I have picked lots of citrus before they freeze. Our blood orange trees in So Cal and Phoenix AZ never had to have a freeze to pick the fruits. Sometimes we didnt get a freeze. Freezing in Phx meant the tiniest layer of ice on the dog's water dish lol. Not really freezing more like heavy frost lol.

Blood oranges do develop deeper pigmentation with some cool nights and very warm days but dont literally need to freeze.

We have warm days and cool nights here. Blood Orange trees arent that hardy, especially when young. So other than slight frost, they need protection. So yes, you can pick the fruit when its ripe, it might not be as "bloody colored" as if having more cool nights but color also depends on other factors as well.

Different varieties of Blood Orange trees

(Moro, Tarocco, Sanguinello etc) may have different coloring and do better in areas with varying degrees of cool nights, humidity, soils etc.

I currently have a Moro Blood Orange and 3 Red Australian Fingerlimes which are a hybrid of blood orange and green Fingerlime, I believe. They are in pots in case we get into low 20'sF or heaven forbid the teens like in 2009. If it freezes they go in the gh.

I had potted Sanguinello and Tarocco in AZ but left them with my mom when I moved out here. She gets decent color on them. She has them in the ground now.

When you think they are ripe and they can be pulled off easily, you could try just picking one of them and see if you are happy with the taste color etc before picking the others. Also I forgot to mention that blood orange color and flavor gets better with the maturity of the tree (like most other fruit trees lol)

Never heard of waiting til after a freeze, but some cold weather certainly seems to sweeten up the fruit.

Thanks guys. And Joe ty for the explanation between freeze and frost. LOL, I know the diff…after all we had both every year up north.

Yeah well it seems most people in Florida seem not to know the difference, using freeze and frost interchangeably, so I’m not going to just assume you do know. Good for you though LOL.

I hope we dont get too many freezes here this year. I decided (like a dumba**) to hatch out some baby English Orpington chicks in my incubator about 5 wks ago. I had to put them all in their big coops outside today. I had 3 guinea keets that I put out a few days ago. I normally wouldnt do it till 8 wks or so. They're so little. I feel bad for them lol.

This is my Isabel Cuckoo English Orpington pair. They are so cute!

Their color pattern should look like this when they grow up.

http://omegahillsfarm.com/product-category/english-isabel-cuckoo-orpington/

Joe, you're right about FL folks not knowing the diff. In fact it's an easy way to tell if they are natives or transplants. LOL. Thanks for not assuming I knew. It looks like this year we're not likely to have a freeze. Yay!!!

Sultry I love the Orpington personalities. I had them years ago. I would still have them but two years ago when it was time for new chicks I couldn't find any locally so I went back to Golden Comets.

If you're still into chickens when these start laying I will share some chicks.

I also have English Lavender babies and an English Chocolate Cuckoo baby roo than I am going to breed to my Chocolate Bantam English Orp female when hes old enough. So that will give me some solid Chocolates and Cuckoo chocolates that are between a full and bantam size. He is small for being a large fowl so hopefully it will work out lol.

The English Orps are way larger and fluffier than the regular Standard Orps that you can find anywhere. They are a newer to the US. They look like they swallowed a bowling ball lol...big round shape. I just love them and have been trying to get my hands on some quality eggs for awhile. The oportunity arose this fall, so I grabbed it.

I also had some Gold Laced Orpington eggs but they didnt develop, so either they weren't fertile or got jostled around too much in shipping. Its always a gamble with shipped eggs.

Thanks Sultry for the generous offer but We sort of decided that our current batch of hens will probably be our last one. Unless we lose them early, they should give us enough eggs for several years by which time because of our ages we'll be cutting down on activities.