Hey there gardenerds, I'm Christy Wilhelmi. And our first video for 2021 is gonna circle around
citrus for a little bit. I've been getting a lot of questions about how to take care of citrus and,
you know, things that are wrong with it. And a lot of times it's a couple of things that are just out
of balance, and so the trick I'm going to tell you today will help you manage a number of issues with
your citrus trees. Let's talk about it. I'm going to tell you about a trick that I've used for more
than a decade and it pretty much works every time. If it doesn't work you may have a disease in your
tree that needs more serious attention. But if you've got problems like yellowing leaves, fruit
that's not, you know, really tasty, or trees that aren't producing very well, try this trick. We
call it The Citrus Treatment. There are two things you need to do before you implement the citrus
treatment. First, it's really important to check your watering schedule because a lot of times
citrus trees are being watered too often. Most of the... hello Mittens. Hi, look who's here. She's
in the, out of frame so it just looks like I'm talking to myself. Most of the time citrus trees
are being watered too often, especially if you have them planted straight in your lawn. Because
lawns like to get watered in, you know, regularly two or three times a week for just a little bit.
But citrus trees along with other fruit trees really want to be watered deeply but infrequently.
So take a look at your irrigation. Are your trees getting watered from your lawn sprinklers as
well as having their own irrigation? How often are they being watered? Make sure you know what that is
and if it's happening more than once a week, you're probably watering too much. New citrus trees want
to be watered deeply for, you know, one time per week and the older they are, yeah, the older they
are they will want to be watered less frequently for a longer period of time. So for example,
a couple, a tree that's uh maybe three years old will want to be watered every two weeks for
a longer period of time. Like a drip line that's running maybe uh two hours long instead of one
hour long. So that's the first thing to look at. You can cap your sprinklers or redirect them so
that they're not landing on your tree so you're not over watering. That's gonna really contribute
to the fact that leaves are turning yellow because that's the main reason why leaves turn yellow on
citrus trees. It's either a nutrient deficiency but more often than not they're getting too much water.
The science behind that basically is that you're saturating the soil so much there's no oxygen in
between the soil particles, so there isn't enough oxygen for the plant to uh create photosynthesis
I'm sorry to create its own chlorophyll by undergoing photosynthesis. So cut back on the water
your leaves will green up. That's number one before we get to the citrus treatment. Number two
is check your nutrient levels. A simple soil test kit from a nursery or online will yield you the
results that you need to know how much nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium you have in your soil.
Most kits also come with a pH tester which is important too because citrus actually prefers
a little bit of acidic soil. Now where we live here at the Gardenerd test garden our soil is very
alkaline. Now this becomes important when I get to telling you about the citrus treatment which we
are coming to right now. The citrus treatment has a few steps but they're really easy to implement
step number one: clear away any mulch or gravel or any if you have a root (weed) barrier
around your trees. Cut that away fold it back clear the gravel so that you can expose the soil from
the trunk out to the drip line, which is where the branch tips end. If you can see that's going to be
like right here where the rain would fall off the branch tips, if it were raining which never happens
anymore here. Anyway, so clear the area all the way around the tree from the trunk out to the branch
tips. Then you're going to put down a quarter inch layer of worm castings. Worm castings: castings is
a nice way of saying poop. Worm poop is something you can produce on your own, you can start a worm
bin in your backyard. That's the best kind, or you can buy a bag of it from your local nursery.
Worm castings are great because they have loads of small amounts of micronutrients and minerals
that compost and your fertilizer does not have. So it's great at filling in the gaps
between your fertilizer and what your soil may already have. Worm castings are
also great because they have a bit of a pest control component. So if you have leaf miners,
aphids, mealybug, whitefly, ants crawling all over your tree, then you will want to include
worm castings in your defense. Mittens is rubbing up against the tripod which means it's getting
really shaky. Worm castings contains an enzyme called chitinase that, when you
put it down on your soil surface, the plants will eventually absorb it take it up into their leaves
and when bugs start to nibble on your leaf surfaces they absorb that chitinase.
And chitinase happens to dissolve the exoskeletons of soft-bodied insects so they start to fall apart
and go away. It's great. That's my cat trying to kill a dog. Anyway, right so, we did step one
remove all your all the stuff underneath your tree. Step two: put down worm castings. The third thing
you want to do is mix in some organic fruit tree fertilizer. There are a number of brands available.
Some brands even make a citrus specific fertilizer. Grab that. That's going to have a balanced level of
nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium for you plus some other stuff that citrus trees really like.
Mix that into the worm castings and then we get to step four, which is to put
a layer-- meaning a quarter inch to a half inch layer -- of acid planting mix on top of all of that.
Now you're gonna start four inches away from the trunk of the tree out to the drip line with this
too. What's the point of acid planting mix? Acid planting mix helps lower the soil pH just a
little bit, which brings back what I was mentioning before about soil pH and citrus. Citrus actually
prefers a a slightly acidic soil pH. If you live in a place where the soil is naturally alkaline
this is really important step because the more alkaline the soil is the more that inhibits the
uptake of certain nutrients. So put down a layer of acid planting mix. And by the way that is
usually labeled as something like azalea mix or rhododendron mix. Put that around your your tree.
And then the last step is just return that gravel or mulch over the top and water it all in.
How often do you need to apply this treatment? It's completely up to you most trees you'll see an improvement
with in a matter of weeks a couple of weeks after you apply it. If you don't you can apply this treatment monthly until you do. Once the tree is stabilized and looking good and producing
and flowering and doing all that it's supposed to do, you can back off to applying this maybe once
every three months or every six months. Between the citrus treatment and regulating your watering
and making sure that your soil pH is good and your nutrient levels are right,
this is a pretty much foolproof method for taking care of your trees. If you don't see an improvement
it is probably a disease issue which is going to be in a different video. If you like this
information and want to know more, you'll find this and so much more about taking care of fruit trees
in my new book Grow Your Own Mini Fruit Garden. It comes out March 2021. You can pre-order it now
and I would appreciate you if you did. For more information on growing your own food and all
kinds of other stuff get your copy of Gardening for Geeks and be sure to subscribe and turn on
the notification button so you can find out when our next video comes online. Happy gardening!