Why not make friends and influence people by serving some exciting new citrus fruits grown on trees in your backyard?
If you live in the Lower South where you can grow citrus trees outdoors, or in a colder area where you grow them in tubs that you bring in during winter, you can have a wide selection of these unusual fruits.
A friend of mine has a grafted tree that bears more than twenty different kinds.
Citrus Fruits To Try
Mexican and Tahitian Lime
First of all, try Mexican lime. It is small and round and usually sold in markets. Next is the Tahitian lime, which is the size of a large lemon and gradually turns from green to yellow. Bearss is practically a seedless variety.
Sweet Lime
Sweet lime is loved in Central and South America, used in drinks, or eaten like a tangerine. It is said to be effective against some forms of arthritis.
Rangpur Lime
Most interesting is the Rangpur lime with true lime flavor but with a tangerine’s color, form, and size.
Like most lemons and limes, the tree produces unusually heavy crops and has a succession of off-season crops in addition to the main one.
Ruby Orange
Everyone knows the delicious, eye-pleasing pink or red grapefruits—sports of the white seedless grapefruit—but do you know about the new ruby oranges? Their sizeable plantings have been made, and their popularity will certainly increase.
The Moro and Tarocco varieties were brought to the United States by way of Sicily not so very long ago.
They taste more like raspberries and strawberries than citrus fruit, and the flesh and juice are so red that they are a delight to use in salads or fruit cups.
Tangerine
Tangerines are no longer just tangerines. The two varieties usually sold today are Algerian, Clementine, and Dancy.
Algerian is early fruiting, usually available for the winter holidays. Dancy has fewer seeds and, in my opinion, a better flavor.
Besides these two commonly grown ones, there are others like Willow-leaf and my favorite, King Mandarin.
It is as large as an orange, but many people find its rough skin unattractive, so its acceptance on the market has been slow.
Tangerines crossed with orange hybrids are called tangors, and my favorite is the Umatilla tangor.
Even more to my liking are the tangerine-grapefruit hybrids called tangelos. The name comes from tangerine and pummelo, another name for grapefruit.
Minneola Tangelo
The best of these is the Minneola tangelo, which seems to combine all the virtues of its parents.
It has a wonderfully unique flavor, attains a large size, is nearly seedless and high in vitamin C, peels easily, keeps well, and has the color of the best oranges. Its flavor is superb.
Some of these hybrids have been available since the beginning of this century, and you may wonder why they have not been available at the grocery store if they are as good as I say.
The answer is that fast refrigerated transportation has only recently made it possible to ship these more tender citrus fruits to distant markets.
There is also a natural reluctance on the part of consumers to change their regular eating habits and try something new.
Consult Before Planting
If you want to try these fruits, plant your trees or bud new varieties on your citrus trees. Before doing so, consult your local nurseryman or county agent.
If they cannot advise you about the hardiness and source of trees or budwood, write to an experiment station either in Florida, Texas, Arizona, or California, where work with citrus fruit is conducted on a large scale.
44659 by Philip G. Corliss