This course is based on these two manuals. The discussion topic is also from my knowledge of growing and caring for a large home orchard, other research and talking with experienced citrus grove growers.
We will start this part assuming you want a few trees for your homestead. These you want to produce regular fruit with a minimal amount of maintenance. One would buy a grafted or graft themselves a tree of the desired citrus variety. This way you can be enjoying regular fruit at the 2-to-3-year mark. Planting from seed is inefficient because it can be 5 or more years before you get your first fruit. Then you will not have fruit true to type.
- Choosing your tree. What do you like? and what grows well in your region? The best research is talking to your local nursery. There an experienced orchard adviser can give you a general idea on what thrives in your area. Another option for research is calling your region's master gardener program.
- Recommended varieties: Lemon- many culinary uses from citric acid to fruit pectin. Navel orange- fresh eating thru late winter and spring. Valencia- juice and early summer production. Exotic varieties not available in at the local grocers. This would include blood oranges, citrons, and kumquats.
Planting your tree. Planting should occur after the last frosts in your growing zone.
- Dig a hole. Bury the tree so the root stock graft is well above ground. Just fill with regular dirt. Fertilizer and any amendment can burn and harm the roots of your newly planted tree. make a basin around the tree. It should mainly be watered in the center to keep the root bulb moist. It will take several months for the tree to root out and establish itself. By summer it should be strong enough to withstand the summer heat.
Watering Schedule.
- water regularly the first few months while the tree is being established. Water more in the summer. Less in the autumn. Then mildy in the winter months. Soak you tree's basin so it waters deeply. Leave it alone until the top soil starts to dry out. Adding a layer of mulch in your trees basin will help retain moisture and work nutrients into the soil.
- Depending on your layout is more convenient to lay out an irrigation system for you trees. Drip irrigation is optimal.
2 years ago1 point(+1/-0)Edited 2022-05-07 03:59:371 child
> Part two: Care and Maintenance
Fertilizer and nutrients: There are many nutrients and amendments one would want to add to promote health, growth and fruit production in your home citrus orchard. Here is my general best practices for this. (you can read the 'A Manual for Citrus Growers' for a super detailed layout)
- Cow manure (chicken, goat, etc) added to basins twice a year. Fall and spring. A couple shovel-fulls, more for bigger trees. This adds nitrogen for flowering and growth.
- Citrus and avocado dry fertilizer 2 to 3 times a year added to basin. This takes care of misc. minerals.
- Citrus trees in their first few years of growth should have very minimal trimming. They are meant to be big fluffy cloud shaped. This promotes optimal sunlight absorption for growth and fruit production
- What should be trimmed? Any sprout coming from the root graft should be rubbed of before any branching occurs. These will rob strength from the variety you want to grow fruit from. If you have a wild divergent sprout, that can be trimmed. Keep it minimal. Too much trimming will put the tree into shock. Less fruit and general health decline occurs.
- Fall maintenance: Skirting a tree is trimming the bottom branches that are about to touch the ground. Branches should be trimmed about a foot about ground so dirt-based disease and mold cannot contaminate the fruit.
>Part Three: Useful tips about oranges and other citrus
- Tree storage: Citrus fruit can be stored ripe on the tree for 2 or more months at a time. They can be picked as needed. (They start as a bit tart then slowly the sugar ratio increases as does the juice content. After a few months very little acid remains in the fruit. At that point it is tepid in flavor and then becomes pithy and inedible. These fruits can still be fed to livestock at that point)
- Washing the fruit after you pick it accelerates the ripening process ;-)
- If you get frost damage in the winter it is best to reduce your watering to half of normal. This allows the tree to slowly heal. Don't trim off any frost damaged limbs. Let the tree heal naturally. Some healthy limbs will continue to die while some damaged ones will regain their vigor. Give the tree until fall. Then only trim out any dead wood.
- Gophers: are a consistent danger to your home orchard. metal gopher traps and poison bait will control their antics. (USDA bulletin no. 1709: Pocket Gopher Control)
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc6176/m1/1/?q=pocket%20gopher
- Citrus psyllid: weaken and infect your tree. (Nut and Orchard concentrate can be used to kill these off) Some can cause a fungus disease that will slowly kill off the tree. In this case only a toxic soil drench will save the tree. (this years crop will be lost, it becomes toxic)
- Leaf miner moth: Spray effected leaves with neem oil or orchard spray.
- Ants: they can set up aphid and scale colonies. They farm the nectar off their bug livestock. This just drains the vital energy from the tree (Use Neem oil to smother aphid and scale colonies) Keep doing it every couple of weeks until the ants gives up.
- Fresh squeezed juice or concentrate.
- Citric acid. Lemon oil. Orange oil.
- Fruit pectin from the peels. This can be used as an emulsifier for many types of Jams, preserves and fruit filling recipes. (Wine Jellies, honey jellies, Concentrate)
- There is one main citrus distributer, and it is called Sunkist packing. They will pick, pack and ship your fruit. Many growers cannot afford their services based on water cost, nutrient and maintenance cost of their orchards.
- Find a independent distributor. Few, but worth researching.
- Road side stand. Manned stand, sold out of back of truck or small stand where customer pays the posted cost per bagged item based on trust.
- Online selling, customer will pick up. Just have everything packaged and named.
- Farmers market. Need to have the right licenses and inspection. These can be profitable if regulations are not too high.
We will start this part assuming you want a few trees for your homestead. These you want to produce regular fruit with a minimal amount of maintenance. One would buy a grafted or graft themselves a tree of the desired citrus variety. This way you can be enjoying regular fruit at the 2-to-3-year mark. Planting from seed is inefficient because it can be 5 or more years before you get your first fruit. Then you will not have fruit true to type.
