Valencia Oranges in the Negev

Our neighbour is a plant physiologist and his specialty is citrus; he travels around the world attending conferences and meeting growers. He is pretty knowledgeable.  He had a dozen Valencia orange saplings lying around his laboratory which had been used in an experiment and were designated for disposal, so he bunged them in the back of his car and brought them home.

  The conventional wisdom among agronomists is that our climate is too cold for citrus but he thought otherwise.

He and I planted them in the public space between our two houses and they are now in their third year. They ripen around the end of February. For the first two years the harvest was surprisingly plentiful so for a few glorious weeks we served freshly picked (15 minutes) orange juice to our guests with breakfast… But this year, the trees seemed to have suffered and we didn’t have that many oranges…

… especially considering we had to share with our neighbors…

But luckily, next year already looks promising and the scent is simply intoxicating.

NB. Orange juice comes with breakfast only in season.  In other months we serve other seasonal fruits, avocado, mango, watermelon.