Success & Failure After the Deep Freeze

Prior to the deep freeze that rolled through our area, bringing 10 inches of snow and temperatures in the single digits, we listened to a gentleman at our bee club meeting tell us about a technique he used to save all of his citrus trees from temperatures in the low 20's from the year before.  We've always piled mulch real deep around the base of the trunk.  That didn't work out so well.  We didn't lose the trees, but it hurt them so badly, the next year we had no blooms, thus, no citrus.  We had to prune back all the dead branches.

I was interested in this man's tactics as his trees were loaded with satsumas and oranges where our poor trees were barren.  This guy purchased tarps at tractor supply and covered the entire tree.  Then, he ran extension cords to each tree and put a heat lamp under the tarp.  That's it!  So we endeavored to do likewise.  Note to self:  Purchase tarps in advance of the freeze.  Don't wait until the last minute because the shelves will be bare.  

Let's look at each of our three citrus trees.  We had more, but had lost them in previous freezes.  Here below is a small satsuma tree.  It's only about 3 1/2 feet tall, so what I did was turn a heavy plastic trash can over it and put a heat lamp underneath.  Look at the results.  The heavy trash can did a pretty good job of keeping the heat inside.  The uppermost limbs and leaves are dead, but there is green growth toward the bottom where the heat lamp was positioned.

Looking more closely at the bottom of the satsuma tree, you can see fresh, new, green growth along with LOTS of blossoms.  We WILL have satsumas this fall!

Here is our navel orange tree.  As I told you, it is big.  Too big, in fact, to get the tarp over it and fastened tightly at the bottom.  We did the best we could.  I wonder if it would be beneficial to prune the tree back to ensure the ability for the tarp to completely go over and seal good with bungee cords at the bottom.  We were able to put the heat lamp underneath, but from a distance, the navel orange tree looks bleak.  We may have to chop it down.

Not so fast, my friend.  As you look closer, there is green growth coming out of the central trunk!  That's great news.

Looking closer, you can make out orange blossoms.  What a nice fragrance!  We'll have oranges this winter.

Well, things are looking pretty good.  Let's check in on the tangerine tree.  It had been hurt badly by the previous freeze, so it was smaller.  We wrapped it completely with a tarp and put a heat lamp under the tarp.  Uh Oh!  There's no growth.  This thing is toast.

We'll have no tangerines this fall.  These were so tart and tasty.  Their color was what I describe as "electric orange."  We'll have to buy another to replace this one.  I'll chop this one down.  Things were looking pretty good with our new freeze protection protocol.  However, I try to be a glass half full kind of guy.  And like ol' Meatloaf sang, "Two outta three ain't bad."

I Just Don't Know...

Prior to the Arctic Blast that sent temperatures dipping to 6 degrees, we picked all the navel oranges off of our tree.  We've been enjoying them chilled, sprinkling a little Tajin seasoning (Chili, lime & sea salt) on them.  So good!  As we get down to the bottom of the basket, I worry about our citrus trees.  We did the best we could to protect them.  We threw the ubiquitous blue tarp over them, staking them down and then running a heat lamp under the tarp, hoping the heat would somehow offset the cold.

Once the freezing weather left, I pulled the tarps off and removed the heat lamps.  Here is the navel orange tree.  The leaves are curled and burned from the cold, but they haven't fallen off, and they're still green.  We'll give it a little time.  As bad as it looks, I'm hopeful.

Here is the tangerine tree.  Same thing - we tarped it and ran a heat lamp.  Once I pulled the tarp off and surveyed the damage, I think this one looks worse than the navel orange.  We had two other tangerines besides this one and lost them in the last deep freeze.  We miss the fruit.  It was so tart and tangy and had a fluorescent orange color.

Here is our satsuma tree.  It is the youngest, by far, and the one the I was worried about the most.  Due to it's size, I simply turned a garbage can over it and ran the heat lamp underneath.  The garbage can is maybe 1/4 thick plastic.  Once the freeze passed over, I removed the trash can and turned off the heat lamp.  Let's look at what happened:

The tree is absolutely perfect!  No burned leaves.  It looks absolutely perfect.  Like a tropical plant should in the summer.  Green leaves and stalk.  Why do you figure?  I suppose the thick plastic garbage can acted as an insulator, keeping the heat inside the overturned trashcan, warming the air like a sauna.  This really worked!

