We have friends living in warm climates. Their home is deep in the Florida heat and their garden is full of mangos, papaya, grapefruit, and avocados.
One year, they sent us a box of sunshine at Christmas – grapefruits, starfruit, and oranges from the trees in their yard. It almost made me want to pack up and move so I could pick avocados off the trees daily.
Of course, I’m not going to move south. Nor is my off-grid homestead in northern New England an ideal place to plant grapefruits. But as I help my sister set up her southern, urban homestead, I’ve fallen in love with the trees and have become an expert despite my northern roots.
Grapefruit Basics
Those of us in the north think of grapefruits as an ideal addition to summer breakfasts. My kids love having a half grapefruit with yogurt and granola in the morning – maybe with a slice of toast with cream cheese and fresh berries alongside.
I like my grapefruits in the evening with tequila, jalapenos, and limes, or else chopped with fennel, feta, and cooked wheat berries.
Grapefruits are part of the citrus family. They’re a naturally occurring hybrid of oranges and pomelos.
Grapefruits have completely eclipsed the pomelo in popularity, though the more accessible orange will always outrank grapefruit in American palates. Citrus x paradisi can vary wildly in flavor from mouth-puckeringly sour to almost sweet.
Yellow grapefruits are very tart. My family prefers the tangy, sour bite of yellow grapefruits – especially mingled with sweeter fruits or mild mints.
If you’ve never tried to make a monarda-grapefruit sangria, please – step outside, grab some bee balm (flowers are ideal, but leaves work too), rose petals or lavender flowers, grapefruit (cubed), and a few handfuls of a berry of your choice.
Pop it all into a vhino verde (I like Gazela), and let it sit for a couple of hours. If you want, you can add a splash of homemade elderflower liqueur (or St. Germaine). It is amazing.
Ruby red grapefruits are delicious and sweet. They’re often much sweeter than the old-fashioned yellow grapefruit. Your grandmother, if she ever served half a grapefruit with sugar, almost certainly served a yellow grapefruit, not a ruby red. She probably wouldn’t have bothered adding sugar to the latter.
Grapefruit trees can range from tiny dwarf trees to huge, 30-foot giants like the famous ‘Ruby Red.’ They grow best in USDA Hardiness Zones 9-11, but with a little extra care, they can also thrive in Zones 7-8.
North of Zone 7, you’d have to limit yourself to growing only dwarf varieties indoors. Since grapefruits can be pretty picky trees, indoor growing may also be your best choice in Zone 7. Just make sure that wherever you plant your grapefruit tree is warm and very sunny.
Grapefruit trees have abundant, waxy, green leaves and semi-smooth, grayish-brown bark. These evergreen trees make an incredibly attractive addition to subtropical backyards – looking lush and inviting all year long.
They’re not quite as cold-hardy as orange trees, and one of the biggest problems potential grapefruit growers encounter is an incompatible climate. If you’re right on the cusp of orange growing zones, your grapefruit trees may struggle to thrive and produce fruit.
Best Grapefruit Varieties
We all know the famous ‘Ruby Red’ grapefruit. The large, sweet fruits are a classic. You can purchase a live tree from Hirt’s Garden Store.
The deeper-colored ‘Rio Red’ is less popular, but more interesting, with its intensely sweet fruit. No sugar required to sweeten this one up. Unfortunately, this cultivar is rarely available in nurseries, so you’ll have to do some searching.
‘Thompson,’ a pink grapefruit, is more commonly offered at plant stores, and it has a similar flavor to ‘Ruby Red.’ ‘Thompson’ is less sweet than the patented cultivar, though.
‘Melogold’ is a cross between a pomelo and a white grapefruit, with a mild, sweet flavor. A starter tree is available from Gerald Winters and Son.
The truth is, it’s hard to find stunning grapefruit cultivars in nurseries because of the patenting of these trees. But homegrown grapefruits, whether red, pink, or yellow, will always be more flavorful than their grocery store counterparts. So don’t let the lack of plant options hold you back.
Planting Grapefruits
The basics of grapefruit tree planting are the same as any other young tree. Prepare the soil with plenty of rich organic matter. Dig the hole so that it’s about twice as wide as the root ball, but only just deep enough. You don’t want to bury the trunk.
Place the tree in the hole and bury it up the old dirt line. Use as much rich, organic compost as you can. Then water the tree deeply, let the soil settle, and build up the soil again to its original level.
