I covered about half of my citrus today and tomorrow I will cover the other half. It still not be very bad tonight. Low at 36 but tomorrow will be at 30 and Friday 23.
I can attend the scion exchange Saturday EZ and Joe but will you be so kind to tell me how to get there?

Benny

Benny- use map search to get to Prusch Park...647 S. King, San Jose.
I680N, exit King Rd., near intersection of 680 and 101 in San Jose...

As far as the trees....too many to cover, and too big..plus no source of heat to give them underneath...There's no new growth, they are hardened off as best I could expect.....If the Kieffer Lime bites the dust...it was just taking space and giving fruit for the wife to freshen the garbage disposal...I'm OK to lose that one....BUT the others are like children to me... Well, I just re-read my citrus book, and confirmed what you geniuses suggest.....I will pick all my fruit tomorrow....water the trees, and say a few prayers each night starting Thurs, through Sat !!

It will be a good test to see how low they can go...My book says Satsuma Mandarin can go to 18F...so if I get wiped out....I'll replant with Satsuma's...they are early, and sweet and zipper skinned, and very HARDY....

Let's all say a few prayers for the SUPER SWEET OROBLANCO to pull through !!!!!!

Thanks again...see you guys on Saturday....I'll bring a couple Oro's to share....

EZ$$

Prayers going your way, esp for that Oro! How about some pics of Saturday's event?

I will heartfully pray for that Oro to come true. I still could not forget how good it was.
Why I did not think of that Mapquest! I guess I am beginning to depend on you guys too much!
OK see you there EZ!
OK Patty, I'll bring my digit cam. Thanks for the reminder.
I was going to my garden this morning but when the tempt read 35 deg, I chickened out.

benny- LOL..chickened out ??!! what are you gonna do tomorrow morning when it is 25 F ?? It was like a day at the beach for me this morning, as I saw and felt only 32-33 F up here !!!

I'll be inside looking out.

Just picked 240 lbs....from only 4 trees this afternoon.....
35 lbs of Oroblanco, 75 lbs of Washington Navel, 60 lbs of Clementine Mandarin, and and 70 lbs of Minneola !! Still got lemons and grapefruits to go...if they survive tonight....

It was neat to see how much fruit was actually there....And now I got a TON of Oroblanco to eat !! (assuming the wife doesn't give it all away (hehehe))

Good Luck to my Northern and Cental CA citrus growers ovre the next several days....stay in touch !!

Good luck with it EZ. You can always send some oro's to the east coast

And up here too!

EZ,

If you can give me 20 lbs of OB's, I can make a 5 gallon batch of wine for you! I can make it dry or sweet. Usually with grapefruits, you make the wine very sweet for dessert.

Joe

lows down to only 34-35 F last night (so far...) NOT BAD at all !!
bracing for the killer hit tonight......Just sitting here munching on some mandarins, and seeing that most of valley did OK......

They are still predicting a much worse hit tonight (low to 23F)...will take another 1/2 day to pick the remaining fruit...(lemons and grapefruits)..

The trees without fruit look better able to handle what's coming...I don't know if that is correct or not, just seems without having to worry about ripening fruit, they can now concentrate on bracing for the cold, and SURVIVING !!

I want to thank everyone for giving me so many options on the Oro's that I recently have harvested....But I will have to check with the wife, as I believe most are spoken for...(i need at least 3 a day for the next 2-3 months for myself) I can't get over how sweet and balanced their taste is now, even 2-3 months before I'd normally pick them.

Joe, if you wanna stop by and take some of the other stuff home...after scion exchange, just let me know. After today's pickings, I will have almost 400 lbs of fruit. How long will it keep out in an unheated garage ??

I checked the tempt at 6:30 this morning and it was 26 * F. I worked till 8:30 last night to cover them up. Hopefully they'll survive.

benny- WOW..you had lower than me last night....Please let us know how did your fruit do at such low temps......I think tonight will be worse...Are you in watsonville, or where ?

My lows were in 25.5 deg F at about 12:30 am, then at 2:00 am, the breezes started to pick up and the temperature was 28 deg F. By the time it was 6:30 am, the time I usually go to the office, the temperature was 33 deg F!!!

This is really in reverse order due to the wind stirring things up. Usually we get our lowest temps during 6:30 am.

I purposedly did not cover my citruses yet because of the strong breezes. So will cover them today after the wind will calm down.

Saturday night is predicted to be very low at around 6:30 am, and it is going to be 19 deg F and calm. So help my plants dear Lord!

My backyard has usually lower temp than that of the city.

Suddenly an idea came up, and I will do this tonight. I have two 55 gallon wine barrels that are empty. I will roll one to the base of my banana clump, and the other under my 50-n-1 citrus tree. At about 12:00 midnight, I will fill these up with very hot water. Will have to buy a hose adapter to get that from the house. Hopefully the black body radiation from these massive wine barrels that are filled with hot water would be enough heat to radiate to the trunks to prevent them from freezing.

This will be in addition to the other plans I had earlier.

EZ:
Next city south of Watsonville is salinas.