Grapefruits are a plenty at Booyong this time of year ….

I don’t know what we’d do without the lovely shiny green leaves of the citrus in the orchard at this time of year. This was an existing tree so we’re not sure how old it is.

My research has discovered they like infrequent and deep watering and can do with a good prune of dead wood every 5 or so years, so I think we’ll do that when the fruiting is complete just to ensure it’s in the best shape for next year. We can also reduce other branches by half and remove any interior branches to let some light and air into the tree. It always feels good to prune a tree and see the new growth the following year, one of my favourite things!

This year I made some grapefruit marmalade and it was a labour of love. My lovely friend Marg delivers grapefruits to our doorstep on a Saturday morning each year and this year we combined them with some more from the farm, fresh organic lemons from a colleague at work and some Seville oranges from Booyong. Unfortunately I’ve given it all away before taking photos, our friends at Curly’s Café received a jar and so did some visitors to the farm. I hope they enjoyed it, I have to admit I didn’t really follow a recipe for this one and simply used the guidelines for the Seville Orange Marmalade I’d made a few weeks earlier.

I’ll have to make more next year!

Here are some ideas for using grapefruits in your cooking:

• Try using grapefruits instead of lemons in dressings
• Make jelly or sorbet
• Try candying the peel
• Make a grapefruit curd
• Use it in a seafood or chicken salad, tossing in the juice and some segments
• Make lemonade with a grapefruit
• Make a cocktail including one part vodka, two parts grapefruit, one part cranberry juice over ice
• Campari and grapefruit juice … yum!