Saving Citrus From The Freeze

With temperatures dipping into the low 20's, I quickly did some Internet research about citrus.  My question was: Do you need to pull oranges and tangerines off of the tree prior to a freeze?  I read many different articles.  Most said that citrus remaining on the trees will be fine during a freeze and there is no reason to pick them.  However, and this is key, it said that if temperatures drop below 28 degrees, the fruit needs to all be removed prior to this or you will lose the fruit.  I also learned that if you pick an orange before it is ripe, it will not ripen any more.  In other words, they aren't like tomatoes.  They only ripen while attached to the plant (tree).  But all of our citrus is ripe, we just don't want to lose them as it will be well lower than 28 degrees.

So that meant that we had some work to do.  Sunday afternoon after church and in advance of the cold weather moving through, I mobilized our citrus picking crew.  The navel orange tree is so loaded up with fruit that the branches would break if I didn't support them.  Last year with some old pieces of iron that I re-purposed from the kids' swing set when they were younger, I made some supports that hold up the branches nicely and keep the fruit-laden branches from breaking.  It also keeps the fruit from the lower branches from touching the ground and beginning to rot.  In their inaugural year last year, they did the job, so I pulled them out again when the fruit loaded up.

The navel oranges are quite large and are loaded up to the top of the tree.  I had to get out our ladder to pick the ones on the uppermost branches.  I did try to shake the tree to get some of the fruit down, but some of the fruit won't shake off and I didn't want the large oranges to hit Tricia or Benjamin in the head.

We had a good citrus picking system going.  I was on the ladder and as I circled the tree, getting the oranges and tangerines off the top of the tree, Benjamin and Tricia got everything below that was within arm's reach.  I got the chance to explain the expression "picking the low-hanging fruit" to them.  That expression is always used in a business setting, explaining hitting easily achievable goals or targets without expending a lot of effort.  Makes perfect sense when you are actually picking low-hanging fruit.

We were successful in harvesting our citrus.  We filled a 30 gallon molasses tub full of navel oranges.  Some of them were almost the size of cantaloupes.  We'll bring them out of the weather and will eat many of these.  We will also juice some and freeze it so that we have fresh squeezed orange juice to drink throughout the year.

We also filled half of our Gorilla Garden Wagon with neon orange tangerines.  These are a little harder to peel than a satsuma, so we cut these up in eighths and eat them off the rind.  These are Tricia's favorites.  They are so flavorful.  We made marmalade with them last year (or was it the year before?) and we still have some put up in the pantry.  I ate some spooned on top of some bread right out of the oven just this weekend.

The trees will be okay, but according to the Internet, we stood a good chance of losing all this fruit had we not gotten busy prior to the cold weather.  I'm glad we got it done!