- Choosing your tree. What do you like? and what grows well in your region? The best research is talking to your local nursery. There an experienced orchard adviser can give you a general idea on what thrives in your area. Another option for research is calling your region's master gardener program.
- Recommended varieties: Lemon- many culinary uses from citric acid to fruit pectin. Navel orange- fresh eating thru late winter and spring. Valencia- juice and early summer production. Exotic varieties not available in at the local grocers. This would include blood oranges, citrons, and kumquats.
Planting your tree. Planting should occur after the last frosts in your growing zone.
- Dig a hole. Bury the tree so the root stock graft is well above ground. Just fill with regular dirt. Fertilizer and any amendment can burn and harm the roots of your newly planted tree. make a basin around the tree. It should mainly be watered in the center to keep the root bulb moist. It will take several months for the tree to root out and establish itself. By summer it should be strong enough to withstand the summer heat.
Watering Schedule.
- water regularly the first few months while the tree is being established. Water more in the summer. Less in the autumn. Then mildy in the winter months. Soak you tree's basin so it waters deeply. Leave it alone until the top soil starts to dry out. Adding a layer of mulch in your trees basin will help retain moisture and work nutrients into the soil.
- Depending on your layout is more convenient to lay out an irrigation system for you trees. Drip irrigation is optimal.
Fertilizer and nutrients: There are many nutrients and amendments one would want to add to promote health, growth and fruit production in your home citrus orchard. Here is my general best practices for this. (you can read the 'A Manual for Citrus Growers' for a super detailed layout)
- Cow manure (chicken, goat, etc) added to basins twice a year. Fall and spring. A couple shovel-fulls, more for bigger trees. This adds nitrogen for flowering and growth.
- Citrus and avocado dry fertilizer 2 to 3 times a year added to basin. This takes care of misc. minerals.
(https://www.homedepot.com/p/Vigoro-20-lbs-All-Season-Citrus-and-Avocado-Plant-Food-Dry-Fertilizer-6-4-6-160327/203091325)
- Nutritional spray for mineral deficiencies. Apply as needed. 2 to 4 times a years as needed.
(https://www.homedepot.com/p/Southern-Ag-1-pint-Citrus-Plant-Nutritional-Spray-100048939/100599817)
Trimming your trees:
- Citrus trees in their first few years of growth should have very minimal trimming. They are meant to be big fluffy cloud shaped. This promotes optimal sunlight absorption for growth and fruit production
- What should be trimmed? Any sprout coming from the root graft should be rubbed of before any branching occurs. These will rob strength from the variety you want to grow fruit from. If you have a wild divergent sprout, that can be trimmed. Keep it minimal. Too much trimming will put the tree into shock. Less fruit and general health decline occurs.
- Fall maintenance: Skirting a tree is trimming the bottom branches that are about to touch the ground. Branches should be trimmed about a foot about ground so dirt-based disease and mold cannot contaminate the fruit.
- Tree storage: Citrus fruit can be stored ripe on the tree for 2 or more months at a time. They can be picked as needed. (They start as a bit tart then slowly the sugar ratio increases as does the juice content. After a few months very little acid remains in the fruit. At that point it is tepid in flavor and then becomes pithy and inedible. These fruits can still be fed to livestock at that point)
- Washing the fruit after you pick it accelerates the ripening process ;-)
- If you get frost damage in the winter it is best to reduce your watering to half of normal. This allows the tree to slowly heal. Don't trim off any frost damaged limbs. Let the tree heal naturally. Some healthy limbs will continue to die while some damaged ones will regain their vigor. Give the tree until fall. Then only trim out any dead wood.
- Gophers: are a consistent danger to your home orchard. metal gopher traps and poison bait will control their antics. (USDA bulletin no. 1709: Pocket Gopher Control)
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc6176/m1/1/?q=pocket%20gopher
- Citrus psyllid: weaken and infect your tree. (Nut and Orchard concentrate can be used to kill these off) Some can cause a fungus disease that will slowly kill off the tree. In this case only a toxic soil drench will save the tree. (this years crop will be lost, it becomes toxic)
- Leaf miner moth: Spray effected leaves with neem oil or orchard spray.
- Ants: they can set up aphid and scale colonies. They farm the nectar off their bug livestock. This just drains the vital energy from the tree (Use Neem oil to smother aphid and scale colonies) Keep doing it every couple of weeks until the ants gives up.
- ORCHARD SPRAY
https://files.catbox.moe/niqi1b.jpg
- SOIL DRENCH
https://files.catbox.moe/iuft7y.png
- NEEM OIL
https://files.catbox.moe/fi1tu1.jpeg
- Fresh squeezed juice or concentrate.
- Citric acid. Lemon oil. Orange oil.
- Fruit pectin from the peels. This can be used as an emulsifier for many types of Jams, preserves and fruit filling recipes. (Wine Jellies, honey jellies, Concentrate)
Preservers Citrus Pectin Handbook https://files.catbox.moe/inbid6.jpg
- Archive copy
https://archive.org/details/exchangecitruspe00sunk/mode/2up
- Recipe book for producing jams, jellies and juice concentrates on an industrial scale.
- There is one main citrus distributer, and it is called Sunkist packing. They will pick, pack and ship your fruit. Many growers cannot afford their services based on water cost, nutrient and maintenance cost of their orchards.
- Find a independent distributor. Few, but worth researching.
- Road side stand. Manned stand, sold out of back of truck or small stand where customer pays the posted cost per bagged item based on trust.
- Online selling, customer will pick up. Just have everything packaged and named.
- Farmers market. Need to have the right licenses and inspection. These can be profitable if regulations are not too high.