Juicing it Up...Finally!

When we moved into our house many years ago I had dreams of having a few citrus trees. Of course the yard, which was in no shape for grass was certainly not ready for citrus trees. After planting grass...more than once...we finally had a yard that could sustain a little "real" landscaping. We added plants around the pool, some flagstone over the cement patio, a firepit AND....citrus trees (ruby red grapefruit, lemon, lime and orange)...two of which are still actually alive (orange and lemon)! The grapefruit tree has been replaced more than once so it may never be. The lime tree produced limes all last season but froze during the winter :( !

I was very excited and then the landscaper told me the hard, cold truth...we would not have edible fruit for a "few years". Hmmm..! So Hal and I (mostly Hal, okay all Hal, at my direction) fertilized the citrus trees faithfully, until this year. Every year our orange tree would produce at least 3 oranges. Every year we would wait until they were the perfect color of orange and then we would pick them and run in the house only to be disappointed at the quality! Then we would just throw them away.

This year, however, without fertilization, (lets just say we were kind of giving up!) our tree produced a LOT of oranges. Yesterday morning I sent the kids out with a bucket and told them to get them all! (Our tree is so big that they can reach them all...easily.) So they did. Not only were they edible but they were juicable! So we juiced all of the oranges, getting about two gallons of OJ. I have increased faith that we will have more oranges in the future. Wahoo! Maybe I will try again to have a Ruby Red Grapefruit tree and possibly try again with the lime tree...who knows. Of course, ANYONE can grow lemons. So we have LOTS of those!