Hello my dear friends 😊

You wanna know what’s awesome about our province? CITRUS! Like seriously you can’t go anywhere without seeing trees full of fruit. Drive down any road walk past any house head out to the big fields every singl spot has trees with so much stuff hanging on them their branches are bending way low. I mean it there’s just so much fruit here all the time.

The big groves are amazing to look at. Rows and rows of green trees going on and on making these little paths where it’s nice and cool even when the sun’s super hot. When harvest time comes around everything looks bright and lively you have got the small green ones we call calamansi the sweet orange ones that make your mouth water and those huge pomelos almost as big as your head.

The farmers here know their trees like they know their own kids they have been doing this work since they were little watching their dads and granddads do it too. They know exactly when to give water when to cut off extra branches and how to keep bugs away without messing up the fruit. And wow does all that work pay off every year we get more fruit than we know what to do with!

This citrus is what keeps our whole town going no joke. You will find farmers setting up little stalls by the side of the road putting out baskets and bags of fresh fruit early in the morning. People come running from all over to get the best pick by noon half the stuff is already sold out. Then there are the folks who turn our fruit into other things..

Like the juice place down the street that squeezes fresh juice every single day or the lady who makes jams and jellies that taste way better than anything you can buy in a big store. Even us regular families use it for everything my mom puts calamansi in almost every dish she makes from our favorite adobo to the iced tea we drink on hot days.

We also put extra fruit in jars with sugar and water so we can have it even when it’s not harvest time. Nothing beats picking a piece right off the tree and biting into it it’s so fresh and juicy you will get it all over your hands! We don’t just eat our citrus either it’s part of who we are..

When we have festivals here you will see fruit hanging from every corner sitting on every table. We do it because we think it brings good luck and shows we are thankful for all the good things we have. My grandma used to take me out to her tree when i was little and teach me how to pick the fruit carefully.

She’d say “Don’t pull too hard, or you’ll hurt the branch and next year there won’t be any fruit to pick.” She taught me that we gotta take care of the trees so they’ll keep taking care of us. And whenever someone comes to visit our province? The first thing we do is grab a glass of cold citrus juice.

We fill up a bag with fresh fruit for them to take home it’s just how we welcome people here we share what we have. The trees are good for our land too roots hold dirt down when it rains hard birds nest in branches and air smels so good. Farmers use natural stuff to keep soil rich and younger ones are trying new ideas too. But our province will always be full of citrus trees bringing us food work and happiness..

Till my next garden journey bye 😊