(The following should help keep me out of trouble.)
I planted an orange and lemon tree in my back yard. It gives me great pleasure to be able to share this fruit with my family, neighbors--and even the postman.
None of my children live in an area which produces fruit, so we all get to enjoy "what just keeps on giving" in my back yard. :)
Planting an orange tree and a lemon tree is a most excellent thing to do in the general area where you live, and sharing the fruits of those trees makes it many times better.
One suggestion: If you live in an area where there are homeless, or struggling, people nearby--they would very likely greatly appreciate some oranges (I don't know about the lemons) too.
Way to go, pollythinks!
On behalf of all those who will receive your gifts, Thank you!!
Roy G Biv Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > We have a small Meyer Lemon tree. We got 6 lemons > this year. Not bad for NW Oregon.
About sharing my fruit: My daughter volunteers at the Bishop's Storehouse, about 30 minutes from us. I asked her to please pick up a couple boxes of my fruit, to take with her. :)
Nightingale Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Or to be warm enough to be drinking iced tea even. > :)
:D
Orange trees in bloom have a wonderful fragrance too.
When I was growing up, here in the San Fernando Valley, much of the Valley was still acres upon acres of orange (and other citrus) groves. I vividly remember nights when there would be regular, every fifteen minutes or so, radio broadcasts of the current temperatures in different parts of the southland, because at a certain point (I can't remember the exact temperature, I was still pretty little back then), those who had orange trees (especially groves of orange trees) had to get out the smudge pots and light them throughout the areas of the trees, to hopefully prevent freezing of both the trees and the fruit.
Because of climate change, we don't have many freezing nights here anymore, but I have many memories of sitting in the back seats of various family vehicles, deep into the night and the very early morning, while the adults distributed and lit the smudge pots, and I got to drink hot chocolate out of the thermos bottles Mom brought along.
I hope that in your future, Nightingale, you will be able to smell the orange trees too.
The house I grew up in (East San Diego County) we had two kinds of orange trees, a lemon tree, and a grapefruit tree. I can remember my grandma saying, "I feel like making a lemon meringue pie. Do I have any volunteers to bring in 3 or 4 lemons?" Those pies were incredibly good, and to know that the fruit was from our very own trees was also special.
It gets too cold in New Mexico to have our own citrus trees, and I miss them.
Polly, another tree you’d love is the Nagami Kumquat. The spicy peal is the most delicious (and nutritious) part. There are other varieties, but the Nagami has the best flavor and fewest seeds.