Japanese Citrus - Sudachi or Kabosu
citrusboy
18 years ago
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joereal
18 years agobencelest
18 years agoRelated Discussions
growing citrus in southern new jersey?
Comments (18)Hi, first post on Gardenweb... TL;DR summary: You can absolutely grow outdoor in ground citrus in southern NJ, or almost any other part of the USA, even upstate MI. It just depends on how much effort you want to invest. Here's my full 2 cents: Citrus are quite content being dormant for several months of the year. They can tolerate prolonged periods (several days) at or slightly below freezing and short periods of a few hours (depending on the variety) down into the teens without much damage except for possible defoliation. The key is that the tree is healthy and fully dormant, active growing trees are much more sensitive to cold. One alternate approach to outdoor growing (as detailed by Poncirusguy) is to bring containerized citrus indoors for winter. Doing this you can either keep them growing actively (not dormant) by supplying sufficient heat and warmth. Or if you have a cool spot inside (temps in the 50's, for example) that receives filtered (not direct) sun you can overwinter them indoors in their dormant state. For outdoor growing, you also need to consider the fruit. In general the fruit will be damaged by temps below ~28F for more than a few hours. So you can either make sure to protect the trees so temps do not get that low or select varieties, such as early Satsumas, that are able to ripen their fruit before cold weather sets in. Depending on the degree of protection, you could grow pretty much any variety of citrus in ground. Alternatively, in zone 7B you should be able to grow some of the more hardy Poncirus hybrids in ground with minimal or possibly no winter protection. But, depending on your personal taste preferences, you may (or may not) like the fruit you get from the Poncirus hybrids. I know someone who has been growing Satsumas, Kumquats, Meyer Lemons, and some other Poncirus hybrids in ground in zone 5B for several years. Some of his trees are 6+ ft tall and many produce fruit. He uses extensive winter protection and supplemental winter heating. I have seen one of his Kumquats with well over 50 ripening fruit that he overwintered! Personally, I have one Satsuma in ground in my yard (zone 6B Massachusetts) and have overwintered it without using any supplemental heat. Instead I used several water barrels (taking advantage of the large heat capacity of water) to protect my tree. My tree saw a low temp of ~28F this past winter (the outside low temp was ~4F). During one stretch, the outside air temp did not get above freezing for 8-9 continuous days. Here are some pictures that might be helpful. Satsuma last Fall: Bundled up for winter (Early November). The tree is surrounded by 6-7 filled 35 gal water barrels wrapped in plastic sheeting to keep the wind out and is topped with an old full glass patio door for a roof. There are many different setups for protection that would also work... you just need to experiment a little and find what works best for your specific area. After 25" of snow in late Janurary: Uncovered this spring: ...and putting on new growth: Whether you choose outdoor (in ground), indoor active, or indoor dormant overwintering is really your personal preference. All methods will likely require some level of trial and error to determine what works best for you. Personally, I have found that maintaining my outdoor tree during the winter was much less work than my indoor trees. Once I set-up the enclosure, I just left the outdoor tree on it's own all winter. (In full disclosure, I did keep an eye on the interior air and soil temps with some remote temp probes and had an emergency heat source that was set to turn on automatically if the interior temp went below 27F) In contrast, my indoor citrus require frequent checks to see if they need water and I typically need to spray them with Horticultural oil a couple times during the winter to keep the insects (scale, white flies, mealy bugs, red citrus mites, etc...) in check. Cheers, Scott...See MoreSudachi, I think I have one in my yard. Does anyone else have one?
Comments (2)Here's a google search that shows the fruit and leaves Sudachi...See MoreCan citrus in pots grow just as well as in the ground?
Comments (19)Niceguy Over 50 feet of my basement wall was dirt with a 1 inc skim coat of concrete surface. Another 17 feet was a failing 18 inch thick stone wall with a sand clay mixture used as concrete between the rocks. The garage wall is made of broken brick, chunks of concrete and small rocks filled in with a concrete mix diluted with 50% sand. Solid but soft. The space between the walls was filled with clay and it pushed in the much weaker garage wall with no damage to the house wall. I dug out the clay and replaced it with compost for my citrus trees. The greenhouse comes down in the spring. It took me about 4 hours. The yellowing of the tree mentioned was caused by an internal claps of dirt from the roots that is not visible at the surface. Neither root rot or poor feed is the problem. I am going to be digging around the tree to fix the problem if I can. Otherwise I will remove and place the tree in a 10 gallon container to come inside for our Christmas tree. 6b Steve...See Morerare cold hardy citrus collection
Comments (17)I can give a review of the Kabosu Cutting into it, this smells like the best very high quality Meyer lemon (and I'm not much of a fan of Meyer lemons) mixed with some very aromatic Satsuma smell. There might also be a tiny hint of Yuzu aroma, barely perceptible. The inside is a little bit more fragrant than a lemon, has a little bit of Yuzu smell. Eating it, it tastes like a lemon. Not bad at all, but it doesn't have the most flavor, and it's just a little dry, like Yuzu. But it is still fairly juicy. The flavor is like lemon, maybe not the best quality lemon but not that bad, kind of watery, mixed with a little bit of tangerine and Satsuma flavor. I do not see any seeds inside. I think Kabosu is supposed to be picked green in Japan, so these may have been considered too over-ripe. Although they tasted like they might be underripe to me. In this cool climate (Pacific Northwest), they probably wouldn't be the most sweet. The peel was about as edible as a normal lemon, maybe just a little bit more. One probably could use the peel in cooking, although it might not be the most ideal. The peel reminds me a lot of the flavor of Satsuma peels, although maybe just a little bit softer like Yuzu. The white pith appears to be edible, only the tiniest bit of bitterness, not that much inferior to the pith of citron. The fruit quality inside is better than Yuzu, but I suspect the peel is still very important for the flavor, if you were making a sauce. One last thing, I do want to emphasize that this review may not be representative of what Kabosu is really like, but rather a single account of Kabosu grown in the far north in the Pacific Northwest climate. I think the peel is where most of the flavor of Kabosu is. The peel is less edible than that of Yuzu, somewhere between Yuzu and Satsuma mandarin, but I guess it cannot be too bad since I am finding myself eating the peels. The flavor of the peels is mostly like somewhere in between the peels of Satsuma mandarin and lime. Maybe just a little bit of Ichang papeda / Yuzu flavor, but the orange part of the flavor of Yuzu is not really there. I think the peels of Kabosu could definitely be candied to be made into a snack....See Morejoereal
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