So... do you ship?
I'm sure there's all sorts of laws prohibiting that. Sigh.
Heck, I don't know. I can see them being concerned about incoming or intrastate shipments, but not sure why there would be any concern about outgoing interstate shipments to states that don't produce citrus. Obviously it is allowed under some circumstances since there are a few growers in the state who can ship out citrus.
I know there are several citrus pathogens about, which is why we stopped buying new trees a couple of years ago. Sure would hate to get a new tree that had something that would wipe out EVERYTHING on us. And I am sure this is exactly why there are likely regulations about shipping citrus.
Actually wish we could ship out without any red tape or headaches. Not a chance in hell we will be using up all those lemons. Connie likes them, but I don't care for them much. Especially when there are other citrus ready to eat instead. People say the ones we produce are the sweetest ones they have ever tasted, and I think it is because of the cross pollination between the lemons and the Poncan tangerines. Connie will squeeze juice out of the lemons and make ice cubes out of it that she keeps in the freezer. But you can only put so much of it away every year. She really likes putting the lemon juice on the seafood she eats.
We have LOTS of Poncans which recently ripened. The earlier satsuma are almost gone, and we still have a LOT of Changshi (also heard them called changsha) still on the trees that ripened pretty early. They grow true from seeds and we have a lot of small trees coming up from seeds we have spit out randomly while eating them and taking a walk around the property. Got several navel oranges on a single tree as well as the cara cara variety on another tree. And we have fruit on the pineapple orange, too. I didn't care for them much till we discovered that they are slow to ripen, but once they do, man, they ARE really good. Got only one of Connie's giant pomelos this year, and the Dancy orange next to it didn't produce anything.
The Satsumas have been very tasty the last few years and nearly seedless. The Changshi are very sweet but loaded with seeds. It is really a great thing to be able to take a walk around the property and just pick fresh citrus off of the trees to munch on while taking the walk.
Anyway, I think I must have weeded out the squirrel population pretty good, since I haven't seen any signs of them getting into either the tangerines, nor the pear trees when their fruit was ripe. They REALLY irritated me last year. I fed a local hawk pretty well over the Spring and Summer months, since he learned to recognize a rifle shot as a dinner bell. I guess he has probably given up on me, since there haven't been many squirrels around lately.
Anyway, I am sure there would probably be a lot of red tape involved shipping citrus. And I sure as heck don't want to put myself in the position of having to have inspectors tromping all around here just to be able to do that. You never know what you may be opening yourself up to by opening up that sort of can of worms.
But anyone nearby to north Florida who wants to stop by and get some citrus for free, well, give me a shout. We give away what we can to local friends and neighbors. We really hate to have to just watch some rot on the trees because we can't eat them fast enough.
