Citrus

lemons “..It’s pretty serious.”

“Yeah…” (chuckle) “…right!”

“No, it is serious… Your smoothies are going to be more expensive.”

(Silence, as the enormity of this economic revelation sinks in…)

* * *

Part of a conversation I overheard between two students while I waited for a class to start. One student was apparently a bit dismissive of the other’s concern about the effects of the recent sustained cold temperatures on the local farmers. He did not see why she was concerned about the farmers. She could have made several appeals of the “concern for your fellow man” nature, but I’ll admit that I like the way that quick as a flash she went straight for the killer argument to strike fear in the hearts of event the most apathetic Southern California student – downer for the smoothie market, dude!

With all the discussion of the loss of citrus crops in the news, I recalled on Sunday that I’m a citrus grower as well. Much smaller scale, of course. Nipped out and checked on my Meyer lemon tree. Took a (yes, poorly focused) snap for you. Should probably harvest those.

-cvj

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21 Responses to Citrus

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  3. JoanH says:

    I almost forgot. The news ALSO had helpful tips for SoCal residents to insulate their houses against the cold. Which included the memorable advice to make sure that the cold wasn’t coming in through the windows and doors.

  4. Clifford says:

    Yes, I’ve taken to wearing my thick winter jumpers, socks, slippers, thick towelling dressing gown, and a wooly hat (all at the same time) around the house as I can’t bring myself to turn the heating system up all the way and just pour it all out into the atmosphere… My house leaks heat like sieve. I have learned that “draught excluders” as we call them in England, are called “draught dodgers” here. Which is clever, I’ll admit.

    -cvj

  5. JoanH says:

    And don’t forget that we have very large populations of homeless people and there isn’t the infrastructure to house everyone.

    p.s. it snowed in Malibu yesterday. The local LA news was showing before and after pictures to demonstrate what happens when a car drives through snow.

  6. JoAnne says:

    Aaron F. asks about the “Sustained cold temperatures”?:

    We’ve had frost every morning for the past 6-7 days here in the Bay Area with nightly temperatures in the 20’s. And over the weekend I saw ice in a street gutter where a garden hose had been draining. And then there’s the snow in Malibu. This isn’t typical CA weather, dude! And don’t forget that our structures are not built for this – my furnace at home is simply unable to keep up.

  7. Koral says:

    Interesting to hear about unusually cold weather…

    Yes, very interesting. To the point that [well known climate change deniers – sorry, but this is an edit by cvj to remove name] is taking this cold weather in California as proof that global warming is not happening.
    Which shows that a cold winter can be beneficial to nuts… 🙂 🙂 🙂

  8. spyder says:

    I would think that most of the frost damaged fruit will still make it on to the market, but in the form of orange juice. In other words, the price increase will largely be in the fresh fruit, not in the juice.

    California grows table fruit and vegetables, as does AZ and TX, for the most part. The orange market is a major part of CA citrus industry, and it is the navel orange that is being destroyed. Navels make lousy juice oranges (Valencias and Ambersweets et al are the juice ones); they have a thick pulpy outer layer and stronger segment fibers between juice sections. They are ideal for fresh eating, and unfortunately they are the primary crop in season at this moment. Whole orchards are being put to the torch. When i was a wee bit of a lad in SoCal in the 50’s i took a parttime job lighting smudge pots to keep the trees warm in the winter during freeze cycles; but those were mostly rare. Wholesale freezing periods, such as this one, destroy (as Clifford noted) not only all the crop, but also the trees themselves. Likewise, though most of the Mandarin crop has been picked the trees (in NorCal) are in grave danger. There is also the conundrum on the economic side; taking the insurance or selling the crop at a loss to juice. In most cases, destroying the crop and recouping through insurance is a much better deal than trying to find a market at a huge loss.

    The warmer/colder extremes of this winter have been predicted. Warm where it is to be cold, and cold where it is usually warm is yet another sign of climate changes. Snow in Malibu??? Now that is not exactly a common occurrence, nor is 60º+ days in Boston in the winter.

  9. mj says:

    Interesting to hear about unusually cold weather. Over here we have the warmest winter in decades. Not even a bit of snow, and the skiing season is completely ruined in many places. It’s mid-January and my wintercoat is still securely stored in the wardrobe.

  10. MJ says:

    Interesting to hear about unusually cold weather… Over here we have the warmest winter in decades. Not a bit of snow and the skiing season is completely ruined in many places. It’s mid-january and my winter-coat is still securely locked in my wardrobe.

