Hello! I'm writing a children's picture book about an old woman who still lives in her house and takes care of a few orange trees, even though she had to sell her bigger orange orchard to a developer. But I have some technical questions about how oranges are cultivated and harvested. I hope you can help:

1. How often in a year would you harvest oranges, say in mid-California?
2. How would you do it? On ladders, I assume. What do you wear to gather the oranges?
3. What would the bins look like that were trucked away to market? What are they made of?
4. How many bins would an average worker fill in a day?
5. When an orange tree is small, how many years before harvesting can begin, and what is the watering cycle?

Thanks much!

Hi bertaw and welcome to the forum.

This should get you started. http://members.aol.com/citrusweb/oj_story.html

Thanks so much! I learned that the pickers wear canvas bags and that they put the harvest into plastic bins. My unanswered questions are these:

How many bins would one strong woman picker fill in a day?
Would you get one harvest in a year or more? I was thinking of California, but it might be the same for Florida.
What is the watering cycle for young orange trees?

Any other hints about how to care for a young orange tree would be a great addition--i.e., when to prune, etc.

Thanks in advance.