THE ANNUAL MARMALADE MARATHON
I am almost at the end of our annual marmalade marathon. Every January I buy a box of Seville oranges (oranges d'amere in French) from our local market and set to making about 65 jars of marmalade. I love the stuff and find a home for whatever we don't use during the year. I find it a very therapeutic thing to do when it is cold/wet/windy/snowing outside. In fact, when we moved to Blanchet in January 2006 the first thing I cooked, during a snowstorm, on my wonderful new Lacanche cooker was marmalade.
Seville oranges do not grow naturally in France. They actually originated in Vietnam and are a cross between a pomelo and a mandarin. The trees were imported to the Mediterranean and are now commercially grown in the province of Seville in Southern Spain. The season for Seville oranges is short and you need to buy them in January. Once they are gone they are gone, until next year. The correct Latin name for them is citrus x aurantium.
What we do grow very successfully here in SW France are citrus fruit in pots - especially lemons, which are said to be the easiest to grow. They are not frost hardy, so must be brought inside before the weather turns cold. That being said, we have here at Blanchet two citrus plants which must be related to kumquats or calamondins as they survive outside all year round against a south facing wall. The original plants were put against the wall, in pots, to overwinter, quite a few years ago and were forgotten about. The roots managed to snake their way into the ground and they are now fixed in place. The trees are in the region of 10 feet tall, intensely spiky and have small orange shaped fruit. I have never tried to make marmalade with them - but maybe I should.
Cultivation notes for pot based citrus fruits are as follows:
Grow them in clay pots, using a John Innes type soil based compost, or a proprietary citrus compost. Repot or top dress annually in March, when the growing season begins. They are hungry plants throughout the summer months, so from March to the end of October water them freely and feed them regularly with a nitrogen based plant food - again you can buy proprietary citrus plant food which you water in or you could use liquid lawn food. In the winter, when you are keeping them inside do not overwater - this is, it seems, the biggest risk to their health. It is better to err on the dry side than leave them standing in water. Another problem I have found in winter is that they can become over-run with soft scale - yellowy oval scales about 3mm long which infest the leaves and branches. I pick them off individually and find when I put the plants outside in the spring the problem disappears. But you can spray them with malathion or, if you are into green gardening and are using a glass house to overwinter the plants, introduce a parasitic wasp (Metaphycus helvolus) which should see them off.
To keep citrus trees in shape prune sparingly, if needed, in February. You are looking to remove dead, diseased or congested wood only. If water shoots have developed - these are long, unproductive shoots - remove them and also take out any wood which sprouts from below the graft point as these shoots will have the charcteristics of the rootstock your citrus has been grafted onto rather than the characteristics of your tree itself. During the summer months you can pinch out the ends of branches to keep the tree nicely shaped and bushy.
Citrus trees are self fertile, so you only need one in order to have fruit. The fruit can take a year to develop fully, so it is normal to have fruit at various stages of development and flowers on the tree at the same time. Leave the ripe fruit on the tree until you need them - and then have the pleasure of picking a lemon, slicing it and dropping a chunk into your gin and tonic or your 'Perrier tranche'.
Seville oranges do not grow naturally in France. They actually originated in Vietnam and are a cross between a pomelo and a mandarin. The trees were imported to the Mediterranean and are now commercially grown in the province of Seville in Southern Spain. The season for Seville oranges is short and you need to buy them in January. Once they are gone they are gone, until next year. The correct Latin name for them is citrus x aurantium.
What we do grow very successfully here in SW France are citrus fruit in pots - especially lemons, which are said to be the easiest to grow. They are not frost hardy, so must be brought inside before the weather turns cold. That being said, we have here at Blanchet two citrus plants which must be related to kumquats or calamondins as they survive outside all year round against a south facing wall. The original plants were put against the wall, in pots, to overwinter, quite a few years ago and were forgotten about. The roots managed to snake their way into the ground and they are now fixed in place. The trees are in the region of 10 feet tall, intensely spiky and have small orange shaped fruit. I have never tried to make marmalade with them - but maybe I should.
Cultivation notes for pot based citrus fruits are as follows:
Grow them in clay pots, using a John Innes type soil based compost, or a proprietary citrus compost. Repot or top dress annually in March, when the growing season begins. They are hungry plants throughout the summer months, so from March to the end of October water them freely and feed them regularly with a nitrogen based plant food - again you can buy proprietary citrus plant food which you water in or you could use liquid lawn food. In the winter, when you are keeping them inside do not overwater - this is, it seems, the biggest risk to their health. It is better to err on the dry side than leave them standing in water. Another problem I have found in winter is that they can become over-run with soft scale - yellowy oval scales about 3mm long which infest the leaves and branches. I pick them off individually and find when I put the plants outside in the spring the problem disappears. But you can spray them with malathion or, if you are into green gardening and are using a glass house to overwinter the plants, introduce a parasitic wasp (Metaphycus helvolus) which should see them off.
To keep citrus trees in shape prune sparingly, if needed, in February. You are looking to remove dead, diseased or congested wood only. If water shoots have developed - these are long, unproductive shoots - remove them and also take out any wood which sprouts from below the graft point as these shoots will have the charcteristics of the rootstock your citrus has been grafted onto rather than the characteristics of your tree itself. During the summer months you can pinch out the ends of branches to keep the tree nicely shaped and bushy.
Citrus trees are self fertile, so you only need one in order to have fruit. The fruit can take a year to develop fully, so it is normal to have fruit at various stages of development and flowers on the tree at the same time. Leave the ripe fruit on the tree until you need them - and then have the pleasure of picking a lemon, slicing it and dropping a chunk into your gin and tonic or your 'Perrier tranche'.
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