Sadly, it's just not practical for our larger trees.  We'll continue to watch to see if they perk up and put on any fresh growth.  Will they make it?  I just don't know...

More Spring Blooms and A Surprise

As I continued to walk around the yard, I noticed lots of spring.  The grass is growing and in need of mowing.  But it is the trees that really caught my attention.  At the border of our property right next to a big pile of wood chips that has been composting for two years is a little clump of wild peach trees.  They always put on a ton of blooms before the first leaves appear.  The blooms are strikingly beautiful.

These blooms will develop into peaches this summer.  We normally blanch them and make peach cobblers - my favorite way to enjoy fresh peaches.

As we move from the edible to the inedible, the Bradford Pear tree is in full bloom.  More of a decorative tree, it doesn't produce edible fruit.  I originally got this tree for free from the Arbor Day Foundation, planted it intending to move it and then it grew too big to move!

And finally, the Redbud tree.  It has small blooms all along its branches.  This tree soon grows big, heart-shaped leaves.

Everything is budding out and then I look at our citrus trees - brown, every leaf on them dead and falling off.  The freeze really put a hurting on them.  On the bright side, I scraped a small part of the trunks of each of the trees - I think it is called the cambium layer, and I noticed green.  So the trees are still alive, despite the dead leaves.

And today we got our first indication of new growth.  Here are some green growth on the navel orange:

And these are some shoots on the tangerine...

Finally, on the grapefruit!

So temperatures down to 14 degrees a few weeks ago and it didn't kill the citrus.  That is great news.  Now, what I'm interested to see is if they will put on leaves, bloom and fruit this year or will it skip a year?  We'll have to wait and see.

Juicy Fruit

This is the time of year for picking and eating citrus fruits.  We have tangerines, navel oranges, and now... grapefruit.  We have been eating a bunch.  Their color is vibrant and the taste and tangy and refreshing.  They'll keep just fine on the tree unless a deep freeze threatens.  If that happens, we'll pick them all and store them inside.  Otherwise, we'll 'store' them on the tree.

One of the things that we hadn't done yet, but will be doing lots more of is making fresh squeezed juice.  Tricia bought a new contraption that I wanted to try out.  It is essentially an old fashioned glass juicer that sits atop a jar.  After cutting a tangerine or orange in half, you squeeze the fruit on the juicer.  Theoretically, the juice flows through holes in the juicer and it fills the jar below it.

That's the idea.  Unfortunately, the seeds and pulp stopped up the holes and the juice couldn't flow down into the jar.  First, I resorted to using a steak knife to poke the holes and allow the juice to fill the jar below.  Then, I simply picked it up and poured the juice into the jar below.  It was just taking too long and I'm not too patient.

We save all the peels of the citrus.  In the past, we'd compost them until we made the discovery that our cows and goats absolutely love eating them.  Now, we save them and throw them over the fence and the animals come running to eat them up.

We did get a full jar of tangerine juice with the new juicer.  Truly delicious stuff!

But then I got the old glass citrus juicer and got to work.  It is fast work.  Simply cut the citrus in half, juice the fruit, and pour through a strainer into a jar or pitcher. 

In no time I had a half gallon of fresh squeezed juice!

We had homemade ice cream that past couple of nights and i mixed the ice cream with tangerine juice to make an "Orange Julius."  Pretty good stuff!

Tart and Tangy Tangerine Juice

While I really like orange juice, tangerine juice is so much better.  It is tart and tangy.  We have five tangerine trees and they are all loaded up with fruit.  Unlike satsumas and oranges, tangerine peels stick to the fruit and is very hard to peel off. Generally, I'll just quarter them and eat them right out of the peels versus peeling them.

But my favorite thing to do is to just make juice with them.  On this dreary, rainy weekend I had Benjamin go snag a bunch of tangerines off the smallest tree.  He brought them in and filled up the vegetable sink with them.  Even though it had been raining and the fruit was wet, I scrubbed some of the fruit that was dirty.

