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Using the Seeds from Holiday Fruit

Of the many gifts we have received as Jews, one we can appreciate this month is the celebration of Tu B’Shevat. From a date established in Mishnaic times to calculate the timing of crops for tithing and orlah, it has gained significance over the centuries to become a celebration complete with a seder (with wine!) and a large selection of fruits—no bitter herbs here.
    In the dark days of the Diaspora—both seasonally and historically—we have one day of warmth, festivity and hope for a successful new season. And then, the wine is drunk, the fruit is eaten and it’s February again.     
        Yet, if you want to take a bit of that exuberance with you, do not be in too much of a hurry to toss the leftovers. If you save the pits, you can grow some of your own mini-trees. Even if you could not manage 30 different varieties of fruit—and, in the current era of genome mapping, determining what are actually different varieties can devolve into vexatious questions—but were able to gather the seeds from only the two specifically tied to the holiday, you can still start or add to a collection of houseplants to brighten the most wintry of days.
    The two fruits most closely associated with Tu B’Shevat are not singled out anywhere in Scripture as specifically connected to the date, yet over the years, one has become the most typically Israeli fruit to eat and the other has come to represent the quintessential tree.
    While modern refrigeration, transportation and greenhouse technologies can bring fruits from all over the world to your Tu B’Shevat table, those two trees are native to the Land of Israel and thus adapted to that ecosystem. Unlike some Israeli fruits such as figs, which can survive in our U.S.D.A. Zone 7 climate, these are subtropical and, even when somewhat frost-tolerant, will not survive our winter out of doors. 
    According to Middlesex County Master Gardener Volunteer Jan, if you are serious about growing these plants as trees with flowers and fruits, “It is best to grow tropical plants by asexual cuttings. Growing them from seeds is difficult unless you have a greenhouse to control light and soil temperature. Soil temperature is the most important factor.” (See sidebar for commercially available sources.)
    If you are looking for a way to extend the holiday spirit with a more unusual foliage plant, however, you should give these seeds a try.    
    The fruit most traditionally eaten on Tu B’Shevat is the carob, for reasons that are lost in the mists of time. It is mentioned in the Pri Etz Hadar, the counterpart to the Haggadah of Passover, as one of the fruits closest to the Divine, as are apples, pears, strawberries, quinces and citrons, among others.
    Its particular Talmudic connection with Tu B’Shevat is that the age of its fruit is calculated differently from that of other fruits: according to Rabbi Nehemia, in general, when a fruit is in bud before the 15th of Shevat, the crop is tithed with that of the past year, even if it is harvested after the 15th, provided that the harvest continues over a period of time; if the crop is harvested all at once, such as olives, dates and carobs, they are tithed with the following year’s crop. But with regard to carob, the custom follows Rabbi Nehemia, who himself followed the custom of the people (Talmud Rosh Hashanah 15b).

