Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Grapefruit tree on vacation for the winter

A couple of month ago I was bragging to my in-laws that I have had a total of 500 visitors from 50 different countries visit my blog.  My father-in-law asked if I had told my faithful readers that "every time I try to take a shower I get attacked by your grapefruit tree."  I'm pretty sure there were some expletives in there, but I removed them to keep my G rating.  Also, I don't think he knew it was a grapefruit tree...

grapefruit
My grapefruit tree
The grapefruit tree has some pretty mean thorns all up the trunk and down all of the branches.  They are mean when they're green and meaner when they're dead and brown.  My parents-in-law have been kind enough to overwinter my grapefruit tree at their house the last 2 years, since they have lots of room and I have very little room.  My tree has been very happy there, because they also have a lot of large windows to let light in their house.

The grapefruit tree was a gift from my granddad who grew it from the seed of a grapefruit he bought at the grocery store.  He gave it to me 2 years ago and it was already about 4 1/2 feet tall.  It tends to lose some of its leaves in the fall and winter but gets bushy again each summer.  He recently gave me another grapefruit tree he had grown (this one only about 5" tall).  Neither of the plants have bloomed yet, but hopefully they will be able to pollinate one another some day.

5 comments:

  1. That's really neat that it's started from a seed by your grandfather. I wonder how long til they're mature enough to produce fruit? I hope your tree enjoys it's vacation :)
    thanks for visiting my blog too!

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  2. Hey Zach,

    Any Citrus Trees needs Blooming Plant Food, and if you are a coffee drinker like myself, take the used coffee ground
    and place it on top of the soil and watch your tree bloom!

    They need acid to bloom...........

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  3. Somewhere I read this was national grapefruit month--a great post to celebrate it! I'm one of those annoying people living in a warmer climate, so I won't go into what my tree is doing outside right now. But hopefully yours will be doing the same thing before too long!

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  4. I've been growing a grapefruit tree from a seed, and just recently noticed it had vicious spikes on it. I was beginning to wonder if I had been raising something else by mistake. Now I know it is, indeed, a grapefruit tree! Thanks!

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  5. They will not bloom unless u put it outside in the summer. It needs tons of light to bloom. I lived in California and had two orange get trees inside didn't have a deck at apartment. They never bloomed however moved to apartment with deck. Put it outside and in a month it bloomed.

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