Finding Easier Methods

  After the bushwhacking we gave the kumquat trees last year in search of an easier way of picking, I did not expect to harvest any fruit this year.  I figured that the poor trees would need a year of recuperation before producing but it seems as if the pruning did them good.  The trees are loaded with the tiny globes of gold.  Thinking I was going to have an off year of marmalade-making seems to have been a load of wishful thinking.  It did not happen.  So, now we are bound to be picking, chopping and seeding for the next few weeks.  

  The marmalade making is not a terrible chore if there was an easier way to get rid of the seeds.  It takes hours upon hours to chop and seed the tiny fruit.  Mark is home now so perhaps I can convince him to help me pick the kumquats and then Son and I can spend the weeks before Christmas making marmalade and dehydrated kumquat slices.  We always have good intention of seeding the entire lot but about halfway through the hundred pounds or so of marble-sized fruit, we tire.  Then we get creative.  Last year we found that if we slice the fruit and dehydrate them, the seeds become quite edible.  They turn sort of crispy making the entire slice a citrus delight!  I have used gobs of the dehydrated slices in teas mixed with fresh ginger root but we eat these by the handful and have had no ill-effects from the seeds.  Since we have eaten so many, we are down to our last quart jar of the dehydrated slices.  I guess it is time to make more....hehe....this has nothing at all to do with not wanting to spend hours seeding the things!  Dehydrated slices are great!

  It is good to know that the severe pruning we gave the trees last winter had no lasting dire effects on the health of the trees.  Mark and I were out this evening and discussed pruning the trees again.  It sure makes picking the tiny fruit easier if the limbs are within reach and I am not standing on a ladder for five hours!  Clippers shall be used again this year.