Winter’s golden globes
Nothing says “Winter in Southern California” more than a plump navel orange plucked from a backyard tree and eaten immediately out of hand.
Radiant and near bursting with fragrant pulp, the sugary juice dribbles down your chin, and you can’t help but smile. It’s an experience no one should miss.
Citrus have been intrinsic to this region’s identity since the late 19th century, when the first commercial groves were planted in the Inland Empire. The fruits, like precious orbs of encapsulated sunshine, were depicted on crate labels and shipped far and wide to an envious world.
Yet how sad that most kids prefer intensely flavored junk food to an orange. Odds are they’ve tasted only supermarket citrus, crops that are picked too early, before flavor, texture and nutrients can develop.
Home-grown fruit is a whole other animal -- prettier, tastier, better in every way. When you live and garden in citrus country, there’s no reason not to grow your own.
For bountiful harvests, all you need are the right varieties, a suitable location and consistent care. The benevolent sun that encourages sweetness works almost all year, and for free. Good thing, because all citrus require eight or more hours a day.
It’s evident that the citrus rancher who planted the trees on what is now Kathy and Bob Ray Offenhauser’s South Pasadena land understood those guidelines. These stately oranges, lemons and mandarins, some just showing their age, have borne dependably for about 80 years.
The trees have lived through many changes. Today, the citrus are framed by formal boxwood hedges, shaped nimbly by Bob Ray, architect of the new Huntington Library Botanical Complex in San Marino. Hand-carved benches, Asian sculpture and palm and succulent collections enliven the space. Kathy, an interior designer raised on an orange ranch, feels right at home.
Bob Ray is in charge of maintenance. He deep-waters only occasionally, more often during warm weather, and fertilizes in spring and fall. (In general, tradition dictates three feedings per year -- late winter, late spring and late summer -- with a balanced formula containing iron, zinc and manganese.)
The varieties in the Offenhauser landscape -- ‘Washington’ navel, ‘Valencia’ and ‘Seville’ oranges, ‘Eureka’ lemon and the ‘Satsuma’ mandarin -- excel in the summer heat and relative chill of this inland garden.
This is not true of all citrus. Some prefer coastal climes, where summers don’t sizzle and frosts are rare.
So, when starting your own home orchard, let these two criteria influence selection: Plant what you’ll eat, and choose the best varieties for your locale. Choices abound, and, luckily, guidance is plentiful.
Start at the farmers markets, where progressive citrus growers lug their crops. There, you can sample both classic and unusual varieties in season, at their tastiest, fresh from the groves.
When you come upon a kind you can’t live without, find out more. Ask the farmer where the fruit is grown and if there’s anything special about its habits.
The UC Riverside Citrus Variety Collection (www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu) is another precious resource. Established in 1910, it houses two each of more than 900 varieties from around the globe.
It’s also where new citrus are chosen to be sent to the UC system’s four experimental stations for testing. The best fruits are then offered to the citrus industry. One recent hit out of Riverside is the ‘Seedless Kishu,’ a miniature mandarin from Japan that thrives in all regions.
“Everyone who tastes them loves them,” says Ottillia J. “Toots” Bier, staff research associate in botany and plant sciences at UC Riverside. Bier tastes all new varieties and decides which make the grade.
Somehow, Bier has selected three personal favorites: ‘Gold Nugget,’ a mandarin with intense color, rich flavor and an incredibly long season; ‘Pink Lemonade,’ an offshoot of ‘Eureka’ lemon with marbled leaves and fruit, and pink flesh; and ‘Cocktail’ (a.k.a. ‘Cocktail Grapefruit’), a juicy new pomelo-mandarin hybrid with innards the color of a tequila sunrise.
Members of the California Rare Fruit Growers (www.crfg.org), a group of dedicated amateurs headquartered at Fullerton Arboretum, are among the first to try citrus from the University of California in home gardens. They usually start with cuttings, grafted tenderly onto either specially selected rootstocks or garden trees with similar parentage.
The Thousand Oaks edible landscape of group members Bob and Kathy Vieth is a citrus laboratory. Two forms of ‘Meiwa’ kumquat and an orangequat are grafted onto a ‘Nagami’ kumquat tree. Nearby, three half-siblings identified as ‘Oroblanco,’ ‘Melogold’ and ‘Cocktail’ are fused to a shrubby ‘Chandler’ pomelo, their shared parent.
A self-described citrus nut, Bob has amassed 21 varieties, including four kinds of blood oranges. As a group, these tangy, exotic fruits need lots of heat.
“Most oranges and grapefruits don’t do well along the coast,” says Mits Kawahara, citrus expert for the California Rare Fruit Growers. “But lemons and satsumas do better.”
Kawahara, a retired engineer, tends a small orchard at his Perris home overlooking Lake Matthews in Riverside County. Among the unusual citrus are mandarinquats from Germany and a pear-shaped ‘Mato Buntan’ pomelo from Japan.
Even if your tastes don’t run to the exotic, you can still enjoy a year-round harvest with a simple assortment of trees and some TLC.
Take your choice. Navels are ready in winter, valencias in summer. Mandarins, depending on variety, ripen from October to July. Lemons are ever bearing. ‘Bearss’ and ‘Mexican’ limes are both perfect by winter, but ‘Mexican’ keeps on the tree for months.
There are citrus sized for every garden, but they all need legroom. Bier recommends 14 to 16 feet between standard-sized trees, 12 feet between dwarf ones, and 7 feet for ultra-dwarf.
Good drainage is crucial. Citrus trees like moist but not mucky soil, so don’t locate them in low or slow-draining spots. Water thoroughly when the top few inches of soil feel dry. Never let sprinklers hit tree trunks; drip irrigation is a very wise choice.
Lastly, don’t prune except to remove dead or crossing wood as well as over-exuberant growth on lemons.
Citrus fruits color up on the branches long before they’re ripe. You’ll know your crop is at its prime when the squirrels start feasting. Before all of the fruit is gone, go out and pick a bowlful. Crack one open and join in the juicy celebration.