Tangerines

I like using an old fashioned glass citrus juicer to squeeze out the juice.  Tangerines are so juicy.  For being a small fruit, they are loaded with juice.  They have their share of seeds, but we strain those out.

The juice from an average-sized tangerine will almost fill the hand juicer.

I pour the fresh-squeezed tangerine juice through a strainer or sieve to strain out the seeds and some of the pulp.  I'll use a spoon to stir around the seeds and pulp in the strainer so that every last bit of the juice all goes in the quart-sized, wide mouth mason jar.

In addition to tasting SO good, especially when it is chilled, tangerine juice has the most beautiful neon orange color.

While we drink a lot of it fresh, we'll pour it into quart sized Ziploc bags, seal them up tight and lay them flat in the freezer.

That way we'll have plenty to thaw out and drink in the summertime.  Delicious, nutritious - Tangerine juice is my favorite citrus juice.

A Little Sunshine in a Half Pint Jar

A well known (albeit odd) song by the Beatles starts off with these weird lyrics:

Picture yourself in a boat on a river

With tangerine trees and marmalade skies

Now to be frank with you, while we do have tangerine trees as we talked about in This Post from Last Month, we do NOT have marmalade skies.  As a matter of fact, the skies lately have been slate grey and gloomy, especially early Saturday morning.  But the song got me thinking.  We can brighten the skies, so to speak, by making some Tangerine Marmalade.  I googled several different recipes and finally decided to use the one from This Blog Site. 

I picked a bucket of tangerines off of the tree and washed them, scrubbing them to remove grime and any dust/dirt.  This is important, since you are eating the entire fruit.  I was reading something yesterday during lunch about a guy who talked of his weird eating habits.  He said that he ate the entire apple - seeds, core and stem and also did the same thing with oranges and lemons.  He did mention that when eating bananas, he did NOT eat the banana peel.  Anyway, in making marmalade, you DO eat the peel of the tangerine, but you take out the seeds.  

I stacked the tangerines up on the scale to get the right weight for the recipe.  Just look at how these beautiful tangerines brighten up the room!:

Bright & Sunny

But let's back up a bit and look at the ingredients.  I doubled up the recipe in the above mentioned link, because I want to make some of this as gifts.  Here's what I used:

• 6 pounds of tangerines (about 23 of them)
• 2 huge Meyer lemons that we traded for some fresh milk
• 3 cups water
• 9 cups sugar (I know, I know.  That is a lot of sugar, but as I told my kids, that is what jelly, jam, preserves are: fruit and sugar)

The ingredients

If your olfactory system is in good working order, this part will make you happy and fill your kitchen with great citrus fragrance.  Take a sharp knife and cut the lemons and tangerines into thin slices.  I aimed for 1/4 inch thickness, but it was hard to do on the ends.  As I sliced I removed the seeds.  The seeds were the only item other than the stem end that went into the compost pile as you use the entire fruit for the recipe.  The juice burst from the cut citrus burning my fingers, but smelling so good.

The smell is great!

All of the sliced fruit goes into a big pot along with the water and you bring it to a quick boil.  

Bring it to a quick boil

Once you have a rolling boil, you can let it simmer for 5 minutes and then cover and take it off of the burner.  Allow it to sit in the pot for 12-18 hours.  I assume this gives the fruit flavor to really infuse the contents of the pot.

Quickly Boil and then Wait Patiently

The next morning I added the 9 cups of sugar to the pot and stirred it all up.

Sugar.  Lots of sugar

The contents of the pot are brought to a full boil.  While you are waiting for it to boil remember that "A watched pot never boils," so get another pot of water boiling and sterilize your jars, lids, rings, and gaskets, if you are using Tattler lids.  

Continue stirring constantly until the contents of the pot have almost reached a gelling point. 

Almost ready for the jars

Then ladle the hot mixture into your sterilized jars using a canning funnel.  I tasted a big chunk of lemon/tangerine at this point and it was good - really good.

