Ponkans growing.   "Ponkan" is a general term for types of oranges. In the culture in which I am now living, it refers to what I called "tangerines" in the USA. They are smaller than regular oranges and are very easy to peel. Their sweet flesh has few seeds. This makes them quite appealing. In this culture, they are cheaper to buy around Christmas and New Year's Day. I had been buying ponkans and putting them in my blender to make my morning orange juice. The juice and a little of the pulp went through my wire strainer nicely.

	Trying to grow them.   I decided to save a few seeds when I strained the pulp. I planted three or four in peat pots. In a short while, two of them sprouted and appeared through the soil. I waited until one of them was large enough to be planted outside. I dug a hole in the limestone of my 233 square meter building lot. (The subdivision had been a mountain and had been removed, leaving a limestone bed.) I mixed cow manure and topsoil that I bought from local mountain boys. I put in a little fertilizer(14N-14K-14P)and planted my baby ponkan plant. That was more than three years ago. See my plant in the next box at around age three and a half years.

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	I and my three and a half-year-old ponkan. "Where there's a will, there's a way," so they say. I am happy with this little tree. I don't know how old it must be to bear fruit. Also, I don't know if the seeds were from hybrids. If so, I may be disappointed with the fruits I get. Still, it cost me almost nothing to play with this idea of growing my own orange juice.