Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Happy Holidays 2006

From the grove, Christmas treats

As the calendar turns from November to December, demand for gift fruit jumps and a citrus grove becomes a nonstop operation.

By LOGAN NEILL
Published December 21, 2006

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: M. N. Golden] Kathy Oleson boxes red grapefruit for holiday gifts.

It's six days before Christmas and Kathy Oleson is standing at her station inside the shipping area of Boyett's Grove sorting through a pile of freshly washed red grapefruit.

Carefully checking each fruit, she keeps an eye out for bruises, holes and cuts. The slightest imperfection is enough to send an offending reject to the discard bin.

Behind her, Boyett's Grove employee Ricky Goodman joins Oleson's sons, James and Jeffrey, as they briskly pack the fruit into cardboard boxes that by day's end will be stacked waist high on the shipping dock.

By the time Santa makes his rounds, thousands of folks in wintry Northern climates will have already begun to enjoy the juicy treats from sunny Florida.

Things have been this way pretty much all of Oleson's life. As a youngster in the 1960s, she worked alongside her father, Lee Boyett, as he meticulously hand- sorted, washed and polished fruit from his 100-acre citrus grove. There's no shortcut to quality, she says proudly. And that's what keeps customers coming back for more.

"Some of the people we ship to have been customers of ours for as long as I can remember," Oleson said. "They wouldn't do that if they weren't happy with our product."

Nestled on a sandy hilltop on Spring Lake Highway in southeastern Hernando County, Boyett's Grove is one of the last holdouts of the county's once mighty citrus industry. Its charming Old Florida tourist-trap setting, replete with everything from live alligators, monkeys and parrots to a gift shop hawking souvenir plastic flamingos, pecan logs and real orange blossom honey, beckons travelers throughout the year.

But between Thanksgiving and mid December the focus shifts to the shipping of gift fruit.

According to Kathy Oleson, she and husband Jim raise the largest variety of commercially grown citrus in Hernando. About two-thirds of their 100 acres are planted with varieties of grapefruit, navel oranges, tangerines, tangelos and limes. Because shipping of fresh fruit must follow the growing season, it's always a race to get the fruit out at the peak of its ripeness.

The picked fruit is brought to the processing center in large hoppers. It is then cleaned of leaves and twigs and sent to a mechanical washer where it is scrubbed, dried and polished. Some citrus varieties may be waxed to enhance color and appearance. The cleaned fruit is then sorted by hand for size and appearance.

According to Oleson, harvesting citrus too early robs it of its natural flavor and sweetness. Harvesting too late runs the risk of bruising the fruit, making it impossible for it to endure the rigors of overland shipping.

Because November and December are peak times for harvesting grapefruit, tangerines and navel oranges, the Olesons' operation goes nonstop for nearly six weeks, producing upward of 300 boxes of fruit each day.

"It can get a little tiring," Kathy Oleson said. "Especially those last few days. Once we get it all done we've earned a rest."

Though not a long rest. Once the Christmas rush is over, Oleson says she and her family begin preparations to ship Honeybell oranges in January and February and kumquats and other specialty fruit in March and April.

"About that time we're winding down from fruit, it's time to start thinking about planting citrus trees," Oleson said. "It never really ends."

[Last modified December 21, 2006, 06:31:44]