After Christmas, Mark took myself, his brother-in-law, and two of the boys out to his orange orchard. My Uncle Jim has fruit orchards in Washington that yield apples, pears, peaches, cherries, and such, but I had never actually seen groves of oranges (just a tree, or two when I was in Cameroon). I was mostly surprised by how bushy the trees can grow.
Mark explained some of the differences between the variety of oranges and we tasted a couple off the tree. The little Satsuma Mandarins were pretty ripe and we picked up a few boxes of them on the way back to the house, directly from the packer. I also learned while I was in California about another Dutch tradition of giving oranges for Christmas. This trend started in the Netherlands as a way to prevent scurvy; a small gift of health at Christmas time in the form of vitamin C.
Growing nearby were some rows of persimmons. I had never tried this fruit before. I had seen them once or twice and figured they were a bit like a tomato, but after testing one out, I thought they were a lot like papaya. In any case, this one tree was left with fruit. The fruit is the last thing to fall off the tree. Persimmons must be easy to pick since they are easy to spot among the leafless branches!
The other exciting thing we did among the trees was test the wind machine. The boys seemed to think it was a little too loud, but those machines can certainly stir up the air and keep the fruit from freezing!
After Christmas, Mark took myself, his brother-in-law, and two of the boys out to his orange orchard. My Uncle Jim has fruit orchards in Washington that yield apples, pears, peaches, cherries, and such, but I had never actually seen groves of oranges (just a tree, or two when I was in Cameroon). I was mostly surprised by how bushy the trees can grow.
Mark explained some of the differences between the variety of oranges and we tasted a couple off the tree. The little Satsuma Mandarins were pretty ripe and we picked up a few boxes of them on the way back to the house, directly from the packer. I also learned while I was in California about another Dutch tradition of giving oranges for Christmas. This trend started in the Netherlands as a way to prevent scurvy; a small gift of health at Christmas time in the form of vitamin C.
Growing nearby were some rows of persimmons. I had never tried this fruit before. I had seen them once or twice and figured they were a bit like a tomato, but after testing one out, I thought they were a lot like papaya. In any case, this one tree was left with fruit. The fruit is the last thing to fall off the tree. Persimmons must be easy to pick since they are easy to spot among the leafless branches!
The other exciting thing we did among the trees was test the wind machine. The boys seemed to think it was a little too loud, but those machines can certainly stir up the air and keep the fruit from freezing!
1 comment:
We have a young man living with us learning English and he introduced us to eating persimmons. We leave it on the shelf till it is very soft (it looks like it is going rotten) The skin looks like it is going clear. Then we cut it open and squeezed out the insides into a bowl. It was pleasent and sweet to eat.
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