Winter Goodness...Citrus, Here in the Deep South

Here in the deep south (Florida), winter is the best time to enjoy the fresh products that nature provides.

Lemons are a favorite fruit down here. There they are on the tree at left. I took these pictures so you could see different distances as we approached the tree. This tree grows at a friend's house.

The next Picture is the fruit that I picked off this tree. I didn't even make a dent in the amount of fruit that was growing on that tree.

There are many delicious uses for lemons. Some favorite ones include: fresh squeezed lemonade, pies and zest.

Zest is the skin of the lemon that has been grated from the lemon. When grating the skin, you must be careful not to get into the white part that is just under the colored part as it is bitter.

And just look how sunny and delicious the freshly picked lemons look! The next picture shows how the lemons look after they have been scrubbed and washed. I used a Dobie pad to do this task.




In the next picture you can see a few different citrus fruits. Also you can see the difference in sizes between the different fruits.


From left to right from the top left is: grapefruit, orange, tangerine, and lemon. Grapefruit grows the same way as the oranges and lemons.

These next trees have a lot of oranges on them . The bright orange color will draw your attention to them. There are quite a few trees in my area.
But further south a lot of the groves were destroyed due to a virus that invaded the trees.

There is also another citrus fruit called Kumquat Fruit. It's a very small, oval fruit usually between 1 and 2 inches long and has a leathery orange or yellow skin. They are generally in season from late autumn to mid-winter. The skin is much sweeter than the inside so most of the time only the skin is eaten.

No matter where you are, there is always something------

In the Garden.
Lola