Growing Citrus fruit trees in Rockridge district of Oakland, California
by James K. Sayre
Growing Citrus fruit trees in Rockridge district of Oakland, California is complicated by the cool cloudy summers. Most of our citrus fruits originally grew in subtropical and tropical Asia, in what is now Vietnam and southern China. Coastal California seems to receive long hard winter freezes only about once every two decades, the freezes of December, 1972 and December, 1990 being the most recent on record. Otherwise, we have a cool USDA Zone 10 climate, with winter low temperatures typically falling between 30 F and 40 F. This last winter of '04 - '05, in Rockridge I recorded two morning lows of 32 F and two morning lows of 33 F on my trusty one-year-old Taylor maximum-minimum thermometer. So no worries, there, mate.
Lemon trees - two dwarf Eureka Lemon trees transplanted in spring, 2002: yield of several lemon fruits each year.
Orange trees - two Navel Orange trees transplanted in spring, 2002 or 2003, a few oranges harvested in 2004.
Citron trees - in January 2004, transplanted one Buddha's Hand Citron tree and on Etron Citron tree: yielded one fruit each so far: the Citron is basically a very thick-skinned Lemon, in fact it is almost all peel, with very little flesh plus many small seeds. One typically makes candied citron for Christmas fruitcakes.
and started from seed indoors:
several various (unrecorded) Citrus (probably Oranges or Lemons) transplanted outside in 2003 and 2004: still very small plants
6 Tangerine trees (now about 2 inches high) - planted in a special heated and lighted indoor hot house - planted in November 2004 and noticed a half-dozen two-inch-high plants in December 2004. Currently awaiting warmer weather to transplanted outside.
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Web page last updated on 8 March 2005.