  11. Aaron F. says:

    Thanks for the encouragement, Yvette! It’s great to know that indoor food gardening can really be done, and growing beans sounds like a blast and a half. 🙂 The only thing I’ve tried so far is some lemon balm, which smells great but makes disappointing tea. I did have mites once — knocking them off day after day was hell, but at least it kind of worked. All my plants have also had this weird problem with the edges of the leaves turning brown… spritzing them with water every morning seems to help, but I’m still not completely sure if humidity is really the problem. In any case, I’ll keep your advice in mind, and be looking for interesting bean seeds next spring! 😛

  12. Yvette says:

    Aaron- I had a friend who converted the shelf next to his window into a great little garden, with admirable results! He put all my attempts to shame, and grew beans and morning glories trained on string tacked to the walls. Overall, the best ones out of the climbers were beans and peas, and out of the non-climbers the tomatoes, peppers, and herbs of all kinds.

    The trick lies in, for obvious reasons, getting a dorm room that gets a LOT of sunshine (though us astronomer types tend to compromise to get west for the sunsets), and potentially bringing in extra lights in wintertime if you live further north. Oh, and watching out for mites like the devil because if one plant gets them a dorm room is too small

  13. Aaron F. says:

    “Sustained cold temperatures”? Last I heard, most of the U.S. was having an unsettlingly warm winter, and 2006 was America’s warmest year on record. Here in Ann Arbor, we just had a cold snap, but it was less of a cold snap than a suddenly-the-temperature-has-dropped-to-what-it-should-have-been-months-ago snap…

    p.s. What Amanda said! Everything I try to grow dies. 🙁 But if you know of any hardy edibles that could survive in an apartment or a dorm room, please do tell!!! 🙂

  14. Clifford says:

    Carl – it’s all about the fresh fruit here in California. See my posts on the farmer’s markets, etc., but it is also true for the larger commercial industry, and also for exports. The impact will be huge, and rather quick. If it continues, entire trees will be lost too, as they will die. Takes a while to get them back.

    Cheers,

    -cvj

  15. Carl Brannen says:

    I’m going to guess that a freeze this late in the season will not actually impact the smoothie market too much. I would think that most of the frost damaged fruit will still make it on to the market, but in the form of orange juice. In other words, the price increase will largely be in the fresh fruit, not in the juice.

    This could be a little cynicism that comes from working on an ethanol plant that was originally built to run on the parts of potatoes that weren’t good enough for french fries. Turns out that the supply dried up when someone invented “tater tots”.

  16. Clifford says:

    Hi Amanda,

    Funny you mentioned that, since I’ve been thinking it would be nice to post about that. I have spoken about the “miraculous” aspect before, and also how wonderful a thing it is to plant in general -and why it is a great thing for teaching kids about science, etc… But I would not want to overdo talking about the scientific aspects of it…. I try to stick to what I know. But I’ll give it some thought about how to work some science into some posts, where it works.

    Cheers,

    -cvj

  17. JoanH says:

    I think that strawberries tend to be a key ingredient of smoothies and these have, of course, also been damaged by the frost.

  18. Amanda says:

    Ok, i just have to comment here though it is way off track and i make it a point never to comment on blogs. You have the greenest fingers! Seriously – i have started to grow things in my garden aiming of course at the edibles and it is surprisingly non trivial – Not to mention fascinating how you pop in a seed and some water and “science happens” and out comes actual food. Don’t you want to do a little post with some advice about gardening ? Maybe throwing in the odd bit of science as to how this magnificent and daily miracle works. (Yes it is a miracle – science can be miraculous. )

  19. spyder says:

    This dip in the jet stream track (predicted {with some accuracy unfortunately} by various climate change models and mapping) is moving frozen bands of moisture, ice, freezing rain, and snow across the entire nation, damaging crops in AZ, NM, TX, MS, AL, and threatening Florida. Losing the food belt cornucopia is decidedly not a good turn of events.

  20. Clifford says:

    I’m not really a smoothie drinker. Can’t say. But there’s a lot more fruit and vegetables than just lemons that have been lost. Cheers,

    -cvj

  21. Luo Lin says:

    Are there a lot of lemons in smoothies? When I heard about the citrus freeze, I thought “that happens a lot,” but it’s just that the last time the lemons froze was the last time I was in California over winter vacation. That’s when I learned that while California’s orange crop is negligible on a national scale, the state is the major source of lemons. (My great-grandparents had an orange grove, and I grew up in Orange County, so Florida’s preeminence in the national orange market always bothered me!)