Today I picked the season's last piece of fruit from our Satsuma Mandarin Orange tree. The tree starts bearing in late November and has given us a steady supply of sweet and juicy mandarins all the way through to today. The great thing about these is that they are easy to peel. The even greater thing is that they are home grown, we can walk out and pick one anytime from about November - February and they taste far better than anything you can buy at the store.
The Satsuma Mandarin has been called the "perfect" fruit tree. For citrus, the trees are hearty and are said to tolerate below freezing temperatures. They are self pollinating. And, best of all, the fruit is delicious, super easy to peel and has no seeds. In our garden, they are also the first of the citrus to bear, which means come Fall the Satsuma Mandarin gives us the welcome first taste of sweet and juicy citrus for the season. The only downside is that the tree tends to be alternate bearing with a heavy crop one year and light one the next. We had a heavy crop this year, so I'm thinking next year is going to be light.
Below you can see the loose orange peel that just breaks away clean from the fruit.
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