Mulch the tree’s base at this point to help nourish the tree and maintain soil hydration. But don’t mulch up against the tree trunk, or you may cause rot.
While you can take cuttings of healthy grapefruit trees, root them, and grow a great tree from them, this approach has a few issues. Many grapefruit tree cultivars are patented, so taking cuttings without permission is illegal.
The trees you buy in a nursery are usually grafted onto a hardier, orange rootstock. This will give you a hardier, more disease-resistant plant than a pure grapefruit cutting. So it is usually the best option for first-time grapefruit growers to buy a healthy, young tree from a nursery.
Remember that it is also illegal to ship grapefruit trees into Florida, California, Arizona, Hawaii, and Texas. If you live in these states, look for trees at local nurseries instead of mail order or online catalogs.
Caring for Grapefruits
Grapefruit trees, like all citrus, love bright sunlight. Plant these trees in full sun, ensuring that each tree gets a minimum of 6-8 hours of direct sunlight. It’s important to plant your grapefruit trees far enough apart that they won’t shade each other as they grow.
Grapefruits are self-pollinating, so there’s no need to plant more than one in a yard or garden if you’re short on space.
Grapefruit trees are heavy feeders. They need rich, dry soil to produce fruit. Amend your soil with plenty of nutrient-loaded compost before planting, and continue to apply fertilizer regularly throughout the year.
Your soil should also be well-draining, dry, and friable. Grapefruit trees can handle drought, but they’ll fall prey quickly to root rot if they sit in wet soil.
Obviously, the grapefruit’s sensitivity to rot means that it doesn’t appreciate too much water. Compared to most fruit trees, grapefruit is exceptionally drought resistant. Early on, water your young tree a few times a week to help it adjust to its new home.
After a few seasons, you can reduce watering to once a week or so, depending on rainfall.
Your tree should be able to produce healthy, juicy fruits with one deep watering each week, depending on where you live. But if you’re in a deep drought, increase watering back up to two times each week for a bountiful harvest.
Fertilizer
You won’t need to fertilize the first year if you improve the soil well before planting, with plenty of rich compost. But in the second year of growth, start fertilizing about three times yearly. Apply fertilizer in January, May, and June – right before flowering to ensure the tree has all the nutrients it needs to produce good fruit.
Starting the growing year with abundant nutrients allows the tree to put all its energy into fruiting rather than establishing itself. Pick something high in nitrogen. There are some excellent citrus fertilizers that can give your tree everything it needs for a large harvest.
Pruning Your Tree
The jury is still out on grapefruit tree pruning. If you are going to prune, do so in early spring. Focus on removing dead or damaged branches. Don’t prune grapefruit trees for visual effect – they don’t take well to pruning most of the time.
Keep your pruning small, light, and gentle. Mild structural pruning may be essential, but don’t get carried away, and never prune after flowering.
Winter Protection
While you should bring your small grapefruit trees inside if you live in areas prone to freezing, sometimes a freak chill strikes even in the warmest location. If your tree is at risk from extreme weather, it’s time to pull out some protections.
If winter freeze threatens your area, cover your tree with blankets or tarps. You can also wrap the trunk in burlap to provide some additional protection to the base of your tree. While a cold snap may damage branches and leaves, established trees are usually fine.
With young trees, try to provide as much protection as possible to the entire tree, while older trees can survive with root and trunk protection.
Harvesting Grapefruits
Grapefruits are usually ready to harvest late in the fall. You can also continue to let the fruit ripen slowly throughout the winter. It’ll sweeten as it sits and lose more and more of its tang. The more fruit you let the fruit sit on the tree, the smaller next year’s harvest will be.
To harvest a grapefruit, grab the fruit firmly, twist it, and pull it. If the fruit comes off the tree readily, it’s ready to harvest. If it resists your pull, give it a bit more time.
You can also use a fruit harvester to help you reach higher branches.
Common Pests and Diseases
While grapefruits are generally tough, they can be subject to anthracnose (Colletotrichum gloeosporioides), blast (Pseudomonas syringae), brown rot (Phytophthora spp.), citrus canker (Xanthomonas axonopodis), and citrus tristeza virus (CTV).
When it comes to pests, citrus leaf miner (Phyllocnistis citrella), scale, and thrips (Scirtothrips citri) might infest your trees. Of these, thrips is the most destructive because it spreads viral diseases.