Ascholten
Free Ranging
Yesterday we had a squall line come through, had a gust of wind 52 MPH, blew crap all over, tossed the living hell out of my poor blood orange tree which just made it through the last weeks 17 degree weather !!
The tree had 10 oranges on it. After that it was 9 oranges. one came off.
I have NO idea how to tell when they are ripe or not, so am going to leave them on the tree oh hell, until they start to 'brown up' get soft, still reading up trying to figure out the best time.
Anyways, the one that fell off, was nice and heavy, dense, had a pretty good deep orange color to it's skin, and smelled pretty sweet. So far so good right???
So I sliced it open, thinking well, if it's not quite ripe, I can immediately baggie it up and put in fridge and hope it ripens the rest of the way at least to something eatable.
OMG. This orange was so sweet it was insane !! The part that was still orange, had not reddened yet, was sooo super sweet with a nice orangy flavor, it was just crazy, but when I got to the parts that DID ripen to its fullest and were bright red. It was just crazy how flavorful and sweet it was. I sincerely wish there existed a way that I could have shared with each and every one of you how wonderfully sweet this orange was !!
I can die now, ....
after tasting that orange, my life has officially been fufilled, my bucket list crossed off, and everything wonderful in life for me, has been accomplished
I think after another two weeks, the ones left on the tree, will have reached their peak awesome. Still, do I leave them on until they are blatantly obvious they are ripe, and ready to get over ripe or harvest them on gut feeling? THIS is the part I don't know. I don't want to rot them on the tree, but if they are the type of fruit that 'picks itself' when it's ready or makes it plainly obvious it's ripe, then I can wait.
any ideas?
The tree had 10 oranges on it. After that it was 9 oranges. one came off.
I have NO idea how to tell when they are ripe or not, so am going to leave them on the tree oh hell, until they start to 'brown up' get soft, still reading up trying to figure out the best time.
Anyways, the one that fell off, was nice and heavy, dense, had a pretty good deep orange color to it's skin, and smelled pretty sweet. So far so good right???
So I sliced it open, thinking well, if it's not quite ripe, I can immediately baggie it up and put in fridge and hope it ripens the rest of the way at least to something eatable.
OMG. This orange was so sweet it was insane !! The part that was still orange, had not reddened yet, was sooo super sweet with a nice orangy flavor, it was just crazy, but when I got to the parts that DID ripen to its fullest and were bright red. It was just crazy how flavorful and sweet it was. I sincerely wish there existed a way that I could have shared with each and every one of you how wonderfully sweet this orange was !!
I can die now, ....
after tasting that orange, my life has officially been fufilled, my bucket list crossed off, and everything wonderful in life for me, has been accomplished

I think after another two weeks, the ones left on the tree, will have reached their peak awesome. Still, do I leave them on until they are blatantly obvious they are ripe, and ready to get over ripe or harvest them on gut feeling? THIS is the part I don't know. I don't want to rot them on the tree, but if they are the type of fruit that 'picks itself' when it's ready or makes it plainly obvious it's ripe, then I can wait.
any ideas?