I want some mandarin trees to simply eat the mandarins. I don't plan on squeezing or juicing. I'll just eat them right off the tree. But I want varieties you can't find in stores, and the varieties with the most flavor. After a bit more research, I think the Page Mandarin might be a good choice for me flavor wise. And maybe Lee as well. A Page is a hybrid of Mineola Tangelo and Clementine. Lee is a hybrid of Orlando Tangelo and Clementine. On the University of Florida of website, they say that Page should have a pollinizer such as Lee nearby, and Lee should have a pollinizer such as Page nearby. So that seems like a match made in heaven- Page and Lee together. Read the UF's recommendations here: https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ch067 and here: https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ch080 But I'm still looking for others. As of now I am thinking I should get Page, Lee, Kishu (if I can find one), Gold Nugget (if I can find one), and Ponkan. Maybe Owari Satsuma as well. And yes, I do like Mineola Tangelos of course. Are they known as Honeybelles? I've had some good honeybelles before. And actually, I would say I like all citrus. But I want the best of the best, most concentrated flavor varieties. If Mineola Tangelo is more powerfully flavored than Mandarins and Tangerines, then I will get one. But Mineola Tangelos are not too hard to find in stores here in Florida either, so I might pass on that.

Wow thank you for the close up photo of your Shiranui Brian! I passed by a different market on Thursday and saw the same mystery citrus from the photos I first posted. I think you and Ike are right about them being satsuma citrus. I had a chance to pick them up and look at them more closely and they were much smaller and flatter than the older photo. Very much like a tangerine, flat and oval like a tomato. We had a huge snowstorm that day on Thursday so I didn't buy them, it was too disastrous outside to carry anything other than my own self! Hi sunshine! My Meyer would be elated to know you are interested in how she's doing lol. I've been sick on and off with a bad cough since Thanksgiving so I've put repotting her on hold until I feel better. She stopped flowering once 2-3 fruitlets grew a bit larger and stayed on the tree. I stopped watering mine completely for awhile though because of a bad fungus gnat larvae infestation. The long dry spell made her drop a few leaves and showing redistribution of Nitrogen in a couple leaves (yellowing middle vein). The fungus gnats have been eliminated from the dehydration and freezing temps so I've finally started giving her sips of water again. She started producing another round of flowers after receiving that small amount of water. No new growth though but I know the problem is the leftover nursery soil I didn't wash off. What kind environment is your Meyer in? It could be stuck in a limbo state of not enough light and not enough warmth which is probably okay as long as you're not getting leaf drop. If your lemons are half ripe, they must be pretty large. It needs to feed itself but also make enough food to keep growing the lemons properly so I'm guessing that the more developed the fruit is the more light it needs to keep going. Glad to hear that it's not shedding though!

All of my citrus are now in rootmaker knockoffs. After much research and debate, I decided to give them a try. I found relatively cheap ones and bought them in several different sizes, so I can pot up as necessary or customize to what I need, they’re essential expandable. I do worry a bit about the black plastic in the sun and I don’t know how well they hold up because it’s just thin sheets of injection mold plastic (I don’t recommend getting too close with your weed wacker - it does not boost longevity). I was pretty happy with my terra-cotta pots, plus I already own tons of them in various sizes, but the dense root systems that rootmaker style pots produce were pretty impressive. I’m hoping they’ll allow me to grow bigger, healthier citrus in containers.

Bob, you can't fade from us! Keep going and make it to 100!! I recently did a taste test of a kimbrough satsuma vs the ponkan mandarins. I rescued a tree last year that was huge but defoliated at a local nursery. It was a great deal at like 70% off (or something like that). I bare-rooted it this spring and it grew back very nicely. It has many huge, juicy ponkan mandarins that are now ripe. They are wonderful! The satsuma, if we had tasted it in isolation, would have been quite pleasant. However, compared to the ponkan, it was definitely the second place winner. I still like both and will not get rid of either tree. The one downside to both is they both have some seeds. Not a huge problem, but just a little annoying. The miho wase I think is still my favorite to date though. My daughter had peeled them and arranged everything before I took the photo, so I was unable to get a pic of the whole fruit. I will next time though. I'll post pics from my phone as my computer is very slow right now.