This is my little orange tree. Actually, he's not so little -- probably about 9 to 10 feet. He's a Satsuma and he makes oranges. Satsuma oranges are meant to go for juice. Their skin doesn't peel easily and there's a lot of pulp. Unfortunately, he's only got about a third of the oranges he normally has. While he's pretty tough and a frost doesn't really bother him (except make the leaves on top a bit gnarly), the blossoms don't fare so well. Last year during the first part of March while the orange blossoms were blooming on the tree, a heavy frost came through and killed the ones that weren't protected. Since the blossoms serve as the bud for the fruit, that meant few oranges for this year. (Notice how the oranges we do have are up "under" the branches and leaves? These are the ones that made it.)
I took this picture as we were pulling off the last of the oranges. (I normally like to have them off no later than March 1, but got a little behind this year.) If you notice the white buds that look like unopened tulips, those are the orange blossoms. The next crop of oranges will grow from these. Yes, theoretically, there could be an orange for every blossom. I'm guessing these will be open in a week or so. The fragrance is just awesome! The nectar must be good to eat too since we usually see hummingbirds all over the tree when the blossoms are open.
My peeps didn't get them picked as well as the pros do, but they only worked for juice as payment.
At last, juice! It was a tad tart and had lots of pulp, but was all gone after the squeezing.
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