Filling the jars

The lids, (gaskets) and rings are put on the jars and placed in a water bath canner.  When the water begins to boil, start your timer and allow to process for 15 minutes.

Splish Splash

Here is a spoonful of freshly made Tangerine Marmalade.  The marmalade was looking for a biscuit (or a girl with kaleidoscope eyes!), but alas, there were no biscuits to be found, so I put a slice of bread in the toaster to serve as the delivery mechanism to bring the spoonful of marmalade to my mouth.

Tangerine Marmalade

The taste was great and the jars seemed to have a light source all of its own - brightening up a dark corner of the kitchen while the jars cooled.

Cooling down on the cooling racks

I placed one of the jars on the window sill to contrast against the grey skies.  It was like sunshine in a half pint jar!

Here comes the sun!

Tangerine Marmalade!  We normally just make blackberry and grape jelly, so this was a new twist for us to spread on biscuits, toast, etc.  I also read that that it makes a delicious glaze to put on ribs, chicken, fish, ham, and to put on top of cake and cheesecake.  So many new things to try!

Fresh-Squeezed Tangerine Juice

During the peak summer months of high heat and humidity, I sometimes question the sanity of living in this tropical climate.  From the middle of June to the middle of September, it can be somewhat unbearable to step outdoors.  But, as I'm reminded, I should dwell on good things:

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.  - Philippians 4:8

One of the truly delightful things about living in the South is citrus.  Around this time each year, we are awash in citrus.  We pick Satsumas by the bagful and keep our fridge full of them.  We have friends that give us grapefruit and others that we swap milk for Meyer lemons.  We have a navel orange that is loaded with fruit, but the oranges are not quite ready to pick yet.  We also have tangerine trees.  In the photo below, the tangerine tree is on the right and the navel orange tree is on the left.

Citrus

Let's take a closer look.  This is a young tree and the fruit are loading down the branches.  The deep orange/slightly reddish fruit are ready.  I was going to do a little pruning on this tree, but I like the shape of it and will likely leave it alone.

One of our Three Tangerine trees

It was a nice afternoon and I grabbed a bowl and walked out to one of the trees and began picking the low-hanging fruit.  That's the easiest, right?  Here's the thing about tangerines: They are easy to pick off the tree, but they are hard to peel. The skin holds tightly to the fruit, unlike satsumas.  We normally don't peel any of them. We'll cut them up into quarters and eat them right off the peel. They are loaded with seeds, so you've got to be ready to spit, but they are so flavorful - tart, but sweet!

Bowlful of tangerines

The other thing I really like to do with them besides eating them is to JUICE THEM!  I brought my bowl inside and retrieved a sharp knife.  I cut them through the middle - not through the stem and bottom.  They are so juicy, the juice just runs out all over the cutting board.  The juice makes your fingers sting it is so tart.  The fragrance of citrus fills the room.

Soon to be juice

We have an old citrus juicer that is powered by 'elbow grease.'  The ridges on the juicer, ruptures all the little tangerine sections, releasing the juice, pulp, and seeds into the juicer.  Each half yields an 'almost full' juicer that needs to be poured into the pitcher. 

Squeezin'

A place a sieve over the pitcher to catch all the pulp and seeds before it makes its way into the pitcher.  Before I toss the seeds and pulp into the compost bucket along with the tangerine halves, I press down on the pulp to squeeze out any remaining juice.

Straining

Nineteen tangerines yielded a full pitcher of beautiful, freshly squeezed tangerine juice.  In addition to tasting good, tangerines are good for you, providing a good source of Vitamin A and Potassium and provide 128% of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C.

The finished product

In a patience-building exercise, I didn't taste it.  I put the pitcher into the refrigerator to get it really, really cold.

Just Chilling.

And then...  I promptly forgot about it!  The next morning at work, I received a text from my wife that said, "WOW!  Fresh squeezed tangerine juice is delicious!" When I got home in the afternoon, she had a glass of tangerine juice waiting on me. She was right. It was delicious and we'll continue to make fresh squeezed tangerine juice as long as they last.  The stuff looks like sunshine.  I'll also make some tangerine curd and try some tangerine marmalade.