{"id":16658,"date":"2024-11-23T23:30:56","date_gmt":"2024-11-23T22:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/harvesting-satsuma-mandarins-in-the-snow-2024\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T20:17:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T19:17:40","slug":"harvesting-satsuma-mandarins-in-the-snow-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/harvesting-satsuma-mandarins-in-the-snow-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvesting Satsuma mandarins in the snow (2024)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mid-November sees the start of the Satsuma mandarin harvest.This year’s November was warm and sunny in Ticino, until the 21st. <\/p>\n\n

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The tangerine trees (Satsuma Owari) have grown well this year, and there are more tangerines.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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Roughly half the trees bear a lot of fruit, the others only a few.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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Harvested by hand, or rather with a chisel. We rely a little on color, but mostly on touch. When the mandarin yields a little to pressure, it’s ready. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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We pass the trees one after the other, touching each fruit. And don’t forget to disinfect the chisel between each tree. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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Satsuma mandarins ripen slowly. From November 15, we pick 5 to 10 kilos a day. And also the last Feijoa guavas. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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Satsuma can be stored for 2 or 3 weeks, outdoors or in a cool place.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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They stay juicy and fresh with no problems.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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Then on November 21, the weather took a turn for the worse. It suddenly turned cold and began to snow. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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In just a few hours, we change seasons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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By the end of the day, 10 centimetres had already fallen. As much more will fall overnight. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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Everything is in black and white, except for the mandarins.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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The next morning, the sun returned to melt all that away.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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The snow cover is still thick and heavy. There will be a few broken branches. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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But the trees have held up well and the fruit is still there.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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The following night the temperature dropped 4 degrees below zero. In the morning, picking resumes to see if the mandarins have frozen or not.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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They didn’t freeze. They peel as easily as ever and have remained very juicy. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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In our experience, the Owari variety is strictly seedless. Or at least: in two years we haven’t found any yet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
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The Satsuma have passed their first winter test without suffering too much.The harvest continues, hopefully until Christmas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mid-November sees the start of the Satsuma mandarin harvest.This year’s November was warm and sunny in Ticino, until the 21st.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3213,"featured_media":16622,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16658"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19694,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16658\/revisions\/19694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}