![]() Remove suckers as they form/grow from the base as they will steal away nutrients from the primary trunk of the tree. ![]() After the tree fruits, remove any dead wood and ventilate the center of the tree. ![]() Make 45-degree angle cuts to remove dead or crossing limbs and also to thin out the tree to allow more light to flow between the branches. Pruning: Pruning can be done at any time of the year for ground-planted clementines except in the winter. Make sure to follow the application instructions written on the fertilizer bag.Ĥ. The same fertilizing regimen should be followed for potted Clementine Trees as well. Once the tree has matured a bit and has got a few years on it, you can skip the cold season fertilization. ĭuring the fall and winter season, ease back to fertilizing once every 2 to 3 months. Fertilizing: Feed your Clementine Tree during the warmer spring and summer seasons with a citrus specific fertilizer once every six weeks, like the one included in our Citrus Care Kit. When ready to water, stop once you see it escaping the drainage holes at the base of the pot.ģ. If there is moisture present, hold off on watering until it feels drier at that depth. Mulching can help retain the soil moisture and also combat competing grasses/weeds.įor potted Clementines, stick your index finger into the soil down to about 2 inches. Watering: After watering (generally weekly), allow the top 2 to 3 inches of the soil to dry out completely before watering again. Be sure to plant in well-draining potting soil preferably recommended for acid-loving citrus plants.Ģ. Choose a pot slightly larger than what it was shipped in that has plenty of holes in the bottom to allow for drainage. A planter with built-in casters is a good choice so it can easily be moved. If your winter temperatures are consistently below 40 degrees, plant your tree in a container that can easily be brought outside in the summer months and inside in the winter. Potted plants do enjoy a daily misting for humidity but placing a tray with rocks filled with water under the plant will feed humidity to the tree as the water evaporates. They can tolerate some shade but thrive in full sun. Planting: Choose a location where your tree is going to get plenty of sunlight, 6 to 8 hours per day is best. “Later in the season it gets fluffier than at other times of the year.” “They’ll actually even vary depending on how mature the fruit is,” he said. Steve Futch, an extension agent at the University of Florida’s Citrus Research and Education Center, notes that different varieties of citrus simply have different albedo characteristics, which means that sometimes you get a clementine with a fluffy albedo interior, and other times the pith is more compact. ![]() There’s an open space in the very center and sometimes you’ll find a particularly fluffy bit of albedo taking up residence. While some citrus fruits have a tight connection down their central cores, mandarins (a category that includes this clementine) don’t. It cushions the citrus from falls and other fruity collisions. This makes sense when you consider that albedo is sort of like the fruit’s natural answer to packing foam. Albedo-you see it inside the peel and also in the “core” of the fruit, and in the threads you probably pick off your orange segments-is a loose network of cells containing relatively large air pockets. Here’s why.įor the paranoid among us, the delicate, fluffy white fibers at the center of some clementines can look hauntingly like the delicate fuzz we associate with mold.įortunately, however, this is not mold, but rather “albedo,” or, the white pith inside all citrus fruits. It’s safe to eat citrus with white fluff like this inside. It’s called albedo.Įat or toss? The citrus is perfectly fine, so eat! Some people don’t eat the albedo itself because it can be bitter, but that’s a question of taste and not safety. What it is: Basically just an airier version of the white pith that lines the inside of the peel and the space between segments. What you see: A delicate white fluff in the center of your clementine (or tangerine, or other type of mandarin)
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