Maybe a Fruit Grower?

 

Calamondin

Even if I can't grow potatoes or corn, I can definitely grow some fruit!  Today, my daughter picked some calamondin (also known as calamansi), which is a type of citrus fruit.  They are a cross between a kumquat and a mandarin orange and are small, round, and very, very sour.   But, they make a great marmalade and I am going to experiment this year and see if I can make some chutney, too.  

Back in December 2024, I asked M to prune the calamondin tree.  Here's how it looked towards the end of January 2025:

Calamondin Tree After Pruning: January 2025

It has since grown back quite nicely and was full of fruit - here's how it looked in June, 2026:

Calamondin Fruit in June, 2026

Daughter picked just over six pounds of calamondin today and there's still more fruit on the tree.  But, six pounds are about as much as we can handle at a time.  I washed them all well and daughter spent about an hour cutting each fruit in half and removing the seeds.  We decided that it was too hot to make a batch of marmalade today (a high of 88F/31C and we have no air conditioning) so he deseeded fruit was put in the freezer to be processed later.  Some of the marmalade will be given as gifts later in the year.  

I am grateful for:

- The calamondin tree
- The abundance of fruit produced by this tree
- Daughter picking the fruit for me
- And deseeding them for me
- Having a working freezer to store the fruit

Do you like marmalade?  Do you think you might like calamondin marmalade?  Would it be something you might try?