    Carobs do appear in other contexts, although they do not touch upon Tu B’Shevat specifically. Nonetheless, in as much as they are fruit or fruit-bearing trees, it does not take much to make the connection.
    Thus there is the story of Honi HaMeagel (the Circle-Maker), who came upon a farmer planting a carob, which, according to (highly exaggerated) folk wisdom, would not bear fruit for seventy years. Honi asked the man why he was planting a tree whose fruit he would not live to enjoy. The farmer replied that he was planting for his progeny, whereupon Honi fell into a deep sleep. He awoke one hundred years later to see the farmer’s grandson harvesting the carobs. (Talmud Taanit 24a). Elsewhere in the Talmud carobs served as the sole sustenance of holy men, as Rabbi Hanania ben Dosa (Talmud Brachot 17b) and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his son for extended periods of time (Talmud Shabbat 33b), but there is no indication that those near miracles were owing to the carobs rather than to the righteousness of the respective rabbis.
    The carob, Ceritonia siliqua, is also known in English as St. John’s bread or locust bean tree, but should not be confused with a sub-Saharan deciduous locust bean tree, Parkia biglobosa, which belongs to the same family. The name “carob” comes from the Aramaic, while the Yiddish name “bokser” is from the German “bokshornboum,” that is, ram’s horn tree for the pods’ resemblance to curving rams’ horns. Genetically, the carob appears to have descended from a now extinct branch of the Fabaceae (legume) family, of which it is the only remaining genus.
    Native to the Mediterranean, the carob is a flowering evergreen, although, unlike needled evergreens or broad-leaved evergreens such as hollies and rhododendrons to which we are accustomed in the heart of New Jersey, it does not have the same anti-desiccant and cold-tolerant properties that would allow it to survive more than an occasional dip in temperature into the twenties. “All plants, even those which inhabit the tropics, have life cycles of growth, dormancy, etc.,” Jan explained. “Even evergreens in our area drop some needles or leaves.” 
    The carob’s leaves are actually pinnate, feather-like fronds, some tipped with double, ovate leaflets. Although some carobs are hermaphroditic, most are dioecious—that is, there are separate male and female plants, and it is not possible to know the sex of the plant until it flowers. Male flowers have an unfortunate odor of cadaverine. If fruits are desired, there must be at least one of each tree. Both sexes blossom with tiny flowers on short, catkin-like, dangling stalks in autumn and are pollinated by both wind and insects, depending on the habitat. Pods can take a year to ripen. In nature, the tree can grow to fifty feet tall with a large, spreading dome-like crown.
    Although not quite as sluggish as the Talmud would have it, carobs are slow growing and pet safe, and thus suitable as houseplants. The seeds are rock-hard, so be careful not to break a tooth when eating the pod, and are so nearly uniform in size that they became the original “carats” used to assess gemstones.
    Jan recommends scarifying the seed coat by lightly sanding or nicking it and then soaking it in room temperature water for 24 hours. “Tropical seeds like any other type, benefit from scarification because the small cuts or scratches on the seed coat help water and oxygen enter the seed more easily. This can enhance and accelerate the germination process.” Because the carob has a long taproot, it is best to sow the seeds in potting mix in narrow tubes. Place them in a warm, sunny area and keep them moist but not wet.  Germination in warm soil can take up to forty days, longer if the soil is cooler. When the seedlings reach three to four inches in height, transplant them to a slightly larger container—too large a container can cause root rot—and be careful not to damage the taproot.
    Carobs need full sun, at least six hours of direct sunlight, and well drained, neutral soil, with a pH around seven. Once established, they thrive in a semi-arid, hot and humid Mediterranean climate and tolerate drought and salt, although a fruiting plant would need more water. Like most tropical houseplants, they can go outside in the summer after hardening off, but should not be placed on soil, so as not to encourage the taproots to escape the confines of their pots. During the summer, they may also be fed with half-strength balanced fertilizer, as, unlike most legumes, carobs cannot absorb nitrogen from the air. “Carob is not a nitrogen-fixing plant, although some rhizobacteria have been found near carob roots,” Jan pointed out.
    The other fruit that inevitably comes to mind on Tu B’Shevat is the citron, the eponymous Pri Etz Hadar, the Fruit of the Tree of Splendor. The Torah refers to this fruit in the instructions for assembling the four species for Sukkoth (Leviticus 23:40). The Mishna understands that fruit to be the esrog (Mishna Sukkah 3:4-7), and the Talmud offers an explanation: Rabbi Abahu said the word “hadar” should be read not as “splendid,” but instead as “ha-dar,”  “the one dwelling,” because the fruit does not fall but must be picked (Talmud Sukkah 35a). According the Rabbi Abba of Acco, the esrog, which was thought to have bark and fruit with an identical flavor, was therefore the tree of knowledge of good and evil from which Eve ate, as she had commented not on the fruit, but that the tree was good to eat (Genesis 3:6; Genesis Rabbah 15:7).
    The citron itself is not exactly indigenous to the Land of Israel, but was introduced too long ago to quibble. It was the first citrus fruit ever cultivated, as evidenced by paintings in the Egyptian Temple of Karnak. It arrived in Israel from the Himalayas via Persia, where it was called wadrang, then through Aramaic as estronga, which evolved into etrugga and finally ethrogga. (If estronga makes you think of an orange, it should. As it traveled west, it became the Spanish naranja.)
    Citron, Citrus medica, whose species name derives from its Persian origins and not from any purported use, is a very fragrant citrus fruit with a thick rind and the appearance of a lemon that has seen better days. It is one of the three original citrus fruits from which all other citrus fruits developed. The others are mandarins (C. reticulata) and pomelos (C. maxima). Grapefruits and oranges, for example, are mandarin-pomelo hybrids, while lemons are one half citron and one half sour orange. Citrus fruits hybridize quite readily, and the various appearances of these hybrids may have little to do with their genetics, so that two fruits that look very different may be genetically within a gene or two of each other, while similarly appearing fruits may be genetically far apart.
    The plant forms a low-growing shrub or small tree with long spines at the leaf axils, where the leaves meet the branches. The three to seven inch leaves are evergreen and ovate with slightly serrated edges and a strong lemon scent. The flowers grow in clusters colored slightly purple if the fruit is of the acidic type, which is inedible raw, or yellowish white if the fruit is sweet. In nature, it blooms several times a year and can grow to fifteen feet.
    The citron propagates largely through cleistogamy—a process of self-pollination within a flower that does not open, thus saving the plant the energy that would otherwise go into producing nectar, mounds of pollen and attractive inflorescences, although, due to lack of genetic diversity, successful cleistogamous plants have evolved to produce chasmogamous flowers as well. Thus, despite the ease with which citrus plants hybridize, the seeds from any given citron will most likely grow true to type.
    The outer rind of the citron contains plentiful aromatic oils, but the albedo, the white inner rind or pith, is what is used. Once the seeds and meager pulp are scraped out, that albedo, which is less bitter than that or other citrus fruits, is candied in sugar syrup for consumption.
    To grow a citron as a houseplant, soak the seeds in room-temperature water 24 hours and plant one inch deep in a potting mix of equal parts of peat moss, compost and sand.  Germination in warm soil should take two to four weeks. Transplant when the seedling has two or three sets of true leaves. Citron likes to be fairly potbound, but containers need to be large enough to balance the weight of the tree as it grows. It requires warm, rich, moist—soil and high humidity. 
    Either spray the leaves with water on occasion or place the pots on a shallow tray of peebles in water. Provide full sun, at least six to eight hours, preferably in a south or southwestern window, and avoid temperature shocks. Try to maintain a difference of about ten degrees between day and night temperatures. The plant can tolerate cold down to forty degrees, but growth will stop at about fifty degrees. It cannot tolerate frost. Repot in spring approximately every two years and set it outside in summer after hardening off for seven to ten days. Fertilize at half strength with a balanced fertilizer over the summer.
    While the climate is certainly warming, there is no chance that you will have to worry about tithing of these plants any time within the near future, as without equipment beyond the reach of most homeowners with windowsills, the likelihood that these plants will bear fruit is virtually nil—concrete, edible fruit, that is. The return you will get in terms of satisfaction is something else entirely.  

Sue Kleinberg is a contributing writer for JLifeNJ from Monmouth County.

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