My First Blood Orange Tree

I began my gardening experiments last October when I was first struck by the desire to try growing a citrus tree.  I absolutely love citrus and nearly all kinds of other fruit!  And although Pittsburgh DOES get a TON of rain, it is pretty far from a tropical climate!  So I decided to try growing my citrus tree in a pot.  That way I can bring it indoors and protect it from our waaaaay too cold winters!  I decided on a Moro Blood Orange tree(which is a type of orange that has raspberry/Strawberry orangey taste) and I ordered it from http://www.fast-growing-trees.com  I'm pretty sure I paid $40 or $50 for it.  The add said tree is low maintenance, and will do fine potted and brought indoors during the winter for those of us who don't live in Florida or Arizona!  Here's what my tree looked like after I threw it in a pot when it arrived:

Notice anything awesome about this tree?  IT HAS LEAVES!!!  I was totally excited that the thing actually looked like a tree!  I dug out a flourescent shop light that we found in our basement and mounted it upright on my wall; I figured my new tree would appreciate the extra light.  I then placed it lovingly on a table next to the sunniest windows in my house.  I carefully shut the door to the room(I have a cat who has a taste for plastic, paper, silk plants, or real plants).  And five minutes later, I couldn't bear the separation.  I had to go back in there and check on it.  I opened the door, and there it was, where I left it- still very much alive, looking gorgeous in its pretty green and blue pot with its expensive miracle gro dirt, bathed in the blinding light of my shop light.  I'm not sure, but I might have even sighed with an impossibly big grin on my face, and told the thing "Your welcome, little tree!"

The next few months were distressing.  That tree lost a leaf nearly every week(which is a big deal when it only had like 30 leaves to begin with!).  It started with the leaves at the bottom, and worked its way up the tree.  They just turned yellow- like a golden delicious apple- and fell off.  No mold, no spots on the leaves, no withering, no crispiness.  Just yellow.  Then death.  I definitely was NOT very happy.  So I did what I always do when I can't solve a problem: I turned to the internet.  I was hoping for ask-a-nurse for trees, but no such luck.  Apparently there is no 24-hour hotline you can call at 12:30AM when your tree is sick.  Maybe it needed nutrients?  I started watering with miracle gro and epsom salts.  Still one by one the leaves were falling.  It was starting to look a little bald! 

By December I noticed something awesome.  Buds!  New Growth!  Maybe it just needed to establish it's root system.  Maybe it liked the minerals and miracle gro.  Who knows?  But it wasn't slowly wasting away anymore, and thats all I cared about!

In January I noticed these weird-looking things growing on the top of the tree...

By March they were popping open.  Flowers!  Wait. Flowers need bees?  

Now I had to research how to be the bee for my tree.

Armed with a q-tip and the knowledge I gained from a british lady on Youtube I set out to "tickle" each flower with my q-tip.  What you have to do is transfer the pollen from one flower to another.  I wasn't sure which part of the flower was supposed to get the pollen.  I'm not gonna lie it felt a bit awkward for me to be doing that to my tree.  And there were flower casualties- too much vigorous stimulation?

About a month later I noticed the little green round part of the flowers were getting bigger, and rounder.  The white petals and yellow middle thingies fell off.  My orange tree was expecting.  It was awesome and wrong at the same time.

It's the last week of April now, and I have been brought my orange tree outside on nice days for some sun.  The leaves are a gorgeous rich, dark green color.  They aren't brittle and fragile like before, but supple and robust.  And shiny!  Like they've been coated with that shiny wax you put on your car.  How many oranges do I have left?  Only three.  There were about 15 flowers that opened, we lost 7 to over-vigorous tickling, 5 fell off either when I was watering or moving the tree, and three left.  They are almost the size of a small gum ball.  I will count this experiment a success if I get at least one full-sized orange this year.  Thats a lot of work for one stinkin orange!

 

Update:  

I have only one orange left.  D:  Please... it could use all the prayers it can get... I'm just sayin...