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Hello Laura now I have a major craving for toast with marmalade yum. Oh my goodness Laura you sure do have a ton of varieties and they all look amazing great job . Nice to hear that you had all your young men giving you a hand bringing them out

Brian

Congratz, Laura. Wow, the calamondin is a beauty, and looks like it did very well indoors. Fruit looks great. All my trees went out today as well. Potted a lot of my container veggies too.

Cute dog you have!

Thanks Dave and Brian. Brian, how awful for you!! I cringed just seeing those pics! I hope it warms up extra early for you this year, although with that greenhouse, you are great shape ;-). Dave, the calamondins were from my other two trees which were loaded. That other tree has lots more coming to my great delight.

That's great Laura, I'm really happy for you! I'm sure your trees are loving the unfiltered sun rays. They all seem to have weathered the winter indoors fairly well, you've done a great job. Cute pup too btw.

Evan

Thanks Evan! Interesting...seeing under those lights I did not realize how dark green they are. Now that I see them outside in sun and varying light levels, I realize how nice their leaves look. I did fertilize them over the winter, but at about 1/4-1/2 the concentration I give them when outside. There are a few that show some deficiencies in the newer leaves, but very minor. The pup and my older dog are now deciding to wrestle where I have a few of my trees and are giving me heart attacks watching the pots shake. I think I may have to move a few of the smaller trees out of their way or they are going to end up tipped over.

Watch out that your puppy doesn't try to nibble on the calamondin leaves. They are poisonous to dogs I've read.

Have you ever used honey instead of sugar in your marmalade? I was wondering if pineapple would work too (I'm trying to remove processed sugar from my life).

Thanks Dave. I doubt he will bother with the leaves...he prefers sticks or my other dog's flanks ;-). I've never used honey although I considered adding some to this batch at the end to sweeten it up. I don't know how well it would work - it may be fine. I think however that it would require an awful lot of honey to sweeten it enough. The carbs from honey are the same as those of sugar, the only difference is that honey has a bunch of other compounds from the bees and nectar that sugar lacks. However, some of those beneficial properties may be destroyed by cooking for a long time like the marmalade requires. I am not sure it would make much of a difference. I used organic sugar from Trader Joe's and added some brown sugar also. Perhaps you can try reducing the sugar when you cook it and then add the honey at the end to finish sweetening it up?? Did you see the beehives in my pics? I've had bees for eight years now. However, they all died this winter and I think I'm going to skip this year with replacing them. I just have too many things to do and a puppy to train. Hopefully I'll replace them next year.

Laura, your trees look great and Ramona is beautiful! Our forecast warmed up a bit so I put out 8 blood orange trees this morning just to get all the dead aphids washed off and any alive ones that are probably still there. I have had such a hard time with aphids this winter, but fortunately no scale like the previous two winters. They came out of nowhere in late November and as soon as I cleaned them all up they were smothering the leaves again within hours. They were relentless. There were so many and so constant they did do a lot of damage to my trees even though I kept after them every day. It is amazing how fast they can multiply. I never had an aphid invasion in my greenhouse before. I would have thought I could easily erradicated aphids but I could not. John M. says to get the ants but I don't see ants. Once I get everything out of the greenhouse I will try to fumigate it as those aphids must have some hiding place that I can't find where they keep breeding. Glad I finally got rid of the scale though this year. It is misty and gently raining here all day but warm so I am hoping the trees will like the clean rain water and a thorough natural cleaning. There is still some snow left but it is melting. The trees are close to the greenhouse so I can bring them in quickly if I need too. It would be nice if they could stay out for good now and the other trees join them. We have almost 2 straight weeks of rain in the forecast though and a few nights in the 30s. As long as it stays warmer they should be OK I think.

Brian, my yard looked like yours a few days ago. The snow was so heavy I finally just left it where it drifted the most as I was exhausted even though I got some help from my neighbors. If I had to I could get my car out but it was near impossible for me to get any groceries into the house over that last big drift to my house and I couldn't get my garbage down the back steps to the street as I ran out of energy to shovel the big drift on those steps. Sorry you still have all that snow. Your trees look so beautiful though in the greenhouse and so full of gorgeous fruit. At least you can go inside there and pretend it is spring. It was a strange winter...so many days of warm weather with such nasty, windy, cold and dreary days between. I hope spring comes to you soon.

Cory

Laura, I am sorry you lost your hives. Our two hives are OK so far. People around here are experiencing severe losses - about 40%. It's the varroa mites. I understand why you would not want to get bees for a while.

I wasn't sure if honey would work for making marmalade so I Googled it and found that it does work. I found this interesting recipe: http://nourishedkitchen.com/whiskey-and-honey-marmalade/

Honey adds a special twist to marmalade, as does a Meyer lemon sliced thinly peel and all. I hope you got out all the seeds, as that is the hardest part, especially for calamondin. My foray into marmelade was with my seedless Nagami kumquat... still a lot of slicing; but not seeds.

Laura, beautiful pictures, so good to see your babies back in the outdoors. Thanks for the puppy picture. Soooo cute!

Laura, your new family member is so adorable. What is his/her name? I bet your kids are just loving him to pieces! ♡ What a great new addition to your family.

You are so lucky to live where you can take your trees out permanently already. They look really nice for being indoors all winter. I can only imagine how good it feels to have them out getting those rays and fresh air, not to mention much easier to take care of outdoors. Yay! More room in your house now! :D I have almost a month and a half before my citrus can go out permanently. The weather has fluctuated so much in our parts and the nights can still drop down in the low twenties.

That Calamondin marmalade looks divine! I made a few small batches of orange marmalade last year, and it was yummy! I have made marmalade with pure raw honey before and it turned out really good. It does thin out the consistency just a bit, but not by much.

