Orange trees are fun to grow but remember it can take years for citrus to bear fruit
Daylight hours are fading fast now, which means that salad crops in the greenhouse have little chance to grow. While they are just ticking over, it’s essential not to give them more water than they need, as sitting in cold, damp compost is the quickest way to encourage fungal diseases to spread.
Be patient if your salads seem to be in suspended animation. As long as they are healthy they will soon pick up again, the moment daylight starts to lengthen.
If you grow citrus trees in patio pots, then these should now be stowed safely under cover before any harsh frosts can damage them. In Florida, where much of the world’s orange crop is grown, farmers spray crops with water if temperatures are forecast to plummet, and the water freezing around the fruit acts like a protective layer.
Here, where most people grow an orange or a clementine in a large pot, it is much easier just to move the plant somewhere bright but cool until late spring, feeding with a special winter feed, which is more balanced than the high-nitrogen feeds that citrus need during the summer months.
Whatever you do with your lemon tree, don’t stick it next to a radiator in a spare room or tuck it into the cupboard under the stairs.
Cool, bright conditions are what’s needed to nurse it through until spring, not hot-house conditions or a dark corner.
In places such as Spain, this year’s crop of oranges will soon be ripe and you may be tempted to grow your own tree from the pips of one that you have peeled in your kitchen. This is fun to do, but don’t expect to be harvesting your own crop any time soon.
It can take up to a decade for citrus to start bearing fruit and even then they are unlikely to come true from seed, so what you end up with will probably not taste the same as the one you started off with. But it is fascinating to watch a new tree grow and children in particular enjoy this kind of gardening.