Kishu mandarins are one of our favorite mandarins to grow. They’re super sweet, seedless and taste like candy.
mandarins called kishu

What are Kishu Mandarins?

These orange jewels you see in the photo above are kishu mandarins. David Karp calls them the mighty mandarin “the most delicious of mandarins”. They’re small, seedless, easy to peel and sweet. We call them citrus candy and you can’t just eat one. Because they’re so addicting, delicious and often hard to find, we decided to grow a tree a few years back. Since we’re a little nutty and crazy in the citrus growing realm, we decided to grow a second tree last year because we love kishu mandarins to no end.

Now, you see how beautiful they are this time of year? They’re exploding on the trees and so full of super sweet fruit, we’re dizzy with excitement.

Kishu Citrus Candy!

mandarin tangerines kishu

But then one afternoon we found this…… a thief, clenching a precious kishu. Upon first sight, the little bugger was perched on the wall next to the kishu tree, in the process of  peeling its stolen goods. As we neared with pups in tow, the kishu snatcher raced to a nearby tree, safely out of reach. Normally it would have chirped back at us, however obviously its mouth was too full.

To our shock, these garden thieves were feasting on our kishu mandarins and leaving the peels scattered all across the garden. So rude! Ok, so we’re totally cool with sharing with these critters, but to think that they loved the kishu mandarins as much as we do was a shock. So now what do we do? We start eating the kishu’s as quick as possible and leave the lemons for the squirrels. pttthbt!!!

And in the photo below, you see all this ripe fruit? They’re our super juicy fremont tangerines. The squirrels also seem to enjoy sneaking a few off the tree. So what do we do? Start picking and sharing them before these little beasts get to them!

A gardeners dilemma never ends.

Happy Weekend to you all.

hugs and love,

diane and todd……. and the squirrel *thief*

And here are our exploding Fremont tangerines. The squirrels better stay away!

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