Citrus after frost: advice please.

[Gormy Cuss]

I have lemon, lime, grapefruit, and orange trees, all fruiting at the moment. I live in a cold Zone 9 area and light frosts are part of winter every year but it rarely dips below 30 degrees at night and when it does it's not for more than a couple of hours.

We are in the midst of a four day cold snap and last night the temps dropped to the low 20s. The days warm up to the low 50s. My understanding is that the lemons and limes are adversely affected even if it was that low for just a couple of hours, but the oranges and grapefruits should be okay.

Anyone have experience with harvesting citrus after a hard frost? Are the lemons and limes worth harvesting for juice, if not as fresh fruit.


I harvested many before the frost but I'd hate to waste what's left if it's still usable. Thanks.

[GardeningGal]

1. Just saw this thread.

I don't know much about citrus, but I did see on tv that while fresh oranges would be going up in price due to the frost/freeze - juice should be going down because that would be where all the frost hit fruit would be used.

[Gormy Cuss]

4. Thanks -- the news coverage gave me the idea to do same.

I salvaged quite a bit of juice from the damaged fruit. Next summer lemonade may be the drink of choice.

[bleedingheart]

2. The lemons and limes will have to be used as juice

and if you do that...you can more than likely do something like make lemon curd, and other types of baked goods.

the limes can be made into key lime pie...

[Gormy Cuss]

3. Thanks.

I did juice the fruit with frost damage and have bags of lemon and lime juice in the freezer. About 1/3 of the fruit had some damage but the fruit on the interior of the trees was unharmed, for the most part. Of the damaged fruit, about 1/2 were still in good enough shape to juice.

It looks like the oranges and grapefruits did survive without damage. Those trees are very young and I was able to cover them completely each night. The other trees are too big for that and too far from electricity to be strung with Christmas lights for added warmth. I need to work on a good solution for the future. Xmas lights run from a solar panel would be ideal.

I do think I'll be making some lemon curd. It would be a nice treat. Thanks for the suggestion.