the year. With 135 mandarins harvested in th epast two weeks (those that I counted...I am sure there were more!!) we are in the middle of citrus season. It is a bumper crop for the mandarin trees this year and I forsee harvesting mandarins well past Christmas...with the fruit getting sweeter along the way.

One nice thing about a variety of fruit trees is that while one tree may have a bumper crop, others will have a low year. Our orange tree and grapefruit tree are just having a normal year so having 2 - 3 months of mandarins will help us get through the winter. The size of the crop seems to really depend on what is happening during the flowering time of the year. If your trees flower during a warm spell, the bees can get out there and do their polination. If the trees flower during a rainy period the crop will be small or non-existant. Looks like my goal of daily harvests will make it through the 1/2 year target!! Need to make sure that I have something ready to harvest beyond March from the veggie garden when there is very little fruit.

Speaking of the veggie garden, the eight beds look like this:
Hot zone
1) Cover crop
2) Kale (starting to get bigger!!)

Medium-hot zone
3) Cover crop
4) Garlic (4 rows)

Medium-cool zone
5) Cover crop
6) Cover crop

Cool zone
7) Cover crop
8) Cover crop and the venerable Chard!!

We also had a frost scare this past week. Temperatures were supposed to get into the mid-20's which raises the alarms for me. I covered the trees the first night but the temperatures only droped to about 30 degrees. I left the covers off the remaining nights and I saw the temperature drop to 29 degrees. I do not worry about that. My rule of thumb is only to worry if the temps drop below 28.

Here is a link about citrus varieties and their harvest times/cold tolerance. Great list!!

Harvested over the past 2 weeks:

Day 137
1) 7 mandarins ($1.75)

Day 138
1) 11 mandarins ($3.75)
2) 3 lemons ($1.50)

Day 139
1) 4 mandarins ($1.00)

Day 140
1) 8 mandarins ($2.00)

Day 141
1) 5 mandarins ($1.25)

Day 142
1) 12 mandarins ($3.00)

Day 143
1) 5 mandarins ($1.25)

Day 144
1) 4 mandarins ($1.00)

Day 145
1) 9 mandarins ($2.25)
2) 4 lemons ($2.00)
3) 1 lime ($0.25)

Day 146
1) 5 mandarins ($1.25)

Day 147
1) 17 mandarins ($4.25)

Day 148
1) 6 mandarins ($1.50)

Day 149
1) 27 mandarins ($6.75)

Day 150
1) 13 mandarins ($3.25)
2) Two bunches chard ($6.00)

Two-Week harvest: $43.50

Total Produce Harvested (Year-to-Date): $860.00
Total Honey Harvested (Year-to-Date): $360.00
Expenses (Year-to-Date): $105.00

Days 123 - 136 The Clock Starts Ticking

I have known a colleague at work for many year now and all this time we have been talking about planting fruit trees at his house, particularly some kind of citrus. Well, it is citrus season now and he has missed the opportunity once again. If he had only planted those citrus trees when we first started talking about it, he could have been harvesting some beautiful citrus right now. This is a typical problem though...you think about it and say to yourself, "it will take so long to get any fruit if I plant a tree this year." Well, the clock starts ticking and time does pass. Three years is typical for the time between planting and first harvest and it may seem like a long time, but it really comes pretty quick. If you do not plant soon, you just delay the start of the clock. One of the first things I did when we moved into this house was to plant some citrus: an orange and two satsuma mandarins.

We have been enjoying the fruits of the two mandarin trees for over two weeks now. As I have said in past, fresh picked citrus is hard to beat and it surely cannot be replicated from store-bought citrus. Was at the local produce store yesterday and saw some organic mandarins...and you could tell that they had been harvested a while ago. The vim and vigor of the fruit had been lost...and they were still charging $3.50 per pound!! We have been harvesting between 5 - 10 mandarins a day over the past couple of weeks. Count them up. 90 mandarins and that does not include the ones that I do not know about as our kids harvest at will!!

Bees. I felt like I needed to shrink my hives down a level for winter and this was the weekend to do it. Warm weather!! Well, I took down the hives a box or two. Along with it came a harvest of about 2 gallons of honey. One of my hives is doing great, the other may not make it though the winter. Have to say that it is probably my fault because I did not set them up correctly when I picked them up this Spring. Did not have the time to spare at the time and of course when you do a poor job at something, you get poor results. Lesson learned.

Harvested over the past 2 weeks:

Day 123
1) 6 mandarins ($1.50)
2) 1 apple ($0.50)

Day 124
1) 7 mandarins ($1.75)
2) 2 apples ($1.00)

Day 125
1) 4 mandarins ($1.00)
2) 3 apples ($1.50)

Day 126
1) 8 mandarins ($2.00)

Day 127
1) 9 mandarins ($2.25)
2) 2 apples ($1.00)

Day 128
1) 7 mandarins ($1.75)

Day 129
1) 3 mandarins ($0.75)

Day 130
1) 11 mandarins ($2.75)

Day 131
1) 3 mandarins ($0.75)
2) 1 apple ($0.50)

Day 132
1) 3 mandarins ($0.75)
2) Two bunches chard ($6.00)
3) 1 apple ($0.50)

Day 133
1) 13 mandarins ($3.25)

Day 134
1) 3 mandarins ($0.75)

Day 135
1) 6 mandarins ($1.50)

Day 136
1) 6 mandarins ($1.50)
2) 7 quarts honey ($140.00)

Two-Week harvest: $33.00
Honey Harvested: 7 quarts ($140)

Total Produce Harvested (Year-to-Date): $816.50
Total Honey Harvested (Year-to-Date): $360.00
Expenses (Year-to-Date): $105.00