Our Ruby Red Grapefruit Tree

Back in May in THIS BLOG POST we chronicled an addition to our little citrus grove by adding a Ruby Red Grapefruit tree.  I am somewhat ashamed to admit that the tree itself looks worse right now than it did four months ago.  Right after we planted it, we went into a severe drought with high temperatures and the tree was obviously stressed.  Despite the fact that it never grew or added any new leaves, it clung to life and after the recent rains, we were greeted with this sight:

Blooms!

I think that the tree appreciated a respite from the sweltering heat and dry conditions and responded with some very sweet smelling blooms.  I must admit I was a little surprised at blooms on the tree at this time.  None of our other citrus trees are blooming, as they are loaded down with fruit that will ripening in just a few months.

Sweet smelling grapefruit blossoms

If you look real closely in the photo below, you can see a tiny greet circle just above the center of the picture.  That is the baby grapefruit.  Now, I learned from reading a few interested things about the grapefruit tree.  First it takes somewhere between 8 - 11 months for a grapefruit to mature.  Grapefruit do not continue to ripen once you pick them and they get sweeter the longer you leave them on the tree.  The Ruby Red is a delicious, sweet fruit that I really enjoy.  When I was younger, I would cut them in half and spoon sugar on top of them to make them sweet.  There is no need to do this with the Ruby Red!  Finally, in order to promote growth of the tree, you should remove any fruit that set for the first two years.  So, I'll watch the tree and if any fruit sets, I'll pull them off.  I've already noticed many blooms falling since I took this picture.

Tiny fruit forming

The first production of fruit on these trees in the third year averages 25 pounds, but increases to 250 pounds by the tenth year!  The tree doesn't require pruning, except to remove dead limbs and mature trees are even cold-tolerant with temperatures in the mid-20's!  In cold weather you can throw a tarp over the tree to protect it from the low temperatures and I've read about building a "soil bank" around the trunk of the tree from Thanksgiving until March.  You want to be real careful removing the soil in the Spring as the trunk will be real tender:

Image Credit

I've never tried this practice of building soil banks before, but it is one I'll explore if/when the cold weather gets here.  The soil forms a barrier that protects the tree from the cold and even if the entire tree is killed from the cold, the tree will re-sprout above the graft.  Many times I've lost a tree in the cold, only to have it re-sprout, but beneath the graft.  That's no good as the growth is from the root stock, not the productive fruit tree.  This practice of soil banking is supposed to be an effective tool and I'm going to employ it.

Removing competing grass around the base of the tree

Finally, This Article gave me some additional insight into caring for the tree. Grapefruit trees don't like competition from lawn grass, so you are supposed to keep a 1 foot circumference area around the tree free of grass. The trees don't like to be mulched as they'll get foot rot for which (unlike foot rot with our cows) there is no cure.  

Looking forward to Ruby Red Grapefruit from our own tree.  Like most things, though, I'm gonna have to be patient...

An Addition to our Citrus Grove

An old saying that I like to repeat goes something like this:

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.  The next best time is TODAY!"

So today I got busy and planted a tree.  Not just any tree, but a Ruby Red Grapefruit tree.  Slowly over the years, we've been planting different types of fruit trees.  So far (in addition to the Ruby Red Grapefruit), we have Satsuma, Tangerine, Navel Orange, peach and pear trees planted.  Our goal is to have a wide assortment of fruit trees that bear delicious fruit for us to consume and give away. The next trees we'd like to get in the ground are a lemon tree and a lime tree.  A blood orange tree would also be nice.

A friend of ours has a couple of Ruby Red Grapefruit trees planted on the south side of his barn and that keeps them protected from the north winds of winter.  He blesses us with bags of delicious grapefruit that we either cut in half and eat for breakfast or we add the juice to kombucha with a bit of grated ginger.  Talk about good!  We enjoy them so much, we thought we'd get a tree of our own. Here is the healthy little tree in a spot we picked out for it.

Here's an expanded view where you can see from left to right, a naval orange, a row of blueberry bushes, the Grapefruit tree, another row of blueberry bushes, and then a tangerine tree.  The spot where we are planting the grapefruit tree is an open spot that allows us a good view into the pasture to check on the animals.  That will be overgrown in a few years blocking the sightlines, so we'll have to either prune them or find another spot from which to view the pasture.  This was the only logical place though, since it is on the south side of the house in a protected area.  I was a little concerned about planting the different types of citrus so near one another, but learned that they are either pollinated by wind or bees and they won't cross pollinate.  In other words, your satsuma will always be a satsuma.  Your tangerine will always be a tangerine.

Our mini orchard

Ever wonder how the grapefruit got its name?  It tastes nothing like a grape.  Well, I learned that they grow in clusters and the clusters look like large yellow grapes. Growing up, I was never that crazy about eating grapefruit.  It was always kind of bitter tasting and the only way I could make them edible is to add teaspoons of sugar on top of them.  Well, my taste buds either outgrew that or the varieties have gotten much better, because these are so sweet, you'd never think about ever putting sugar on them.

We purchased the tree from a local nursery in town that Russ has worked at for several years.  The tree was originally grafted and grown at Saxon Becnel & Sons, a citrus grower from Belle Chasse, Louisiana.  Belle Chasse is way down south, below New Orleans, on the way to Venice, Louisiana. Their website says that they've been growing citrus for over 160 years.  That's pretty impressive.  I noticed that they also grow some trees in Texas, in a city not far from us appropriately named, Orange!

Ruby Red Grapefruit

So following the planting directions, we selected a high spot, dug the hole twice as big as the pot, loosened the soil beneath it, and placed the tree in the hole so that the top of the root ball was even with the level of the ground.  I sprinkled some chicken litter in the hole and watered it in good.

One downside about planting trees is that it creates one more obstacle to mow around or weed eat around, but I think the benefits of having great fruit produced right there at home outweighs any inconvenience.  You just have to be careful as you don't want the strings from your weed eater to hit the trunk of the tree as it could damage it.  I'll probably just mulch around them.

All done

One thing that I'm going to have to really learn how to do over the winter this year is pruning. Pruning has always intimidated me as I don't want to damage the tree and I don't know what I'm doing.  I've read that you want to prune the tree into a round shape and create something called scaffolding limbs and that you want to be sure to prune branches that touch the ground as that's where lots of the bug damage comes from.  I've got a lot of learning to do, but I'll put that on my to-do list.

In a few years, if all goes as planned, we'll be enjoying the fruit off of this Ruby Red Grapefruit tree.