My orange grove (one tree)

[Detector Man]

Im in California and orange trees are not uncommon. I love oranges. I planted this one back in the late 70s when we moved into this house. At the time i bought it the tree was inside a one gallon plastic container i tried to "visualize" the full growth size......i almost got it right....ha ha ha...it should not grow much more if at all.
you will see the tree itself and if you look carefully you should see white specks.....those will be the orange blossoms, then you will see the tiny orange emerging from the blossom......i will add more pictures as the oranges mature......after a period of trial and error we decided the oranges are ready to be picked by mid or late january.....some season we have TONS of smaller size oranges and the following year the oranges will be HUGE but not as many.

 

[Detector Man]

notice the tiny green orange growing.

 

[BJ in Okla.]

Nice tree,, I don't ever remember seeing a Orange tree in Oklahoma,, to cold, right ??
Good pics.
Bj

 

[BJ in Okla.]

n/t

 

[Detector Man]

Apparently temperature is somewhat critical if you want an orange grove or a tree......out west, in the winter and early springs, the farmers monitor the projected temperature for the night.....we do have below 32 F temps...in fact i know we do go down to the low 20s occasionally....in the old days they used to burn tires and had burning pots (with diesel i think) in the groves and they would also irrigate the groves and all this raised the temnperature a few degrees to save the crop.

Nowadays in the groves they have built towers (powered by electric) with a huge blade on top to circulate the air and warm up the temperature for the same purpose...ill go out and take a couple pictures soon. The principle is the same as the wind turbines that generate electricity

 

[BJ in Okla.]

Farming is a lot of hard work, for sure...
I have heard about spraying a mist of water on some thing, and when it froze,, it helped to protect what ever they were growing...

One winter,, a friend in Orlando FL. and I compared temps,, and that winter they were the same as us or lower.....
I don't think they had a very good Orange crop that yr...
Thanks for the info...
Bj

 

[Kelley (Texas)]

I would love to have that tree in my yard. Thanks for sharing! Kelley (Texas)

 

[Kelley (Texas)]

n/t

 

[Detector Man]

as soon as we pick them off the tree (mid Jan) they are ready to eat...my wife likes to make juice and freeze it....every year for Christmas we ship some to my brother in law and his wife in Chicago (in january)

 

[Detector Man]

Planting that tree was one of the first things i did when we moved here in the late 70s. The good thing about orange trees is that when they are ripe you do not have to pick them all at once like peaches, apricots, plums etc....those fruits can make a mess if not picked when ripe , theyll simply fall off the tree and splaaaaaat

PS most here take orange trees for granted...it kills me when i go past a residence and i see oranges still on the tree forever....i posted this because i know some people dont know about oranges