I am sad to hear you lost your hives over the winter. I hope the beekeepers in our area do not have many losses. We buy raw honey from the Amish in our town and it is really good. Someday hubby and I will be beekeepers. We have researched beekeeping for the past five years, but have our plates full with so many other projects around the farm, for now.

Cory, so sorry you had such a hard time this winter with battling pests on your trees. I know how beautiful your trees, plants and greenhouse always look because of your good care and when they can all be outside and you fumigate the gh it will be much nicer for you and the trees.

Brian, the snow is beautiful, but enough already! Lol. We lose our snow, only to turn around and get another foot or more. It is mostly gone now except for a scattering in the woods here and there. We had rain beating down last night. It is a rainy, dreary Sunday, with cool temperatures. Brrr. It will slowly be warming up by the end of this week. I hope.. We started tapping maple trees in the sugar bush, back in February when it warmed up and the sap was running. Then it slowed down when it turned cold. Looking for another warm up to get it running again. The first batch of sap we cooked down into maple syrup was a dark amber which tastes the best.

So far we have cooked down the sap we collected, into 3 quarts of maple syrup. Sundays mornings are for homemade pancakes with maple syrup, farm fresh eggs and bacon.. :)

Beautiful trees Laura! Mine have been outside in the warm rain the last two days and the buds are visibly bigger! I can't wait for them to open! That marmalade looks delicious and I can't wait to get first calamondin!

Cory, I'm sorry you've had such a hard time with the snow. We got almost nothing down here to the great disappointment of my kids. Ramona grew out, but now has several shoots of growth emerging from the middle and going up. I figure now she's growing more height. She did very well all winter and don't think even lost one leaf! Vladimir thanks for the article. That's great to know! I do not want to use all my precious honey now though. I am going to be sad not to have them but I need a year off. I have a little hope that maybe a swarm could move in, but if it does not happen soon, I'll take them down before the wax moths and SHB move in. John, i did get almost all the seeds and put them in cheesecloth to add pectin like you said. I may try that with the Meyer sometime. This time I added one almost peeled cara cara orange to add a twist. It's the best marmalade I've had and my husband is eating it by spoonfuls out of the jar ;-). Thanks Sunshine! The puppy is cute and pretty calm, but mischievous. He's going to be big, so I worry about the pots. I'll have to watch him outside to make sure he does not inflict too much damage! Amanda, you will enjoy those blossoms. They smell heavenly! I really like my calamondin trees bc they are easy and productive. They also look pretty with all the orange fruit hanging off them.

I'm going to bookmark that marmalade recipe. I think calamondins have similarities to the complex flavor of Seville oranges and would be an adequate substitute. I have a pressure cooker, but that would not be necessary for the calamondins. I couid buy some honey for that recipe from the farmers' market. My Seville orange tree has grown quite a bit so perhaps in a couple of years I'll have a few of those also.

Who would guess a gal from Maryland might outdo the Florida group, good show!!

Jinny, I think we were typing at the same time...lol! I look forward to hearing of the incredible things you cook with your citrus. We can share recipes and inspiration. Yes, it is nice to be able to take them out. It is only going to 52 today, but they are fine. It will rain and it is cloudy all day so they can adapt to full sun gradually. It is great that you can make your own maple syrup. When we went to Quebec a couple of years ago, I stocked up on cans of maple syrup. We just finished all the cans last month. I am now forced to buy the store stuff, which is not quite as good. I do buy maple syrup though, not the fake stuff. I hope you get a break from the snow and can get your trees out. BTW, my ST bloomed like crazy just recently and still has buds left to open although it did lose some leaves - not too bad though. It has set several lemons, but we shall see if any actually grow up....

Bob...it must be Carribean blood in me ;-). Ironically, when I lived in FL, I was not into citrus at all. I only started eating oranges recently. My seven year old loves all oranges and taught me to eat them! What I do remember from FL that I have been able to reproduce in my home is the smell of the citrus blossoms. I remember driving up the FL turnpike on my way to college with open windows and smelling the orange groves.

So far so good. A few have already started growing just a tad and I see no sign of any sunburn. It got to 70 and sunny this afternoon and they were loving it!

Laura, you are just CRAZY for citrus and AMAZING for here! I love that you can do that. I pray it stays warm enough and that stupid ARCTIC blast does not catch you off guard like it does here..I am as tired as my trees are...

They seem to reacting just great to the sun without burning...Nice work I'll bet you feel relieved to spray them as much as you want as you flush the water through those pots and wash every bug off those leaves that even thought to taking a hold..It's just a great feeling sin't it?

Even better to see the natural rains fall upon those leaves..I LOVE rain now that I have tons of plants that love it too.

Oh man.. Last night it snowed around 4 inches, and it stays below freezing for the next 3-4 days. Hope it doesnt get much colder than this any more!(24F)

One month to go, and we dont have any snow hardly at all and temps should stay over 50F during nights.

..but my kids are though happy to get snow sliding in fresh snow. It's freezing in the shade, but in the sunshine it's around 60F. Pretty nice weather!

Mike, I think tomorrow night it may go down to 39/40...that is fine since it will rise to the 50s. After that it is highs in 60s and low in 50s/upper 40s. I can deal with that. Yes, it is great to see them. I had one that I had to battle with all winter with whiteflies...very annoying critters. I hosed it off but have not sprayed it with neem yet. I manually squished the few I saw after hosing off and have been checking it daily for any new ones. I will spray it down with neem/HO soon, but wanted to let it get used to the sun first before adding anything else that could affect the leaves. It was not too badly infected since I sprayed it at least once a week inside. I hope some natural predators will take care of the remaining ones....Jontte, my kids did not get much snow this year to their disappointment. I hope yours enjoy what you have!