I often refer to Phoenix as being the Devil's summer vacation spot. Well, it froze over. Literally.

The end of 2010 saw freezing temperatures in our fair Valley of the Sun. Yesterday morning, the lawn was dusted with ice crystals and birdbaths were frozen over. I covered the small citrus trees with sheets (the navel and Valencias are too big to cover) as well as the potted avocados, dragon fruit, passion vines and basil plants. The oranges on the outside of the navel tree were harvested, but I left the Valencia to fend for itself. It's around harvest time for the navels so I figure they'll be good, but it's still a few months for the Valencia and I didn't want to deal with seriously unripe fruit. The navel got hit badly by the October hail storms and had lost a good 50% of the crop, mostly the fruit hanging on the outer edges, so there weren't a lot of oranges needing harvesting. The ones that ended up in the kitchen are good; sweet and a welcome treat as we only eat oranges we grow. This means that it's been a good nine months since our last navel orange. Unfortunately the fruit loss means it will be a sparce winter for oranges, until the Valencias come in. Even then, I don't care for Valencias for out-of-hand eating (they make much better juice in my opinion).