While our original greenhouse is dedicated to growing spices & herbs (more of a 3 season greenhouse), our new greenhouse, located in the rear of our New England style farmhouse, houses rare citrus trees and has to function through the rough CT winter.
The citrus greenhouse is where some of the secret ingredients for our Experimentalis project are now grown. This is also a great new place for us to find new complex wild yeast cultures sitting on the skin of our citrus fruits.
We worked tireless during the bitter cold winter to get our new greenhouse ready for operation. Please look for our upcoming tours to catch a glimpse of our wonderful new greenhouse.
Below find the list of rare fruits growing in our citrus greenhouse:
- Australian Finger Lime (Microcitrus australasica) – This somewhat thorny, tiny leafed relative of citrus produces finger-like fruit with tart, round, juicy, light colored vesicles. Sometimes called “citrus caviar”, fruit flavor is reminiscent of Mexican lime.
- Yuzu – Also known as Japanese Citron. In the fall, this thorny tree produces lumpy, medium-sized, yellow to orange fruits that are uniquely fragrant and highly prized as flavoring agents in Asian cuisine.
- Centennial Variegated Kumquat – Variegated pale yellow and cream leaves are complemented by yellow and green striped fruit which become quite large and turn orange at maturity. Ripeness occurs in late winter and fruit holds well on the tree into the summer.
- Poncirus trifoliata (Flying Dragon) – This very cold hardy variety, a Citrus relative, is a thorny, well-branched, deciduous shrub or small tree. Fruits are very acidic and seedy.
- Improved Meyer Lemon – The gourmet lemon.
- Buddha’s Hand/Fingered Citron – Fruit forms finger-like sections resembling a human hand. It is much esteemed for its delicate lemon fragrance in China and Japan. Fruit has virtually no pulp.
- Calamondin – Zesty acid juice.
- Etrog Citron (Ethrog) – Fragrant lemon-like fruit with thick peel
- Bouquet de Fleurs – Sour Orange attractive dark orange fruit
- Chinotto – Small sour orange fruit.
- Moro Blood Orange – Deep red coloration, almost purple-red, ,Exotic berry-like flavor.
- Sanquinelli Blood Orange – A deep red juice and rind. Tart, spicy flavor.
- Oroblanco Grapefruit – Oroblanco produces sweet seedless fruit . Huge, intensely fragrant flowers.
- Chinese Grapefruit – Actually a pummelo, this tree bears yellow pear-shaped fruit which are low in acidity.
- Indio Mandarinquat – A kumquat-mandarin hybrid with orange, bell-shaped fruit much larger than a typical kumquat. The sweet peel is eaten along with the tart flesh for a unique flavor combination.
- Marumi Kumquat – Marumi is rarely found outside of China and Japan.
- Eustis Limequat – A cross between Mexican (Key) Lime and kumquat.
- Mexican Lime (Key) – Small, sometimes seedy fruit with genuine tropical flavor year-round.
As always, we add our own organic compost made up of spent hops, grains, yeast, and water from OEC to use as fertilizer and soil amendment for our horticultural plants. In addition, we have a beautiful vernal pool in the rear of our building live with toads, frogs, beavers and birds. No pesticide is used.