The Last Stand

Back in April, I wrote about my citrus inheritance, and how it's down to eight trees: the happy big lemon tree, the fairly happy small lemon tree, the hanging-in-there grapefruit, the Temple orange tree with the transcendently delicious fruit, the big red navel that hardly produced last year, and the unknown juicy orange variety that's struggling the most. That's six, if you've been counting, and the other two are small red navel trees in oak tree shade, that never really do much.

I told about the downhill slide of the citrus trees, and how Josh and I pruned them heavily this past spring. While Josh was down at TREC this past month, learning from Jonathan Crane and other tropical fruit gurus, I decided it was now or never. Time to make our last stand, with what I would have done for my citrus collection four years ago, if there hadn't always been too much else on the to do list: maximal pampering.

Everybody says to keep the area under the canopy of a citrus tree clear of grass and weeds. Grass is one tough competitor, as you can see by digging up a clump of turf after the month of rain we've just had. If it's on high ground--- meaning a foot-and-a-half above low ground--- you'll often find fairly dry sand underneath. And I reckon the grass grabs nutrients as well as water. My trees are irrigated and fertilized, but drip irrigation is no match for the effect of all of the tree's surface roots enjoying a cool drink, flavored with NPK and other goodies. The tough mangos I saw at Fairchild Farm do fine growing in a strip of pollinator-supporting native weeds, in fact Richard Campbell says mangos produce better when they are a bit stressed. But these days, it's hard enough for citrus to stay alive even if they don't need to fight for their territory.

What about clearing it using Round Up, which would probably be the only option for a grower at commercial scale? I actually use little shots of the stuff to kill weeds in my river rock driveway, rather than pulling up the underlying soil and eventually turning the whole thing into one big weed patch. And when I saw off a Brazilian pepper tree in the south woods, a drench of 41% glyphosate around the cambium sends the stump on its way to invasive pest heaven. But under the fruit trees? I just don't think Ma'am Gaia really approves.

That leaves only the old-fashioned way, so many of my mornings this past month, and some of the afternoons in that interval in the afternoon between clouding up and when the rain starts falling, I've been out there digging the weeds and grass from under the last eight citrus trees, gently so as to minimize damage to the surface feeder roots. This being August, it's not long before the sweat is pouring off my face and onto my glasses. Keep that towel nearby.

Here's the big red navel after clearing. Even us retired geezers don't have time to hand-weed all that space under eight trees, so we're going to mulch it.

There's a school of thought that says not to mulch under citrus, for fear of "root rot." The arborist who worked on my trees a few years ago, an outstanding tree man though not necessarily a fruit tree expert, believed that only an insane person would do such a thing.

On the other hand,  I've seen more than a few decent-looking citrus trees growing in mulch. And the balance of expert opinion I've been able to find says that while an eight-inch layer would be overdoing it, a few inches are perfectly OK. So we'll use some of that freshly chipped mix that my tree pruner pals drop off whenever I have space available.

Next week, we'll add our soil amendments, and see more pix.