The Polly Hale Newsletter Dec 1995: Grove Caretaking is Year Round

Our Production Manager, Richard Nason, follows an annual schedule, planned out month by month, for all the scientific, agricultural practices that take place in our groves. He also employs environmentally friendly practices and products for spraying and fertilizing the trees. Pruning, irrigation, controlling weeds and pest control are all very well technical, something that takes an expert like Richard to do.

“Caring for citrus groves is not something you do while wearing suntan oil and sitting in a lawn chair,” Richard is fond of saying to his crew. He’ll tell you that there are major jobs to do every month of the year in order to ensure that your Hale fruit is the best there is!

Weed control takes place just about every month using difficult methods at different times. Mature trees get hedged and topped in June and fertilized twice a year, in February and October.

There’s a lot of work involved in getting new trees off to a healthy start, too. We are very selective and fussy about our root stock because that determines how vigorous and resistant to disease a tree will be and how sweet its fruit will taste. We work very carefully preparing the sites, planting trees, planting them with insect rings to ward off pests that love young plants, fertilizing, weeding and irrigating them on a schedule.

Starting in January and through May, the dry months, we will be irrigating the groves, a process that will ensure that your spring fruit will benaturally sweet, juicy, and at its peak when you receive it.